Saint Mark's Basilica: Tours & Tickets

Venice was a truly amazing city to visit. From the beautiful views to the gondola ride we thoroughly enjoyed our time there. However, there are a few points that were misleading; Surprised that the tour guide only got us to the train station and left us to ride on our own to get there. We had to meet another guide when we got off who was hard to find - he wasn’t easy to spot in the crowds. After the water taxi ride, we were then passed to another guide for a walking tour of Venice and skip the line of St Marks - this element of the trip was lovely and enjoyable. What shocked us was we were then handed our return train tickets, water taxi pass and told we had to find our way back to the station, board the correct train and get off at Florence - the train was headed for Rome! It gave us 3 hours to explore Venice. This was not made clear during the itinerary. we booked this for the added security of them getting you back home. We got home with no issues but felt abandoned at the end.

We were in a group of 25 and our guide Francesca started right on time. She was a very knowledgeable lady who passed on information with humor and a smile. It is a long tour with many steps so perhaps not for any one with trouble climbing 300 year old worn staircases! We were very pleased that we took this tour as we would have missed so much if we had guided ourselves. Bypassing the ticket office alone must have saved 45 mins. It was very emotional walking over the bridge of sighs remembering all the prisoners walking to death. Well done Francesca...you made our visit to your lovely city come to life.

There were four cruise ships in dock on the Saturday that I picked and Venice was very busy that day, all day. Huge queues for both St. Mark’s Basilica and the Tower. Really glad I bought a Skip-the-Line ticket as I would have been waiting ages to get up there. They let you spend as long as you like at the top, but you’ll have to queue for the elevator down. Altogether a memorable trip!

Our guide was very knowledgeable and we thoroughly enjoyed listening to all the information she was giving us. However it says it’s wheelchair accessible- in a way it was but you had to split up from your tour group and go to different areas to get lifts so you missed chucks of the tour as your headset went out of range. Including the bridge of sighs

I have no further comment regarding the tour, however, could I suggest that 2 separate tours are listed during the booking process, one with, and one without the tower climb instead of having to tick a check box in the tour description. Needless to say, we fell foul and were not able to climb the tower.