The Heart of Venice: A Self-Guided Audio Tour
Description
As you wander through the ancient streets and beautiful open squares of this city, you’ll learn some of the fascinating stories that are tied to this magical place. We’ll start in Piazza San Marco, the most famous and most central point of Venice. You’ll learn the story of The Old Lady with the Mortar and admire the ornate Church of San Zulian. Meander through Campo San Salvador and then enjoy the splendor of the Teatro Comunale Carlo Goldoni, a theatre named after Carlo Goldoni, a Venetian playwright from the 1700's. You’ll also visit La Fenice, the opera house that hosted the first performances of "Rigoletto" and "La Traviata." The walk ends on the famous Rialto Bridge which is where the first bridge on the Grand Canal was ever built. The tour is ready whenever you are and the audio plays automatically at exactly the right time and place using your smartphone's GPS and the VoiceMap mobile app, which also works offline.
Tour Options
Itinerary
Piazza San Marco is the most famous and most central point of Venice. Everyone who has come here in the past 1000 years or so has visited this place. It was once famously called “the drawing room of Europe”, but Venetians simply call it “the Piazza". It has been the site of much elegance, drama and history. State visits of popes and emperors, public executions, religious processions, and of course, Carnival - the Piazza is where all that is grand has happened in one of the world's grandest cities, and in our tour you will hear her stories.
Campo San Salvador has a tall marble column in the middle of the square. The column was set up here in 1898. It commemorates the 17-month Venetian revolt against the Austrian occupation of Venice in 1848 and 1849.
"Teatro Comunale Carlo Goldoni" is named for Carlo Goldoni, a Venetian playwright of the 1700's. He wrote many comedies in the Venetian dialect which were revolutionary for their time. He made his characters seem like real people, affectionately highlighting the quirks of ordinary Venetians.
Many famous operas had their first performance at La Fenice, including "Rigoletto" and "La Traviata." La Fenice is still one of the most important opera houses in Italy.
Palazzo Cavalli is where all civil marriage services are conducted. It also houses the offices of the Centro Maree, or Tide Center. This is where all monitoring of data concerning tides and weather goes on, and where the daily predictions of the tide are made, especially regarding high tide, or acqua alta.
The Rialto Bridge is the third one of it's kind. Earlier Rialto bridges were made of wood. They were bascule bridges, which means the center part could be raised to allow ships with masts to pass through.
Highlights
What's included
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
- Service animals allowed
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Infants are required to sit on an adult’s lap
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
- On certain dates, most travelers staying outside of Venice who are planning to visit for the day will be required to pay a €5 access fee. For further details (including exemptions) and to learn what days this fee is applicable, please visit: https://cda.ve.it
Reviews(5)
Very fun if you want to explore Venice on your own! We really enjoyed it and app made it easy. Loved it!
A really nice way to explore at your own pace with a guide. Interface worked well, was easy to understand and gave us some fun I teresting info. Highly recommend.
We only had one day in Venice (we came from Chiogga by boat) and this tour gave us a really good impression. We really enjoyed it.
Was there in Oct 2019 and used this tour. Great Tour. We were walking late afternoon and into the evening. So atmospheric as the lights came on, a really unique experience. We were taken just off the beaten track and we felt that we really did soak up some of that atmosphere.
The writing isn’t great, so two college friends had a good laugh at it, but there was a lot of great insight into the city. We got info about places we’d wondered about on the previous day and enjoyed looking at the flood marks when we had just been there during historic periods of flooding in 2019.
