We will be in Venice with a Rick Steve's tour in July.
We are interested in tickets to Doge's Palace. Is it wise to buy them ahead of time or buy them the day we plan to tour it?
Also, is the tour of the three Islands worth the time?
Is it too much to do both in the same afternoon?
Any other suggestions for half a day to explore Venice is welcome!
onlyme04, my suggestion would be to wait and discuss this with the tour leader when you get there. It helps to get an idea of the lay of the land, the tour pace, what others may be doing, or what the tour leader might suggest or even arrange. Are you on the VFR tour or Best of Italy?
When we did VFR, one of the tour documents they gave us was a pamphlet with suggestions on things to do in free time, but also that's why they want you to have and bring the guidebook with you. The tour leader had lots of suggestions and even did some interesting things during that free time for which people were invited to come along if interested.
If you are on the Venice-Florence-Rome tour, the itinerary says you will have an late morning lagoon boat tour and a stop at "your guide's favorite island" whatever that is, perhaps Burano or maybe Murano. So that looks covered in lieu of a three island tour.
We did Doge's place at 8 rpm at night, when nobody else is there. Course it was October but maybe 6 people were there. Check with your guide.
We are on the Best of Europe in 14 days tour.
Thanks for all the input!!
We spent two days in Venice prior to doing RS Village Italy tour. When we arrived in Venice I had arranged for my family to do the cicchetti tour with Alessandro ( http://www.schezzini.it/ ). It was soooo much fun and Alessandro is quite the character! I highly recommend his tour!
ciao
Pietro
With only an evening and one full day in Venice, I don't think I would do any island tours. Too much to see while you are there for such a short time. And the bar tour with Alessandro is excellent.
