VENICE · ITALY
Water for streets, gold for ceilings.
Gondolas through the back canals, the glass furnaces of Murano, the Doge’s Palace and St Mark’s, cicchetti by the Rialto, and the Dolomites and Prosecco hills a short train beyond.
Only here
Three things you can only do in Venice.
Boat trips and food tours exist in every harbour city. A gondola through the rii, the glass furnaces of the lagoon and the hidden floors of the Doge’s Palace belong to this city and this water alone.
Eight hundred years afloat
Take a Gondola
The gondola exists nowhere else. Each one is built by hand at a squero from eight kinds of wood, weighted to lean left so a single oarsman can row it standing. Slip off the Grand Canal into the back rii and the city goes quiet, the way it has for centuries.
- 1 Venice: Grand Canal by Gondola with Live Commentary
- 2 Venice: Shared Gondola Ride Across the Grand Canal
- 3 Grand Canal Gondola Experience with Live Commentary™
Glass, lace and colour
Cross the Lagoon Islands
A boat north into the lagoon reaches three islands that exist nowhere else together: Murano, where the Republic moved its glass furnaces in 1291 and the masters still blow it by mouth; Burano, painted in fishermen's colours and stitched with needle lace; and Torcello, where Venice itself began.
- 1 Boat Trip: Glimpse of Murano, Torcello & Burano Islands
- 2 Murano, Burano and Torcello Half-Day Sightseeing Tour
- 3 Murano & Burano Islands Guided Small-Group Tour by Private Boat
Behind the doors
Walk the Secret Itineraries
The Doge's Palace hides a second building inside the first. The Secret Itineraries lead through the chancellery, the torture chamber and the lead-roofed cells under the eaves, then across the Bridge of Sighs and out the way Casanova famously broke back in. You see the machinery of a thousand-year republic from the inside.
- 1 Venice: Doge’s Palace Skip-the-Line Tour with Prisons
- 2 Venice: St Mark’s Basilica After-Hours Tour with Optional Doge’s Palace
- 3 Venice: Lords of the Night Prison’s Palace Cells & Tortures
Start with the standout
If you do one thing in Venice.
More travellers build a first day in Venice around this one than anything else on the water.
The classics
Venice's Most Popular Tours
The Grand Canal, the lagoon islands, the Doge’s Palace and St Mark’s. The days most people come to Venice for.
Where to begin
The experiences a Venice trip is built around.
Gondolas, the lagoon islands, St Mark’s and the Doge’s Palace, a cicchetti crawl, a day out by boat and the Dolomites beyond. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
The lagoon
Three islands, one day on the water.
Most lagoon tours string all three together, but they are not the same stop twice. Murano for the glass, Burano for the colour, Torcello for the silence and the oldest mosaics in Venice.
Cicchetti & bacari
Eat standing up, the Venetian way.
Venice eats in bacari, the little wine bars tucked behind the canals. You order cicchetti at the counter, small plates of baccalà mantecato, fried sarde in saor and crostini, and wash them down with an ombra of the house white. A good food crawl starts at the Rialto market and follows the locals from counter to counter.
Read the guide: the best food & wine tours in Venice →After the day-trippers leave
Venice belongs to the evening.
The cruise crowds thin by late afternoon and the city exhales. This is the hour for an aperitivo on the water as the palazzi turn amber, a Vivaldi concert under the frescoes of a scuola, or a night at La Fenice, the opera house Venice has burned down and rebuilt three times. The squares empty, and the stones are yours.
See the evening experiences →The Grand Canal
Where the streets are water.
The Grand Canal curves four kilometres through the middle of Venice in a long backwards S, lined with two hundred palazzi that have faced the water since the Republic ran the trade of the Mediterranean from these steps. There is no road version. You see it from a gondola, a vaporetto or the deck of a boat, the only way the city has ever shown its front door.
Cruises & boat trips →Beyond the lagoon
The mountains are closer than you think.
Venice sits at the edge of the Veneto, and the country behind it is a day trip in itself. Two hours north the Dolomites rise over Cortina in pale limestone towers; an hour inland the Prosecco hills roll between Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, their vine terraces a UNESCO landscape. Easy to reach by train or small-group tour, and a different Italy entirely.
- 1 Dolomites & Cortina Small Group Tour from Venice
- 2 From Venice: Dolomites, Lake Misurina, and Cortina Day Trip
- 3 A Sparkling Day in the Prosecco Hills from Venice
By pace
Pick your tempo.
Venice rewards both speeds. A single slow hour on the water, a half day threading the landmarks on foot, or a full run out to the far edge of the lagoon and back.
Slow it right down
An hour on the water.A gondola off the Grand Canal into the back rii, an aperitivo cruise as the light turns gold, the city at the pace it was built for.
The essentials
The city on foot.St Mark's and the Rialto, the six sestieri, a guided walk that threads the landmarks together and the alleys in between.
A full day out
All the way to the islands.A boat the length of the lagoon: Murano for the glass, Burano for the colour, Torcello for the silence, back by dusk.
Off the Riva
The Venice that starts one bridge back.
Step one canal back from St Mark’s and the crowds vanish. The real city is in the quiet calli: a squero where gondolas are still built, a hidden spiral staircase at the Palazzo Contarini, courtyards and wells the day-trippers never find. A small-group walk with someone who knows the turns is the difference between seeing Venice and getting properly, happily lost in it.
See all 11 hidden Venice tours →By place
Venice, and the country around it.
The islands for glass and colour. St Mark’s for the basilica and the palace. The Grand Canal for the palazzi. Hidden Venice for the quiet calli. The Dolomites for the mountains, the Prosecco hills for the vines.
By activity
Pick how to spend the day.
A gondola if you want the back canals. A boat if you want the lagoon. The Doge’s Palace if you want the history. Glassblowing, a cooking class, an opera night, or cicchetti at the counter.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
First time in Venice? Here is a three-day run that covers the city, the islands and the table without a wasted hour.
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