Private Tour: Venice Art and Architecture Walking Tour

We got a lot more cultural history and less art and architecture than we expected. Still the tour was valuable and enjoyable. Our guide arrived promptly and went out of her way to get us to our next destination, very sweet. We were a group of 4, vox boxes were not used which made it a little challenging for one member of our group who was hearing impaired. Viator should be sure every group no matter how small has access to these.

Unfortunately this wasn't quite the tour I'd hoped it was. I enjoyed the first part walking through the streets and learning a little about 1 or 2 buildings but felt that a lot of the buildings were overlooked. We stopped at a beautiful Church that I'd actually studied whilst at University but the questions I had couldn't be answered. Any other buildings we passed that looked beautiful were only mentioned in passing, I asked for more but nothing. There were also some difficulties with language translations and I couldn't always understand the guide- thankfully I and my mum speak a little Italian so could translate the odd unrecognised word for the group. The tour seemed to go down hill further after we entered San Giovanni. Now I love religious Art, and particularly sculpture.So this place should have been ideal for me. But the guide made it dull and boring, I found myself chipping in to keep my partner entertained. There was so much more that could have been said on interesting pieces that the guide didn't want to discuss. So we followed her to her favourite pieces and were given information that was not only confusing to understand but extremely uninteresting. I really did not feel this tour was worth the money as I could have gained more insight on buildings from a guide book and could have given the tour of the church a miss. After the guide left us outside the church, my group decided to go sit in a cafe and have a few drinks as we didn't feel we'd had fun and felt drained. I left feeling it was a waste of money, and as it was a gift for my Dad's birthday I was thoroughly disappointed.

We enjoyed this tour. Our guide was well informed and took us places we would have never found on our own.

Very well informed guide who was happy to discuss any aspect of Italian history, culture and politics as well as the introduction to Venetian Art and architecture we had expected. He was flexible and accommodating tailoring the tour to our interests. Had we visited the churches we did without him we would have missed so much...pointing out detail and anecdote which would have otherwise passed us by. Our children (8 and 13) also thoroughly enjoyed themselves. I would recommend this tour for anyone visiting Venice.