Tourist offices in Venice

Where to find tourism information offices and kiosks in Venice, Italy

Venice's main tourist office (called Venice Pavillion) is in a small building tucked into the back of the Giardini ex Reali, a.k.a. Giardinetti Reali, a miniscule park wedged between Piazza San Marco and the Grand Canal.

If you're arriving via vaporetto water bus and get off at the new(ish) San Marco–Giardinetti stop, this office is easy to find: it's right in front of you when you get off the boat. Otherwise, it's kind of well hidden and hard to find.

If you're in Piazza San Marco, standing in front the the cathedral, walk past the Palazzo Ducale toward the two columns where all the gondolas are lined up, bobbing in the water of the lagoon, then turn right to walk through the phalanx of souvenir stalls in the park; the office will be toward the end. The map in the sidebar on the right should help (the lower blue info marks the spot of the Giardini Reali office; the just above it is the office I'm about to describe below).

Or, if you can't find that one—or if it's before noon, when (frustratingly) that office finally opens—just pop into the former main tourism office on Piazza San Marco. This is, inexplicably, now a satellite office with fewer resources (and it closes frustratingly early, at 3:30pm), but it is way easier to find: it's under the loggia in the southwest corner of Piazza San Marco (far end from the cathedral; on your left as you go under the loggia on your way to Salizada San Moisè).

This is, incidentally, where several walking tours run by the tourist office meet. Why they didn't simply keep the main tourist office in this high profile spot is beyond me, but then again, Venice does many things that confound the logic of outsiders.

This is the sign for the Venice hotel reservations booth in the Santa Lucia train station; for tourist information, you want to weensy office right next-door.

Venice also has small (and very busy) satellite tourist offices at the Marco Polo Airport, the Piazzale Roma car parking garage, and inside the main train station, Santa Lucia (it's just before you lave the station, next to the left-hand exit doors; note that there are two miniscule offices side-by-side: one for tourism info the other a completely separate hotel booking stand, both usually with longish lines; the folks at the hotel office won't even give you a map of the city, let alone other tourist info, so be sure to get in the right line).

There are also offices on the two most popular barrier islands along the lagoon's eastern edge: the beachy Lido (old Grand Dame resort hotels) and the tip of the peninsula Punta Sabbioni (lots of family campgrounds, as it's the only bit of greater Venice you can drive to).

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