Venice cicchetti walk with Alessandro Schezzini?

I had read many great reviews of him and was going to book a tour with him next month. After reading posts on here and tripadvisor though, it sounds like one can do this quite easily on their own. Since we will be jet lagged, I didn't want to commit to a time and length of tour so we opted to do this ourselves. From ht I understand, it's like anywhere else.....just find out where the locals go.

I went on both these tours just a couple of months ago, one after the other on the same day. Alessandro is certainly a very experienced, personable and enthusiastic man, and very knowledgeable about Venice. I came away with somewhat different feelings about the two tours. I had been to Venice previously, and found that I had already covered much of the ground of the "off the beaten path" tour on my own. For someone new to Venice, it likely would have been a better chance to make sure they find their way to interesting places beyond the main sites and all the (other) tourists. On the other hand, I thought the "cichetti" tour was terrific, sort of like a moveable party. I never would have found the three cichetti bars on my own, or ordered or known to order the delicious mix of cichetti and wines we enjoyed. I expect just the mix of food and beverage was worth the cost of the tour, with the exploration and information just thrown in as an extra!

We enjoyed the cicchetti tour 2 weeks ago. We would not have found the 4 wine bars on our own and it was a fun way to try new wines and foods and meet new people.

We are booked with Alessandro for his cicchetti tour on 8/29- really looking forward to it!

I did both the cicchetti tour and off beat tour with Alessandro this past september and loved it. I had a friend visit Florence and Venice last week and I told her about it. Her and her family loved it.

For the cicchetti tour - sure you can walk around and find cicchetti bars on your own and eat, or follow the one in Rick's book but Allesandro's personality, stories and endless flowing of wine makes the one with him worth it. You will love it.

I liked his back lanes tour too. It was nice to see it from his venetian point of view and some of the places we walked to, I might not have found even just wandering.

Both tours make a great late afternoon day in the city.

We are hoping to do the Alessandro's bar tour on Sept 3. Any chance you will be in Venice then. He doesn't book it until there are at least 6 people so we are currently on hold in his calendar until more people sign up.

Another vote for "Yes!". I took both tours June 2013 and loved them both. It was my first visit to Venice, so I really benefited from the city tour and all of Alessandro's stories and information. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the cicchetti crawl. I'm sure I could have found the bars on my own but agree with others that Alessandro made the experience much more enjoyable.

Hi Candy,

We are there on 9/15 and in the same boat need 4 more people for him to have enough for a tour. I was about to suggest you ping the person who replied to my post on TA then thought "hmm both named Candy and both there in the 3rd . . . "

I'm just hoping that he is still working in June of 2016! I sent him an email earlier this summer and he seemed a bit hesitant to even commit to working summer of 2015. Those of you taking his tour within the next several months should tell him he is great demand and he is not allowed to retire any time soon!

Well, you've all got me interested in taking this tour, but I wont be in Venice until November. Hopefully he can get enough people together for one of the 3 nights I'll be there.

@Gretchen
We will be in Venice arriving on Sept 18th and will be interested in a tour as well. Will you still be in Venice then?

My daughter and I did both the Off Beat Tour and the Pub Crawl. We learned a lot about Venice on the Offbeat Tour. Things that would only be pointed out by a local like Alessandro. He is perfect in his role as Tour Director and Pub Crawler Extroidinaire. We enjoyed the Pub Crawl and met some very nice people. The Wine flowed and the chicceti was plentiful. We really enjoyed the evening. Do not miss an opportunity to take advantage of this one of a kind experience.

6 of us just went on the cicchetti crawl on 11/14/14 and we were all glad we did! Alessandro is delightful, funny, knowledgeable and shares his city so very well. He teaches you about local wine as he pours and pours, reminding you that without preservatives and sulfites you will not get a headache. And we didn't! :) This was a wonderful way to spend our first evening in Venice. We also met some other travelers on this tour which was nice.