One day in Venice: a timed itinerary with tickets and transport

One day in Venice is doable, as long as you choose. You arrive at Santa Lucia station or Piazzale Roma, and from there you have two options: the classic day around San Marco, Rialto and Dorsoduro, or a day on the lagoon between Murano, Burano and Torcello. Trying to do everything means spending half your time on the vaporetto. Below you’ll find both itineraries with real opening times, the bookings to make in advance and an exact breakdown of your transport costs.

Arriving: station, Piazzale Roma, Tronchetto

Santa Lucia station opens straight onto the Grand Canal: the Ferrovia landing stage is in front of the steps, and lines 1, 2, 3, 4.1, 4.2 and 5 leave from there. Piazzale Roma, where buses, trams and cars arrive, is on the opposite bank, a few minutes’ walk across the Ponte della Costituzione. If you arrive by car and park at Tronchetto, the People Mover takes you to Piazzale Roma in 3–4 minutes (€1.50).

From Marco Polo airport, the ATVO Express bus reaches Piazzale Roma in about 20 minutes (€12), while Alilaguna takes you straight to San Marco by water (€18). If you’re staying in Mestre, take the train to Santa Lucia (about 10 minutes) or the tram to Piazzale Roma on the €1.50 land-network ticket: far less than the €9.50 vaporetto fare. The 24-hour ACTV pass also covers regional trains within the municipality. Staying overnight in accommodation in the municipality, Mestre included, exempts you from the access fee, but you still need to register on cda.ve.it.

Before you go: three things to sort out

Book St Mark’s Basilica. Entry is only with an online ticket, in your name and with a time slot, on sale up to 90 days ahead at tickets.basilicasanmarco.it (€10; €20 with the Museum and the Loggia dei Cavalli). At the door you may be asked for ID and the card you paid with. Monday to Saturday it opens at 9:30; on Sundays only from 14:00.

Choose a time slot for the Doge’s Palace. The St Mark’s Square Museums ticket costs €35, or €30 if you buy it at least 30 days ahead. Holders of a ticket without a time slot are admitted to the Doge’s Palace only from 12:00: if you want to visit in the morning, book a slot.

Check the access fee. On days set each year by the city council, mostly spring and early-summer weekends, day visitors entering the historic centre between 8:30 and 16:00 pay €5 (at least 4 days ahead) or €10. The lagoon islands are excluded. Details and exemptions are on our access fee page.

And leave your bags before you head into the city: the Civic Museums refuse suitcases whose three sides add up to more than one metre, and the Basilica won’t accept backpacks bigger than 40 × 30 × 20 cm.

Itinerary 1: San Marco, Rialto and Dorsoduro

The classic route, with just two vaporetto rides and everything else on foot.

Variations. If you’d rather have the view than the museum, swap the Accademia or Guggenheim for the St Mark’s Campanile (€15, by lift), which stays open until 21:15 in summer. On Sundays reverse the order: Doge’s Palace in the morning and the Basilica from 14:00; the Rialto market is closed on Sundays. If you’re staying into the evening, the gondola costs €110 for 35 minutes from 19:00, and on summer Fridays and Saturdays the Doge’s Palace is open until 23:00.

Total official tickets for one adult: €19 of vaporetto, €10 for the Basilica, €35 for the Doge’s Palace and €17–20 for a Dorsoduro museum, so €81–84, plus the access fee if it applies.

Itinerary 2: Murano, Burano and Torcello

For anyone who has already seen San Marco or prefers the lagoon to the crowds. The islands are outside the access-fee area.

On Torcello the basilica opens at 10:30 and in winter closes at 17:00; the Lace Museum closes at 16:00. If you’re travelling between November and February, do Burano earlier and leave Murano till last, because the Glass Museum closes at 17:00. Organised tours on Tiqets cost less than doing it yourself (€20–25 for Murano and Burano, with a glass demonstration), but they often leave only 30–40 minutes on Torcello. All the details are on our Murano, Burano and Torcello pages.

Vaporetto: single tickets or a 24-hour pass?

The €9.50 ACTV ticket is valid for 75 minutes from validation, with changes, and must be validated every time you board. The 24-hour pass costs €25 and starts from the first validation. The maths is simple: three single rides cost €28.50, so from the third ride the pass is cheaper.

Children under 6 travel free. Tickets are sold in the AVM Venezia app, on veneziaunica.it, at ticket offices and at the machines at the main landing stages; on Tiqets the pass starts from €12 depending on the duration you choose. Lines, timetables and luggage rules are explained on our vaporetto page.

If it rains, if there’s acqua alta, if you have children

In the rain the classic itinerary holds up well, because half the day is indoors: stretch the Doge’s Palace with the Museo Correr, included in the same ticket, and drop the Zattere stroll. The islands itinerary suffers, because you spend a lot of time outdoors and waiting on landing stages. Between October and January acqua alta can flood St Mark’s Square for a few hours around high tide: sirens announce it, raised walkways keep the main routes open up to about 120 cm, and some vaporetto stops may be skipped.

With children, bear a few rules in mind. Under-6s ride the vaporetto free, under-14s don’t pay the access fee and, according to the Procuratoria’s tariff, the Basilica is free for children under 10. At the Civic Museums, two adults with at least one young person up to 16 all pay the reduced price: €15 instead of €35 at the Doge’s Palace. Raised walkways and bridges are hard work with a pushchair, and on the Basilica terraces pushchairs must be folded.

Where to eat quickly

A quick Venetian lunch happens at the counter. In the bàcari you’ll find cicchetti (crostini with creamed salt cod, meatballs, sardines in saor) and an ombra of wine; at a bar, the tramezzino sandwich is what working Venetians eat. The best choice is around the Rialto market and in the streets towards Castello, away from the Piazza. Standing at the counter usually costs less than sitting at a table.

Two practical warnings. Eating while sitting on the ground, on the steps of the arcades or on bridges is banned throughout the centre, with fines from €25 to €500: for a sandwich, use the benches in the campi. And at the tables of the historic cafés on St Mark’s Square, when the orchestra is playing, there’s a per-person music supplement. On the islands, Burano is the place for a sit-down fish lunch.

The top ten Venice attractions in one day

Of the ten most visited Venice attractions, a classic day covers seven without rushing: St Mark’s Square, the Basilica, the Doge’s Palace, the Grand Canal by vaporetto, the Rialto Bridge, one of the Gallerie dell’Accademia and the Peggy Guggenheim, and the Salute. Left out are the Campanile, which you can swap for the museum, the other Dorsoduro museum and the islands of Murano and Burano, which need the second itinerary. The full ranking, with ten more ideas, is in Things to do in Venice.

Online combos: when they make sense

The official ticket is still the cheapest: the Doge’s Palace and the Basilica bought separately cost €45. The Tiqets Doge’s Palace and St Mark’s Basilica combo costs €76.50; the St. Mark’s Square Pass, which adds the Campanile, costs €67.50 against €60 officially. They make sense when the Basilica is sold out on the Procuratoria’s site, when you’ve already used your account’s 5 tickets for the year, or when you want a single purchase for the whole morning. Check each product’s listing for exactly what’s included and the meeting time.

If you have more than one day, the €50 MUVE Museum Pass covers the Doge’s Palace and ten more civic museums for six months, including the Glass Museum on Murano.