Join the private gondola ride experience, an enchanting way to enjoy the colours, lights, sights, charm and beauty of Venice. You will admire elegant bank-side palaces, bridges and breath the charming atmosphere that only a town built on water can give you.
Duration 30 minutes
Available Every day
Private Tour Max 6 people
Meeting point Dogana Gondola Station
Start time
10:00am
You can walk around Venice. You could take a water taxi. But, really, there’s only one way to get around La Serenissima, as this city of bridges and canals is nicknamed. And that way is by gondola. Join the private gondola ride experience, an enchanting and relaxing way to enjoy the colours, lights, sights, charm and beauty of Venice. You will admire elegant bank-side palaces, unique bridges and breath the charming and magic atmosphere that only a town built on water can give you.
Tour program of the Venice private gondola ride:
Meeting point at the Dogana Gondola station next to the Monaco & Grand Canal Hotel and Harry’s bar (2 minutes walking distance from St Mark’s square going towards Accademia) and start of the boat tour.
Meet your gondolier and step right into your gondola for an unforgettable tour of Venice. Sit back and enjoy the city from the water as your gondolier steers you peacefully through the silent canals.
Your gondolier will take you on a 30-minute ride across different parts of central Venice, starting from the Grand Canal: soak up the passing scenery of Gothic palaces and historic homes as you glide beneath stone bridges. Admire the Church of Santa Maria della Salute, a majestic building standing in the suggestive landscape of St Mark’s Basin and the Grand Canal; the church was built to commemorate the end of Venice’s most severe and devastating plague.
Leave the bustle of the Grand Canal behind, gliding through some of Venice’s quieter and narrower canals. You will be able to admire a not very well known Venice whilst being gently lulled by the calm sway of your gondola.
Admire the most famous theatre in Venice, the Fenice Opera House, with its stunning exteriors, sadly notorious for being repeatedly destroyed by fire and rebuilt; but also the Guggenheim Museum & Peggy Guggenheim’s former home, the ill-fated Ca’ Dario Palace, the beautiful San Moise Church, Mozart’s home in Venice and numerous magnificent Gothic and Byzantine Palaces that echo the great prosperity that Venice; the Venetians once enjoyed during the times of the Serenissima Republic.
After 30 memorable minutes, say farewell to your gondolier back at the original departure point and continue on your own Venetian adventure with amore in your heart.
* This is not a guided tour: the gondolier may chat and provide some local information however they are not licensed city guides.
**Seating is arranged by the gondolier in order to properly balance the gondola.
The price includes: 30 minutes ride in a traditional Venetian gondola.
The price does not include: Hotel pick-up and drop-off.
The price of a classic gondola ride in Venice ranges from 80 to 100 euros. It is a tariff generally respected by all gondoliers. The variation depends on the time of the tour (30 minutes or more), the time you want to do the tour (cheaper during the day, more expensive if you choose a gondola tour in Venice by night) and, of course, the degree of privacy you want to guarantee. The gondola ride in Venice shared with a small group of people (maximum 6) is definitely the ideal choice for those who want to experience the classic gondola tour at a more affordable price and admire the main attractions of Venice.
A classic gondola ride takes about 30 minutes. Sometimes it may happen that for safety reasons related to high tide or other weather conditions, the duration of the tour is slightly shorter: it will be the gondolier’s discretion in this case to choose the safest route to take. There are also gondola tours lasting 45 minutes or one hour, but these are private tours not shared tours. If, on the other hand, you want to visit the city of Venice through its canals for longer with small groups of people and at affordable prices, you can choose between the one hour guided boat tour on the Grand Canal on a luxury motorboat, or the 2 hour boat tour on the Grand Canal and historic districts of Venice or, finally, you can decide to discover the beautiful islands around Venice with the semi-private boat tour to the islands of the Venetian lagoon: Murano and Burano with a tour of about 4 hours.
During the classic gondola tour in Venice you can admire the typical Venetian architecture and its ancient palaces, lulled by the slow movement of the gondola. You will pass the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute, an imposing church on the water built in 1631 and an expression of Venetian Baroque. The Basilica della Salute bears this name because it represents an ex voto of the Venetians to Our Lady for the liberation of the plague that killed over 80 thousand citizens. Along the way you will encounter the Gran Teatro La Fenice (the Phoenix Theatre), twice destroyed and rebuilt. The theatre is the main opera house in Venice and one of the most prestigious ion the world. As you continue to cross the Grand Canal, you will see Peggy Guggenheim’s house, now the Guggenheim Museum, which houses all the personal collections of Marx Ernst’s ex-wife. Today it is one of the leading European and American art museums of the twentieth century and is visited by more than 350 thousand people a year. Leaving the Grand Canal you will pass in front of the house of Mozart, a famous pianist who stayed in Venice in 1771 for over a month living the celebrations of the typical Venetian carnival. Here he gave a piano concert on March 5th of the same year. Returning to the Grand Canal, finally, you will see Palazzo Cà Dario, a beautiful and suggestive Venetian residence. Over time, this house has also become known as a “cursed palace” due to many unpleasant events that have affected its owners: from financial collapse to violent death. The Venetians came to anagram the Latin inscription on the palace from “Giovanni Dario genius of the city” to “lo genero under an insidious ruin”. The house, which inspired Monet and aroused the interest of Woody Allen who wanted to buy it, became the property of an American company representing an unknown buyer in 2006 and is currently being restored.
The canals are the waterways that run through the city of Venice and without them it would be impossible to get around. There are about 150 channels, each with a name, just like the streets. The entrances to the houses, as well as the entrances to the oldest churches, are facing the water, confirming that the Venetians have always used water to move from one point to another in the city. The main canals of Venice are the Grand Canal, which divides the city into two parts and reaches a depth of 5 meters, and the Giudecca Canal.
Despite the ease and elegance with which gondoliers seem to row through the canals of Venice, the gondola is an extremely difficult boat to manoeuvre and even to build. Its invention is ingenious and perfect for entering the narrow, shallow water streets of the city of Venice. The gondola, in fact, is composed of over 280 pieces of wood of various kinds and has a size of 10.85 meters long by 1.40 meters wide and has an asymmetrical shape, so that designing it, as well as building it by hand, requires great experience. The gondoliers, who manoeuvre the gondola standing with only one oar, are always on the stern of the boat and their weight is balanced by the bow iron. On the bow of each gondola you can see a comb-shaped blade with six teeth (tines): they indicate the six sestieri, the six zones in which Venice is divided. In ancient times the gondola was exclusively the boat of the Venetian nobles and the gondoliers were at their service; today the gondola is used for tourist purposes and, together with their gondoliers, are the symbol of the city of Venice.
Venice private gondola ride experience
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€ 150 Adults
Free cancellation within 8 days
Duration: 30 minutes
Language:
Highlights:
Check it off your bucket list: experience the gondola
View sights that can only be seen from the water
Cruise along the Grand Canal and explore the myriad of smaller canals
See landmarks like the Fenice Opera House, the Salute Church and the elegant palaces and bridges
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