Venice in 3 days

If I only have three days in Venice, how should I spend them?

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Note: This is the itinerary to follow if you actually have three full days in Venice. I say that because many of you will be arriving in Venice by plane or by train, in which case—sad to say—on that first day you don't actually have a full day to spend here, since much of the morning will be spent traveling and finding your hotel.

Below is the itinerary if Venice is just another stop on your itinerary and you genuinely have a full three days to spend. (This separate page has a three-day itinerary for those arriving in Venice by late morning or early afternoon on the first day).

Day 1

Take a tour
If you prefer an expert guide for your sightseeing in Venice, here are some walking tours from our partners at Viator.com that cover many of the top sights in Venice:

San Marco:
• Skip the Line: Venice Walking Tour with St Mark's Basilica
• Skip the Line: St Mark's Square Highlights Tour
• Skip the Line: Venice in One Day

Palazzo Ducale:
• Skip the Line: Venice Walking Tour with Doges Palace
Kill two birds with one stone by being at the Basilica di San Marco before it opens at 9:45am; that way you (a) get to see its treasures and the thousands of square feet of glittering mosaics swathing its interior, and (b) won't have to wait in a long line, which can stretch the wait to as long as an hour or more later in the day.

Don't dawdle too long, however, because you have to be next door at the Doge's Palace by 11:35pm to take your (pre-booked) "Secret Itineraries" tour for an insider's glimpse into the hidden offices, courtrooms, archives, and prisons from which the true Venetian Republic ruled for 900 years.

Make sure you take the time to ride the elevator up inside the Campanile di San Marco for stupendous city panoramas.

After lunch, tour the Ca' d'Oro, a glorious private palace on the Grand Canal now turned into a museum and art gallery. Cross the Rialto Bridge to see the dozens of Tintoretto paintings in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, then round off the day with a cicchetti crawl through the bacari bars around the Rialto Market.

Day 2

Take a tour
If you prefer an expert guide for your wanderings, here are some Venice walking tours from our partners at Viator.com:

Walking tours:
• Private Tour: Venice Rialto Market, San Polo and Frari Church Walking Tour
• Private Tour: San Polo Walking Tour - Merchants, Courtesans and Painters
• Venice Ghost Walking Tour
• Private Tour: Venice Art and Architecture Walking Tour
• Private Tour: Venice Half-Day Walking Tour
• Venice Photography Walking Tour: A Day in Life of Venice
• Hidden Venice Half-Day Walking Tour
• Venice Photography Walking Tour: Twilight Sunset Tour
• Small-Group Venice in One Day Tour
• Skip the Line: Venice Walking Tour with St Mark's Basilica
• Skip the Line: Venice in One Day
• Skip the Line: Venice Walking Tour with Doges Palace
• Venice Walking Tour and Gondola RideVenice has its fair share of monuments, museums, and decorated churches, but frankly just about the best thing you can do with your second morning is ignore all the sights and just wander the streets aimlessly. (Or, if you want more context to your wanders, sign up for a walking tour.)

If you can, try to get lost. Honestly. I do it all the time, and it's great. You'll stroll past slowly decaying Gothic palaces decorated with pointy Byzantine windows, stumble across pocket-sized campielli (squares) where local kids are kicking a soccer ball around a medieval well, and duck into the shade of a tiny bar to share a glass of wine with the well-weathered locals. Ahhhh; perfect.

To best avoid the tourist crowds, head deep into the residential neighborhoods of Castello (especially in the eastern half); northern Cannaregio, especially the Ghetto (the medieval Jewish quarter); and La Giudecca, another large Venetian island not connected to the rest by any bridge.

Now that you've recharged your mental batteries and drunk in some of Italy's dolce far niente ("the sweetness of doing nothing"), cross the Grand Canal into the Dorsoduro

neighborhood to spend the afternoon engaged in some hardcore art appreciation. Visit the Accademia Gallery for its stupendous collection of Old Masters paintings, then continue to the nearby Peggy Guggenheim for one of Europe's best galleries of early modern works from the 20th century. If you find you still have the time (and energy), try to squeeze in a visit to the Ca' Rezzonico, another historic patrician palace restored with a small painting gallery.

Spend the evening before dinner just wandering aimlessly around Venice's labyrinth of alleyways. After dinner, sit on Piazza San Marco to listen to the dueling trios playing for the tables in front of competing chichi cafes.

Oh, and at some point—either when you arrive or as you are preparing to leave—be sure to hop aboard the no. 1 or no. 2 vaporetto line to for a poor man's cruise of the Grand Canal between Piazza San Marco and the Ferrovia (train station) or Piazzale Roma (car park).

Book a gondola ride
• Venice Gondola Ride and Serenade
• Venice Gondola Ride and Serenade with Dinner
• Venice Walking Tour and Gondola RideOr, of course, you can take a gondola ride. Yes, they're touristy, yes they're overpriced, and yes they're hackneyed, but if you can put all that out of your mind, they're also pretty cool, relaxing, and romantic—and who wants to go all the way to Venice and not ride in a gondola anyway?

Day 3

Take a tour
If you prefer an expert guide for your sightseeing, here are tours of the outlying islands from our partners at Viator.com:

• Murano, Burano and Torcello Half-Day Sightseeing Tour
• Private Tour: Murano, Burano and Torcello Half-Day Tour
It's time to get out of Venice—or at least the tourist-ridden downtown part of the city. Take your third day to do perhaps my favorite activity all of Venice: a circle tour of the best outlying island in the Venetian lagoon.

Start with Murano, a miniature Venice and home to the lagoon's famed glass-blowing workshops. Continue on to Burano, a quiet fishing village famous for its hand-tatted lace and for the eye-popping, super-saturated, wonderfully clashing colors of its houses.

End up on Torcello, a glimpse of what Venice must have looked like when the canals still had mud banks, but which was once a glorious city larger than Venice itself of which all that remains is a gloriously mosaicked Byzantine church in the middle.

If you time it just right, you'll be motoring back to Venice itself right as the setting sun dramatically backlights the teetering bell towers of the city and throws sparkling streamers across the waters of the lagoon.

Tips

This is merely a blueprint. You really should spend your time on whatever catches your own interest. Some people would rather get a root canal than spend several hours in the Accademia, but for others an afternoon of Old Masters would rank as the highlight of their trip. Same goes for shopping, or gondola rides, or cramming a dozen churches and museums into a single day: heaven for some, hell on earth for others. For some less-famous sights to visit, check out Reid's List: Venice.
Keep in mind that you may have to adjust these itineraries in case one of the days you're in town happens to fall on a Monday (when most museums are closed) or a Sunday (when many things are closed, and those that remain open tend to operate on shorter hours).
Also keep in mind that these are maximal itineraries, designed to cram as much a reasonably possible into the time allotted. There's no down-time built in for relaxation—which you really should have. You're on vacation, after all. I suggest using these but maybe dropping a sight which interests you less (or curtailing your time at a couple of sights) in order to carve out from some free time to just sit at a cafe, writing postcards and watching the carnival of Italian life swirl past.
Consider daily tours: Prefer to leave some of the planning and information-providing to a professional? Consider signing up for a guided tour—doesn't have to be a standard bus tour; our partners at Viator.com offer loads of neighborhood and thematic walking tours, private guides, and other fun ways to explore the capital as well.

Full-day itineraries for one, two, or three days in Venice
"Arriving" itineraries for one, two, or three days in Venice
Top sights in Venice
Venice layout
Venice tours
Italy itineraries

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This material was last updated February 2011. All information was accurate at the time.

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