Veneto Travelers Recommend

No trip is complete without taking a gondola tour in Venice. A Gondola Serenade on the Canals of Venice is the ultimate romantic experience. Complete with music and sweet melodies, you will glide along the Grand Canal and the minor canals of Venice. From low on the water of the narrow canals the palazzos look really magnificent. A real treat for the passionate photographer in you. You can also take a cruise along the Grand Canal in a luxurious motor boat complete with a guided tour of the world's finest liquid street - the Venice Grand Canal. This unique city is best explored on foot to fully experience the city's past and present. An absolute must for the first time visitor is a tour of St. Mark's Square, the Basilica and its Byzantine heritage, the Doge's Palace and much more. If you only have one day to explore Venice, combine seeing these cultural sites with a canal boat tour. Just out of Venice emerges a land of towering peaks and spires that is the Dolomite Mountains.

Water is a fundamental element of Venice. While in any other city you might take a bus or the subway to get where you’re going, in Venice it’s the boat that reigns supreme. No doubt the most classical way to travel the waterways is the old fashioned gondola. The Venice Gondola Ride and Serenade tour has live music played to enhance the already special atmosphere. But there is also more serious sightseeing to be done - the famous Grand Canal flows like a large inverted "S" through the heart of the city. This is the main artery of the city and has been since the beginning. Being the central waterway, it is lined with impressive Palazzi built by noble families competing for status. Dating from the 13th Century onwards you can see an amazing variety of architecture from Gothic to Byzantine. To get a proper view of 'this enchanted place' The Venice Grand Canal Boat Tour will give you a detailed commentary and take you into the more important minor canals as well.

Lie back and relax on cushions while a gondolier steers you through some of Venice’s most beautiful tucked-away canals. The ringing tones of ‘O Sole Mio’ echo off the centuries-old brick walls of crumbling palazzos as you glide past the churches and apartment buildings, shops and squares of everyday Venice. Venice opens up as you leave the smaller canals to enter the wide Grand Canal, lined with soaring palaces in pastel-hued gelati colors.

Verona is a wonderful city to walk around, to soak up the atmosphere, to grab a coffee and people watch, and to shop. Spend your first day getting the feel for the place. Head for the Piazza delle Erbe in the center of town and wander the market, admire the fountain, smell the herbs on the market stalls. For a real sense of the city layout, climb the Lamberti Tower. When you've had enough coffee here, head through the arch Arco della Costa - if the whale bone falls on your head you are a just person. Don't worry, it didn't fall on anyone else either and it's been there for centuries. Now you're in Piazza dei Signori, the heart of political toil and strife for centuries. Admire the buildings - mainly the work of the 14th century Lords of Verona, the Scaligeri family. Visit their nearby, rather spooky tombs, then head off across the river to the Castelvecchio, another impressive stronghold built by the Scaligeris. This is now a wonderful art gallery.

The dates for Carnival change every year, as they’re connected to the liturgical year rather than the calendar year. In 2016, Carnevale takes place January 23 through February 09. While Carnival in Venice may have been more wild centuries ago, the modern version is much more stately. Acting troupes and performers engage in various forms of “commedia dell'arte," or improvised performances of theater, juggling and comedy, and there's also the epic proportions of traditional Venetian food and wine that are consumed. Whenever you choose to join in the festivities, you’ll first have to choose a mask. Throughout the festival, revelers conceal their identities with various styles of the fashionable face covers, while some historians believe masks were originally used during Carnival to erase the lines between classes in a very class-driven society, allowing people from all walks of life to mingle in a way that was impossible at any other time of year.