Three days in Venice. Two of them are already booked.
The Doge's Palace runs on timed slots. A gondola costs the same everywhere, so only the hour is yours to choose. Reviews of every tour you can book in Venice and across the Veneto.
The palace, the gondola, the island boat, the church concert.
Four bookings carry a first visit to Venice. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first ticketDoge’s Palace Reserved Entry TicketReserved entry to the Doge's Palace, Bridge of Sighs included. Take a slot before ten, while the courtyard is still in shade.
02The forty minutesGrand Canal Gondola Ride with App CommentaryA gondola on the Grand Canal, shared with five strangers. The price is fixed by the city, so the only variable is when you go.
03The island morningMurano, Burano and Torcello Half-Day Sightseeing TourMurano for the furnaces, Burano for the paint, Torcello for the quiet. One boat, half a day, back for lunch.
04The eveningInterpreti Veneziani Concert at Church of San VidalBaroque strings in a deconsecrated church off Campo Santo Stefano. An hour, and no dress code anybody enforces.
Gondola, island boat, or the Grand Canal by night. Pick your hull.
Venice has no other way of moving. Three kinds of time on the water, what it costs to get aboard each one, and how much of a day it takes.
The palace and the basilica stand ten metres apart. Book them differently.
Everything in Venice →
One is a state museum with reserved slots and a printed ticket. The other is a working church that lets a few hundred people an hour past the queue, and charges extra for the gold floor and the terrace over the horses. Getting the order right saves an afternoon.
Reserved entry, or a guide through the prisons
The plain ticket walks you through the council chambers and over the Bridge of Sighs on your own. The guided version adds the prison cells and the secret staircases behind the panelling, which is where the stories are.
St Mark's: the queue, the Pala d'Oro, the terrace
Entry is quick and the mosaics are free to look up at. The two upgrades worth paying for are the Pala d'Oro behind the altar and the loggia outside, where the bronze horses stand over the square.
The Campanile, and what it is actually for
A lift, ninety seconds, and the only place you see the shape of the whole city at once — the fish, the canal cutting through it, and the islands strung out behind. Go on a clear afternoon or not at all.
The days out Venice books before anything else.
Every Venice tour we have reviewed →More travellers take these than anything else on the lagoon, and each one earns the slot for a different reason.
1
Doge’s Palace Reserved Entry Ticket
Enter Venice’s Doge’s Palace with reserved access, cross the Bridge of Sighs, and explore four major museums at your own pace.
From · $41
Read our review →
2
Grand Canal Gondola Ride with App Commentary
from $39
3
Boat Trip: Glimpse of Murano, Torcello & Burano Islands
from $29
4
Grand Canal by Gondola with Live Commentary
from $44
5
La Fenice Opera House Entry Ticket with Audio Guide
from $14
6
Doge’s Palace & St. Mark’s Basilica with Terrace Access Tour
from $123
7
Burano, Torcello & Murano Boat Tour w/Glassblowing
from $28
8
Murano and Burano Boat Tour with Glass Factory Visit
from $34
Murano makes the glass. Burano paints the houses. Torcello got there first.
The vaporetto north takes forty minutes and drops you at three islands that have almost nothing in common. A furnace still working in Murano, a fishing village painted so the boats could find it in fog, and a cathedral on Torcello older than anything standing in Venice itself.
Venice first, then whatever the train reaches in an hour.
Six sestieri and a lagoon full of islands, a Roman arena still staging opera, a university town with Giotto on the ceiling, a port city that spent four centuries speaking German, and the hills where the prosecco actually comes from.
Verona is seventy minutes by train and stages opera in a Roman arena.
The amphitheatre has been in continuous use since the first century and still fills to fourteen thousand on a summer night. Around it: a marble market square, an eleventh-century bridge over the Adige, and the Valpolicella slopes twenty minutes out of town.
Every day out in Verona →
North of Treviso the vines are planted on slopes too steep for a tractor.
Conegliano to Valdobbiadene is an hour and a half from the lagoon and looks nothing like it: ridges of glera vines, a road that switchbacks between cellars, and Cartizze — the steepest, most expensive corner of the lot — sold by the glass at the top of it.
- 1Venice Sunset Cruise by Typical Venetian Boat with Proseccofrom $114
- 2A Sparkling Day in the Prosecco Hills from Venicefrom $228
- 3Prosecco Hills and Wine Tasting Tourfrom $153
What a day in Venice actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A surprising number of the best Venetian hours come in under the cost of a sit-down lunch on the square.
Palace and church entries, the shared gondola, walking tours through Cannaregio and the market mornings.
The full mornings: island boats with a glassblowing stop, food crawls through the bacari, cooking classes, the concert-and-dinner evenings.
Private gondolas, the Dolomites and Cortina day, chauffeured prosecco runs and the guides you keep to yourself.
Cicchetti at a standing counter, tiramisu where it was invented, spritz at six.
Venice eats early and eats standing. Book the Rialto market walk before the stalls pack up, the class that ends as lunch, and the bacaro crawl that starts when the light goes gold.
Three things that only happen in Venice.
Old towns and good restaurants exist everywhere. A furnace that has been lit since the thirteenth century, a bar counter you eat standing up at, and a papier-mache face made for a two-week suspension of the rules do not.
The Murano Furnaces
The glassworks were moved off Venice in 1291 because the city was built of wood and kept burning down. The makers were given privileges and forbidden to leave, and the craft stayed on the island. What you watch now is a maestro turning a blob on the end of a rod for ninety seconds until it becomes a horse — done cold it would take a week, and done slowly the glass simply sets.
- 1Boat Trip: Glimpse of Murano, Torcello & Burano Islands★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 15,699 reviews
- 2Burano, Torcello & Murano Boat Tour w/Glassblowing★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 10,245 reviews
- 3Murano and Burano Boat Tour with Glass Factory Visit★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 9,527 reviews
The Bacari and Cicchetti
A bacaro is a bar with a counter of small plates and no seats worth speaking of: half a boiled egg with anchovy, salt cod whipped into a cream, a fried sardine under onions. You order an ombra — a shadow, the small glass of wine named for the moving shade of the campanile — eat two or three, and move to the next one. Dinner assembles itself over four bars.
- 1Venice Bacaro Food Tour: Eat and Drink like a Venetian★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,137 reviews
- 2Food Tasting Tour with Cicchetti Dishes and Wine★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 894 reviews
- 3Food Tasting Tour with Cicchetti and Wine★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 418 reviews
The Carnival Masks
Under the Republic the mask was a legal disguise, worn for months of the year so that a patrician and a fishmonger could gamble at the same table. The plain white bauta covered the whole face and changed the wearer's voice; the moretta was held on by a button gripped in the teeth, which meant the woman wearing it could not speak. The workshops still build them the old way, in layers of paper over a clay form.
- 1Carnival Mask Workshop★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,925 reviews
- 2Venetian Carnival Mask Making Class in Venice, Italy★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 525 reviews
- 3Venetian Masks Workshop★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 411 reviews
Four Venetian bookings that will not wait.
Most of this city can be decided over breakfast. These four run on entry slots, one departure a day and calendars that take no interest in when your train gets in.
- 01Doge’s Palace Reserved Entry TicketEntry is by timed slot with a cap on each one. The early slots, the only ones before the square fills, go first.
- 02Doge’s Palace & St. Mark’s Basilica with Terrace Access TourThe basilica admits a set number an hour and closes to visitors during services. Skip-the-line entry is a booked slot, not a faster queue.
- 03Dolomites & Cortina Small Group Tour from VeniceOne minibus a day leaves for Cortina and Misurina, it is a long way, and the mountain weather decides whether it runs at all.
- 04Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Live Classical Music ConcertOne performance an evening in a church that seats a few hundred, and the seats are numbered.
When the tide comes over the paving and the cruise crowds land at ten.
Two things reliably wreck a Venice day. From late autumn the sirocco pushes the Adriatic up into the lagoon and San Marco floods — an hour or two either side of high water, walkways up, then gone. And between ten and four the square belongs to whoever came off the day boats. Both have the same answer: be somewhere with a roof and a door.
By place — the sestieri, the islands, the Veneto
By kind of day — water, marble, kitchen or hills
San Marco, the lagoon islands, Verona, and the hills behind Treviso.
The newest Venice tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
St Mark’s Basilica & Doge’s Palace Skip the Line – Semi-Private
Read our review →
Venice Saint Mark’s Basilica afternoon guided tour
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Venice Skip lines at Doge’s & St. Mark’s with Exclusive Sky Walk
Read our review →
Valpolicella Lunch or Dinner Wine & Food tasting with Amarone
Read our review →
Private Market and Cooking Class with a Real Venetian
Read our review →
Lagoon Catamaran Tour with Classical Music & Drinks
Read our review →
Glass Blowing Show Visit Murano Glass Factory and Showroom OMG
Read our review →