Day-Trip to Venice with St Mark’s Basilica Ticket

If you are based in Florence for your holiday, but don’t want to miss out on the true taste of Venice, this is the ideal tour for you! Nowhere else on the planet is quite like the ‘Floating City’ and we have organized the perfect day in Venice from Florence, to offer you the chance to experience its full grandeur and mystique. 

Travelling by high-speed train, you will get there comfortably and efficiently, maximizing your time in this iconic city. It’s through its waterways that the beauty of Venice really shines.[readmore]The canals are much better suited to the water taxis we use than the gondolas, and our boat allows us to move quickly and easily, without losing the intimacy of a smaller vessel. On our exhilarating water taxi experience, we cover part of the Grand Canal, getting yet another perspective of this fascinating city. 

At Rialto you will meet your expert local guide, who will unveil the Floating City’s most sought after sights, enjoying Skip-the-Line Access to spectacular St. Mark’s Basilica, as well as Special Access to the Basilica’s terraces. You’ll discover why the city was built on a lagoon, how it came to be an important center of trade and what events conspired to end its domination over much of the Mediterranean. You’ll walk by Marco Polo’s house and hear about how the Venetian merchant set off to sea one day and returned with tales of faraway eastern lands that in those days few had ever seen. 

You’ll stroll across the church and palace-lined piazzas of Campo SS Giovanni e Paolo and Campo Santa Maria Formosa, where Byzantine, Renaissance and modern elements fuse together their timeless portraits of the city, and also glimpse the fabled Bridge of Sighs, said to be named after the sighing prisoners as they were escorted across the canal to the cells of the adjacent prison.

After marveling at the elegance of St. Mark’s Square, which Napoleon fondly described as the “finest drawing room in all of Europe”, we’ll breeze past the entry lines and head straight into St. Mark’s Basilica. Together with your guide, you’ll uncover the diverse treasures inside the basilica, including the dazzling gold-laden mosaics that adorn its domed interior and ceilings.

After that, you will have about 3 hours to enjoy Venice independently. Your guide will offer local advice on the best restaurants you can try for lunch, or you may want to sample the famous cicchetti: similar to tapas these are best enjoyed with a glass of Prosecco.

After your free time, you will be free to either take a vaporetto to come back to the train station (tickets are included) , or just walk . Then, we board our speed train for our return to Florence.