Venice Walking Tour and Gondola Ride

This was the first time my wife and I were in Venice, a truly unique city with a history that was instrumental in shaping Europe from the period spanning the late medieval and modern eras. Since our arrival coincided with the Italian Government closing many tourist venues and annual events due to the number of coronavirus cases in Northern Italy Venice was very quiet, due to a steep decline in tourism, the overall effect being a monumental loss in all businesses dependend on tourists. One of the highlights of our trip, though, was the Venice Walking Tour and Gondola Ride. The company was very professional and accommodating. Our paticular tour comprised three couples, two from India and us (from America). Two Japanese women partcipated in the gondola ride segment only. The gondola ride is usually the last part of the tour, but the tour coordinator switched it to the beginninng. This turned out to be a plus, since the enjjoyable half-hour ride, in part on Venice's iconic Grand Canal, gave the group a chance to become comfortable with one another. The actual walking tour was fascinating, due in very large measure to our guide, Matteo. Matteo started his part of the tour by explaing the historical origins of Venice, first contextualizing the lagoon environment and the oddity of building, but improbably, a city-state that in many aspects made it the queen of the Adriatic for 11 centuries. As the tour progressed he explained in great detail the technology behind Venice's complex system of venetian wells. After that he tured our attention to the world of gondola construction, how it is a direct response to navigating the myriad canals that channel all through the city, and the techniques employed by the gondoliers who maneuvor this singular boats. Finally, as we walked along Matteo exlained the ever-increasing problematic of flooding and its baneful effects on Venice's buildings. We found the whole time fascinating. I do not hesitate to recommend the Venice Walking Tour and Gondola Ride to anybody visiting this wonderful city. By all means request Matteo as your tour guide.

The tour guide explained lots of personal facts about Venetian history which was great. The gondolier was good fun and we had lots of chat with him.

Andrew, our guide, was amazing!!! We had a brilliant walking tour, about 1,5hr, through the quiet small streets of Venice, away fro all the crowds. Andrew told us how and why Venice was built. This them concluded with a lovely gondola ride throw the narrow streets and went on to the grand canal. Absolutely fantastic. Highly recommended. Please remember, this goes through the small streets only, not big tourist areas. Beautiful and quiet.

I was never in Venice but was at the Venician Hotel and resort in Las Vegas for the gondola ride there and called in plenty of time to tell them it was a mistake and needed a refund but they said I couldn’t get one. What kind of ticket sales company will not give a full refund for a tour where you are not even in the country of Italy. I need my full refund.

The walking tour does not cover the most popular attractions like St Mark's Square but does offer an alternative viewpoint regarding the history of Venice and takes your around an area that I would not have necessarily went to but it was informative and intresting. The Gondola ride was an experience and well worth doing. I thought this was well worth the money paid.

We had a lovely walk around Venice. We were lucky with the weather. Our guide was Effy. She was full of information that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Definitely recommend it.

Very nice walking tour with a great guide. Got some of the lesser known hidden gems and it was very interesting. Gondola was awesome as well.

Below average tour, not a lot of important information about the places visited. Gondola ride was mediocre, too dark. Not worth the money. The guide was nice though.

The organizers were very insensitive. 3 pm tour started late by 15 min. We were approx 15 min short of time (as we had a return train to Milan at 5.45 pm). Our request to give us gondolas ride a little earlier was bluntly turned down. We eventually could not take the gondola rides though we had paid for the same. The walking tour guide was good.

Our guide was fantastic. He was historically knowledgeable and had a great sense of humor which added to the experience. His English was great too so we were able to understand things thoroughly.