Venice Walking Tour and Gondola Ride
Description
Discover the famous sites of Venice on this walking tour, followed by a ride through the city’s canals on an iconic gondola. You will be captivated by the beauty of Venice, made up of 117 small islands connected to each other by 400 bridges. Let yourself be seduced by one of the city considered among the most beautiful in the world and, together with its lagoon, it is a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. You will learn the fascinating history of Venice as you wander through narrow alleys and over stone footbridges, and then hop aboard a Venetian gondola for a leisurely ride along the Grand Canal.
Tour Options
Itinerary
The Grand Canal is the most important "street" in Venice that can be followed by ferry or gondola. The Grand Canal divides the city centre into two parts, it is older than Venice for this reason the city was built following the path of the river. One end of the canal leads into the lagoon near the Santa Lucia railway station and the other end leads into the basin at San Marco. It makes a large reverse-S shape through the central districts (sestieri) of Venice. It is 3.8 km (2.4 mi) long, and 30 to 90 m (98 to 295 ft) wide, with an average depth of 5 metres (16 feet).
Piazza San Marco often known in English as St Mark's Square, is the principal public square of Venice where it is generally known just as la Piazza ("the Square"). All other urban spaces in the city (except the Piazzetta and the Piazzale Roma) are called campi ("fields"). The Piazzetta ("little Piazza/Square") is an extension of the Piazza towards the lagoon in its south east corner. The two spaces together form the social, religious and political centre of Venice and are commonly considered together.
The Basilica di San Marco (St Mark’s Basilica) is the cathedral church of Venice. It is located in the Piazza San Marco, which has always been the center of Venetian public and religious life. The building’s structure dates back to the latter part of the 11th century. Much work has gone toward embellishing this, and the famous main façade has an ornamented roofline that is mostly Gothic.
The Clock Tower in Venice is an early Renaissance building on the north side of the Piazza San Marco, at the entrance to the Merceria. It comprises a tower, which contains the clock, and lower buildings on each side. It adjoins the eastern end of the Procuratie Vecchie.
The Bridge of Sighs (Italian: Ponte dei Sospiri) is one of the most particular bridge in Venice. The Ponte dei Sospiri was built using white Istrian stone in 1602 to connect Palazzo Ducale to the Prigioni Nuove, the new Venetian prisons. It has the peculiarity to be entirely covered and is formed by two, wall-separated corridors, leading to and forth the prison.
In Venice we can count around 354 bridges. All these bridges were built to transportation issues but they add something special to the beauty of th city. The Rialto Bridge is the oldest of the four bridges spanning the Grand Canal in Venice. Connecting the sestieri (districts) of San Marco and San Polo, it has been rebuilt several times since at first it was built with two old ships and than in a wooden structure. The last reconstruction, dated 1591, is the one we can see today.
The Doge's Palace is a palace built in Venetian Gothic style, and one of the main landmarks of the city of Venice in northern Italy. The palace was the residence of the Doge of Venice, the supreme authority of the former Venetian Republic, opening as a museum in 1923. Today, it is one of the 11 museums run by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.
Teatro La Fenice is an opera house in Venice, Italy. It is one of "the most famous and renowned landmarks in the history of Italian theatre", and in the history of opera as a whole. Especially in the 19th century, La Fenice became the site of many famous operatic premieres at which the works of several of the four major bel canto era composers – Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi – were performed.
The Venetian Lagoon is an enclosed bay of the Adriatic Sea, in northern Italy, in which the city of Venice is situated. Its name in the Italian and Venetian languages, Laguna Veneta—cognate of Latin lacus, "lake"—has provided the English name for an enclosed, shallow embayment of salt water, a lagoon.
Highlights
What's included
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
- A minimum of 2 people per booking is required
- It is recommended to wear comfortable shoes
- 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(13)
Absolutely do not sign up for this tour. The guide was not at the meeting point at the designated time. On our way back to the Hotel I received a call that the guide was at the meeting point. We met the guide - who spoke really broken English and did not know the city of Venice at all. She used here eye phone for both directions and information. I knew more about a couple of sites than she did - when we could understand her. We said goodbye after 30 minutes of what was supposed to be a two hour walking tour. Romaetravel refused to refund my money and they were rude. Do not sign up for this tour.
We're sorry to read this review as it contains several inaccuracies. Our guide was at the meeting point at 9:55 AM with photo and WhatsApp location confirmation — we contacted you at 10:05 AM to let you know. The guide is a fluent English speaker who regularly leads tours for international guests. The refund request was made on the day due to rain, not service issues, and you requested stops outside the tour itinerary. We also have written proof that a negative review was threatened if a refund was not provided. We believe this review does not reflect an honest account of the experience.
THE DIRECTIONS IN THE EMAIL ARE NOT THE DIRECTIONS OF THE DAY!!! While our guide was very pleasant and we enjoyed him. We were late meeting him and missed the gondola ride- so we had to pay for that all over again. We followed the meeting place directions in the email but the texted meeting place was over 30 minutes away. No one indicated in the text message that the meeting place was different. Additionally, the new meeting place required us to navigate through all of Venice without ever having been there before. With the crowds and the complexity of the streets, this was unrealistic. Additionally, the GPS signal is limited on the streets.
We are really sorry for this review as we have proof that not only we did send you a message with clear instruction on the meeting point and how to reach it, we also have proof that you replied to said message agreeing to go to the meeting point, only for then to decide on your own to completely disregard our agreed instructions on the day of the tour. This review contains false information and we already reported it to Viator.
Loved walking all over the sights were wonderful , Venice is a nice place to visit , st Marcos square the 800 year old church
I have a feeling that this review will never see the light of day. In the two weeks we've been in Italy this was our worst tour. From the start of this tour, we were almost running to stay up with the guide. Very little explanation of what we were seeing and the only times we stopped were when we told him we were stopping for pictures. After the hour forced march that we endured we were exhausted by the time we got to the gondola part of the tour. That tour was comprised of 40 minutes of standing in one spot while the guide yammered at us for forty minutes with most being spoken in Spanish. We speak English. The the gondola ride was 20 minutes. The ride was enjoyable, but the gondoliers were constantly yelling at each other talking. Nothing about what we were seeing. We were so discussed and disheartened about the tour we told our guide when we got back that we were done and asked him to return us back to the train station where we had started from. When he started walking, he didn't take the direct route (I showed on google maps), he went West from our location, where we ended up next to the bay. I didn't say anything because I thought he knew an easier way back. After walking along the bay for a while he turned back into the city, and we ended up crossing about ten bridges going toward the train station. Google maps showed that we were kind of meandering through the city. we finely got to a point where I recognized a dome on one of the churches. I told our guide I had things from there and he could go. He didn't seem real happy and asked me what we wanted him to do. I told him I didn't care, and I could find the train station from there. I did tip him because I thought it would be a good way to get rid of him
2 hour walking tour of Venice with gondola ride. Spent first hour walking from the meeting place to the gondola. Hard to talk/hear as we had to keep moving amidst the crowds. Would have been better to set the meeting point closer to the gondola ride to maximize time to see places and hear. Liked the gondola ride.
Guide going too fast. No stops in between. Gondola ride was not available. I dropped off the tour in S Marcos. No rest brakes.
The tour guide took his time with us and made it a more pleasant experience that's the 4 stars. The gondolas we did not get the singing one and the microphone started to interfere and did not get most of the information for this one 3 stars.
We walked all over Venice and got to see a Banksy which was very important to a person in our group. We met Julian at the train station...make sure you get a store or someplace to meet in the e-mail the day before. He walked us to our gonodola ride. Our gondolier was not very nice but this is not Julian's fault. We told him and I believe he will pass on the information to his tour group. Even though we were there during the outbreak, we had a great time and really learned a lot about Venice.
Thank you for the 5stars review! Julian is relly happy to get such a positive feedback, and we're glad to hear that you enjoyed your time in the beautiful Venice, also getting to see a piece of art that was so important to one of you. We're sorry about the experience with the gondolier but luckily it didn't take away from the beauty of Venice and its Grand Canal. Hope to see you again in one of our tours!
We totally enjoyed our tour through Venice. The guide was nice, informative and easy to understand. She even gave us a little more time in areas we were interested in seeing a little longer. Unfortunately, it was Christmas Day and the people they used for Gondola rides cancelled our ride. Not sure why, as there were Gondolas available all over the city, they all seemed to be working. They did offer to give us a partial refund, so that made it a little better, and we could have gotten a ride on our own had we chosen to do that.
Thank you for your review! We're very sorry for the inconvenience with the Gondola ride, but happy to hear that our guide made sure you still have fun and gave you a lot of information about the beautiful Venice.
Julian was excellent. He was very engaged and knowledgeable. He spoke well and took us around Venice to the places we wanted to see.He made sure we got to the gondola and came back to get us and finish our tour. He assisted in getting us on water taxi and to the people mover as he lived nearby. The weather was perfect. Gondola ride was just prior to sunset and a great time for us to be on the gondola. Julian took pictures for us and then emailed them to us. Very nice touch. Would recommend Julian for the tour.
Thank you very much for your review! We're happy to hear that you enjoyed the beautiful Venice in a nice weather and that our guide Julian made this wonderful experience even more enjoyable. Hope you made some great memories!
