St. mark's basillica Venice reservatons needed?

you don't need it. the line looks long sometimes but it moves fast.

The best time to visit the basilica is between 11.30 am and 12.30 pm because the mosaics are floodlit then. Download Rick's free audio guide to St Mark's for tips on avoiding the long line - also for seeing the site.

Ditto Chani; your RS guidebook tells you how to skip the line at St Marks. DO IT! And see the mosaics in their best light ;-) The ship peeps are basically there during prime tourist hours, so do The Biggies as early as possible - Venice isn't a place to sleep in. It closes down way earlier than most European/Italian cities, so it's more of a go-to-bed-early-type place. Restaurants will be closed down by about 10:00...where in some cities people are just heading out! Read Rick's recent blog entry (scroll down a few entries - and see the pics) of what St Mark's looks like early in the morning...

Eileen's post reminded me of one of my BEST experiences in Venice. I was up at first light and took the vaporetto down the Grand Canal to Piazza San Marco to watch the sunrise. . . magical and terrific photos. Then I went back to my hotel for breakfast. Day trippers usually start pouring in after 9 am and are gone by 5 pm. Most of them will be in the Piazza, the Basilica and the Doge's Palace - the "biggies." But there is so much more of Venice to see.

Ricks books do have a great suggestion for line skipping at the Basillica, our tour was actually told to do same thing with by our guide for our free time advise. The only part I see being problematic is that that method does perhaps work better done by a few people at once, not a group, and felicia seems quite intent on keeping the group very much together at all time. Ps the method does most certainly work but I admit to feeeling a little bad doing it,,