Handpicked experience · Venice
Venice, Italy
A ride in a boat that is built crooked on purpose, rowed with one oar by someone who is almost certainly not going to sing, along canals worth choosing carefully.
Discover the City of Water from a new perspective aboard the famous gondola
With thousands of years of history, riding the gondola is easily one of the must-do activities when in Venice
Admire the beautiful buildings that look like they're floating on the emerald green waters Venice is famous for
Be serenaded by local musicians as the sun sets on the beautiful City of Water
A shared gondola ride taking in the Grand Canal and the smaller canals behind it
Palazzo fronts and bridges seen from the water, close to
A ride that suits sunset and quiet occasions
There were once around ten thousand gondolas working in Venice. There are now roughly four hundred, all licensed, all black, and all built to a design that has barely changed in three centuries because it solves a problem nothing else solves. Half an hour in one is the shortest way to understand why the city looks the way it does from the water.
Boarding at a landing stage, then a circuit that takes in a stretch of the main waterway and a run through the narrower canals behind it, with the palace fronts and the bridges close overhead.
Thirty minutes is the standard length of a Venetian gondola ride, and it is what the city's own tariff is written around. Where a sailing is sold as sixty minutes, that is the time on the water and not the time from the quayside.
The best thing about it, and almost nobody notices. A gondola is not symmetrical: the left side is built about twenty-four centimetres longer than the right, so the hull sits tilted in the water and wants to turn. That built-in curve is exactly what cancels out the push of a single oar worked on one side, which is how one person standing at the back can drive an eleven-metre boat in a straight line without ever changing sides. The whole craft is a solution to rowing one-handed.
Not a style choice. Venetian families competed so extravagantly in decorating their boats that a sixteenth-century sumptuary law banned ornament and ordered them all painted black. The law went; the black stayed, and it is now what the boats are.
Said plainly, because it is the commonest disappointment. Gondoliers are rowers, not performers, and singing is not part of the job or of this arrangement. Where you hear music, it is a separate singer and accordionist hired for a particular boat, usually a much larger booking. Expect a quiet ride and be pleased if it is otherwise.
Something to look at while you wait. The steel comb on the bow has six teeth pointing forward, traditionally taken to stand for the six districts of the city, and one pointing back for the island across the water. The curve above them is said to echo the shape of the Doge's cap. None of this is documented anywhere official, which is very Venetian.
This is what decides whether you enjoy it. The main waterway is wide, busy and churned by the wash of passing boats; the small canals behind it are quiet, narrow, and where the walls come close enough to touch. A good route spends most of its time in the second sort. Say which you would rather have as you board, not afterwards.
Worth being clear about. The city sets the rate per gondola rather than per head, and a boat carries up to five. On a shared booking you are sharing it with whoever else booked that slot, at conversational distance, for the whole ride. It is a perfectly good way to do this, but it is not the private boat in the photographs.
Open it to pick a date and work out the price.
What the fare covers, and what to budget for separately.
The practical detail, and the answers people actually ask for.
Thirty minutes is the standard length in Venice and is what the city's tariff is built around. Where a sailing is sold as sixty minutes, the hour is time on the water rather than time from the quayside.
Deliberately. The left side is about twenty-four centimetres longer than the right, so the hull tilts and wants to turn — which exactly cancels the push of a single oar worked from one side. That is how one person rows an eleven-metre boat straight.
A sixteenth-century sumptuary law ended the competitive decoration of private boats and ordered them painted black. The law has gone and the colour has stayed.
Almost certainly not. Gondoliers are rowers and singing is not part of the job or of this booking. Music on the water comes from a singer and accordionist hired separately for a specific boat.
Six point forward, traditionally taken as the city's six districts, and one points back for the island opposite. The curve above is said to echo the Doge's cap. None of it is officially documented.
More than the duration. The main waterway is wide and churned by other boats; the narrow canals behind it are quiet and close. Ask which your ride favours before you step in.
Whoever else booked the same slot. The rate is set per boat rather than per person and a gondola takes up to five, so a shared ride means sharing at close quarters for its whole length.