Venice - St. Mark Basilica Updates (Oct 2022)

Thanks for the update! We will be in Venice this time next week. We have a tour scheduled that includes the basilica, I wonder how the restorations will affect that. We plan on brining masks as I've heard public transportation requires them in Italy.

I'm currently touristing in Italy (Rome, Florence, Venice.. next Verona & Milan). Only ONE TIME on an Italo train from Rome to Florence did anyone enforce mask wearing. And from what I've been told in other forum threads here, the mask wearing mandate expired on 9/30.

Having said that, while in Florence, I did notice many people still wore masks. I felt like I was stared at a few times for not having a mask. But in every other city.. and at almost every tourist attraction, 90% of people were without a mask.

I’ll just add another thing. I was at St Mark’s today. I could not believe the huge line to get in…when they could all have gone to the website and purchased tickets online and entered with no line. There are signs up near the entrances giving the website yet people still stood in line!! The hilarious thing was more than half the people were fiddling with their phones, lol!!

So I'm one of those people who stood in line yesterday. They only sell a limited number of "skip the line" tickets, and due to my own procrastination, I didn't book one in time (I couldn't figure out exactly what time I would arrive and what time slot to book, and by the time I figured it out, they were sold out). But for me, the line moved pretty quickly at ~1 PM, and I ended up in line for just about 30 mins.

I was also in line for about 30 minutes; that was a bit over a week ago. I, too, tried to get an online entry reservation but could not. The switch from a staffed check facility to lockers took place quite some time ago. It was reported here on the forum by a visitor in 2020 or 2021, I believe.

St. Mark's Treasury was closed, apparently due to COVID measures, at the time of my visit. The Pala d'Oro and Museum were both accessible. Each has its own entry fee, which you pay (in two different places) inside the church if you want to see them. There was no significant hold-up for either the Pala d'Oro or the Museum.

They were policing shoulders and knees.

Just took the train from trieste to Venice today - no mask wearing by staff and very little by passengers - so I assume its not compulsory

The policy has clearly changed. Compliance was very good (though not quite 100%) last month on the trains I took in northern Italy and the vaporetti. The trains I was on had a masks-required announcement in Italian and English after every stop.

Yes, that’s the site. We were just there this morning and walked right in with our skip-the-line tickets. The line to buy tickets and enter was at least 30 minutes.