Grand Canal & Rialto Market Shore Excursion from Venice

This full day Venice shore trip includes a private cruise along Venice's Grand Canal followed by a two hour walking tour to see the city's top sights. After a lunch break you enjoy an additional two hour tour to explore the ancient market area around the Rialto Bridge.

Your licensed guide meets you at the Venice cruise terminal and leads you to your private water taxi waiting nearby. You cruise the full length of the Grand Canal, past palaces built from the 12th to 17th centuries, before arriving at St. Mark's Square, where you visit the interior of St. Mark's Basilica, built in 829 AD, and the Doge's Palace, the seat of Venetian government since 1173, including the Bridge of Sighs.

After free time for lunch, your guide meets you again for a walking tour of the Rialto area, centered on the market district that has operated in roughly the same spot for over a thousand years. Two adjoining markets make up the area, the Erberia for produce and the Pescheria for fish, both still active with local vendors each morning. In Venice's trading heyday this district handled goods arriving from across the Mediterranean and beyond, spices, silk, and precious metals among them, and some historians connect the Polo family, of Marco Polo fame, to merchant houses in this same neighborhood. The Rialto Bridge itself, a single stone arch completed in 1588, replaced an earlier wooden drawbridge that had collapsed under the weight of a crowd.

• Please Note: This tour ends in St. Mark's Square where you can enjoy free time and return to the pier on your own. Most cruise lines offer shuttles from St. Mark's Square to their ships, otherwise there are water buses available. If you want a private water taxi to take you back to the pier immediately following this tour, please contact for a quote.