Best Venice Tickets

Venice is one of the millenary and most particular cities in Italy, which is why it is one of the favorite places for tourists. And it is not only striking for some of its floating buildings or for its canals full of gondolas, but also for its cultural wealth that is distributed in various museums, as well as for the beauty of its architecture.

From St. Mark's Basilica to the Leonardo Museum, passing through the Palazzo Mocenigo, the Fenice Theater and the picturesque Doge's Palace. In this guide you will learn which are the best tickets to buy in Venice to get the most out of this magical city.

St. Mark's Basilica is located in the heart of the kilometer 0 of Venice, which is St. Mark's Square, and is the main Catholic temple of the city, but it is also a Byzantine building of high architectural value for its decorated mosaics. It also highlights the relics of the church, making it one of the busiest Venetian sites.

From the terrace of the basilica you will be able to contemplate fantastic open views. Keep in mind that it is one of the most visited places in Venice, so I recommend that you buy tickets for St. Mark's Basilica in advance.

During your visit to St. Mark's Basilica you will be able to see the Pala D'Oro, which is a Byzantine goldsmith work considered one of the greatest relics of the temple, as well as the many Byzantine ornaments that adorn the interior of the temple. The building has been standing since 832 and was rebuilt almost 100 years later by architects from Constantinople to rehabilitate it after a fire.

The Doge's Palace is not only part of the most famous skyline of Venice, but it is also one of the main sites because it also houses the Correr Museum, the Marciana Library and the Archaeological Museum. If you book your ticket for the Doge's Palace you can visit each of these buildings of the complex and also the city's Armory and the Bridge of Sighs, which is the most famous bridge in Venice and stands out for the myths that were woven around it.

In the Doge's Palace, in addition to marveling at its architecture, which has been preserved in perfect condition since its construction more than 1,000 years ago, you can admire the frescoes on the ceilings. During your tour you will also get to know the building that once held the political power of Venice and became one of the strongest maritime republics in Italy during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

If you decide to visit the Doge's Palace, be sure to admire the paintings of famous Renaissance artists such as Titian and Bosch on the facades and marble walls of the building.

Leonardo Da Vinci was undoubtedly one of the greatest geniuses of mankind and also one of the most influential artists. If you book a ticket for the Leonardo Da Vinci Museum you can discover Leonardo's facet as an inventor and review his career in the city during the Renaissance through a collection of 60 machines of his authorship, which refer to his war engineering and civil engineering projects.

With tickets to this museum, whose tour lasts approximately 1 hour, you will pass through the 4 sections of the museum, which are fire, air, earth and water. As Leonardo left no elements unexplored, you will see plans and models of incipient helicopters, huge war tanks, anatomical structures and replicas of some of his most famous works of art, such as the Mona Lisa or the Last Supper.

This is one of Venice's best-kept secrets, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't book your tickets for the Natural History Museum. In this exhibition you can find elements dating back more than 700 million years, fossils of all kinds, zoological and botanical collections and even an aquarium, making it one of the best tickets to buy if you plan to include the kids in your Venetian tour.

The museum, housed in a 13th-century building on the banks of the Grand Canal, is one of Italy's leading landmarks, and much of this is due to its cetacean hall, where you can get a close-up look at the skeleton of a baleen whale and a young sperm whale, as well as the dinosaur fossils that proliferate all over the walls and attest to the museum's great research work.

If you want to know how the Venetian nobility lived in the golden centuries of the city, which were those of the Renaissance and immediately after, book tickets for the Palazzo Mocenigo. It is a unique building where you will find a large number of works of art, frescoes and luxurious furniture of the period, as well as a collection of perfumes and garments arranged on mannequins.

The main attraction of the palace is the fresco in the green room, which is known as the Bridal Allegory by Jacopo Guarana, a late Baroque Venetian painter who was noted for having restored many of the paintings in St. Mark's Basilica and the Doge's Palace, although his main work is in the Palazzo Mocenigo.

The Teatro La Fenice is one of the most famous opera houses in the world and, at the same time, one of the most eclectic. It is located on one of the islands of Venice, so it can only be accessed through the canals and its flowery internal decoration attracted the attention of the most prominent artists. From Verdi or Rossini to Maria Callas, who currently has a permanent exhibition in the theater, all wanted to sing here.

If you book tickets for the La Fenice Theater, you can visit the Central Hall, the Great Hall, the Royal Box and the Apollonian Rooms, which are characterized by luxurious red velvet armchairs, mirrors and chandeliers and baroque decorations on the ceilings. In addition, the history of the theater is very rich since Giuseppe Verdi premiered there some of his masterpieces such as Attila, Rigoletto, La Traviata and Simon Bocanegra.

The Peggy Guggenheim collection in Venice is totally disruptive as it brings a typical Renaissance and Baroque city into the contemporary era, with works by famous artists such as Picasso, Pollock or Salvador Dali. For this reason, if you want to know an alternative exhibition to those you can find in Venetian museums, you can not miss the tickets for the Peggy Guggenheim collection, dedicated to the American patron of the arts who gives her name to the room.

On this tour you will also meet some of the most famous sculptures in Europe and other lesser-known works by Magritte, Calder, Matisse and Giacometti, who devoted himself mainly to marble and whose works can currently be visited in the Nasher Sculpture Garden, located in the backyard of the building that houses the collection of Peggy Guggenheim.

If you want to experience an alternative show, but in the purest Venetian style then you can't miss experiencing the city's traveling opera. In this show you will pass through different halls during the play following the live musicians throughout the performance, while the actors interact with the audience creating a unique experience.

In general, the performances consist of a review of three classic operas, such as The Barber of Seville, Rigoletto or La Traviata by Giuseppe Verdi, but it is not uncommon for the staging to include improvisations and other modifications in the itinerary that are common to this type of artistic exhibitions. Besides, buying tickets for these shows is the best alternative to get to know the Venice Opera.

Another option is to get closer to this musical genre by booking tickets for Baroque concert and Opera in Venice.

If you want to live a typically Venetian experience you can book tickets for the Interpreti Veneziani concert, where you will enjoy a musical performance of works by Bach, Mozart or Vivaldi. In addition, with your ticket to the show, you will enjoy a dinner including fish or meat and 3 other classic dishes of the city.

The Interpreti Veneziani performance takes place in the Church of San Vidal, located in the San Marco district, so you will also get to know one of the oldest temples of the city, which is usually not included in the main Venetian circuit and is not frequented by tourists who come to Venice.

Another artistic performance that you can find during your visit to Venice is that of the group I Musici Veneziani, an ensemble that is responsible for representing some of the typical operas of the major Italian artists. Among them you will be able to listen to The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi in a show that will take you back to 18th century Venice, as the singers wear traditional baroque costumes during the performance.

The duration of this work is about an hour and a half, so it is an ideal option if you have a short stay in the city planned, but still want to enjoy a Venezuelan opera show. In addition, if you book tickets for the show I Musici Veneziani, you will enjoy one of the best interpretations of the four concertos for violin and strings that refer to the nature scenes of each season of the year.

Feel like you want to have access to a larger number of buildings in Venice? You can choose to book the Venice Chorus Pass, a tourist card that will give you skip-the-line entry to 15 of the city's churches, some of them little known. In them, however, you can come across paintings by Tintoretto and Rubens and enjoy the architecture and styles of different periods.

In each case you can visit the temples on your own or access an audio guide that is available in different languages. You will also have time to tour the gardens and inner courtyards of the chapels in the complex and you will have a discount on transportation in the city.