Doges Palace tour in Venice

I took this a few years and it was fabulous. I loved seeing where Casanova was held, the attics and other places you don't see unless you take the tour. I can highly recommend this tour.

Be aware there are lots of stairs and interior spaces are tight and some ceilings and 1 doorway are super low.

Otherwise it’s a great tour if you get a good guide. I’ve had one fabulous guide and one super-hateful guide while all the others were just fair...obviously I’ve been on it numerous times.

Be aware that in the height of summer (July/August/some of Sept) that it can be blazingly hot up in the highest rooms covered by the tour. (Take water.) And in the winter, it can be quite chilly there (and in the dungeons). But it's fascinating to see the diversity of spaces in that building, and how they were used through the centuries.

We are booked for the tour in April, so I hope it’s great!

Yes, we took the tour and loved it! Recommend it highly. After the tour, you can wander the rest of the Doge's Palace on your own and walk around the large rooms that are open to the general public. For English tours, it's only offered in the morning. We took the 9:55 am tour, which took about an hour and half, then wandered on our own for another hour or so. We got out around 1:30 pm, had lunch on a side street away from the piazza. and then came back and did our booked guided tour of Basilica San Marco (which is next door to the Doges's Palace) in the afternoon for another hour or so. (The guided tour of the Basilica was worth it also, since we skipped the lines and we got to see parts of the church were the public are not allowed unescorted.)

Awesome! Good to hear.

Does anyone know how far in advance tickets are sold? Looks you can only buy tickets thru June at this point...

I very much enjoyed the tour. You can wander through the building and courtyard as much as you want before and after the tour. The tour takes you to parts that are otherwise off-limits to the public. If you're going in warm weather, take lots of water and a fan and take the earliest tour. In winter (when I went) it was very cold.

I took the tour last year and did not enjoy it so much. There is a lot to Venice and I wish I had spent my time elsewhere. There was one most interesting thing on the tour for me and it was, well, a secret, but not worth the time for the whole thing.

For the palace rooms on your own, use the RS audio guide and go see something else.