DOGE’S PALACE · VENICE
Gilded halls, hidden prisons, the Bridge of Sighs.
The seat of the Venetian Republic, right on Piazza San Marco. Skip-the-line tickets, guided tours, the Secret Itineraries through Casanova’s prison, and combinations with St Mark’s Basilica next door. Every way in, compared.
Only at Palazzo Ducale
Three doors only this palace opens.
Every Venice itinerary has a gondola and a basilica. These three belong to the Doge’s Palace alone: the passages the Republic kept secret, the bridge its prisoners crossed, and the loggia high above Piazza San Marco.
Behind the panelling
The Secret Itineraries
A small group slips through doors the public route never opens: the wood-panelled chancellery where the Republic filed its secrets, the cramped Piombi cells beneath the lead roof, and the very room Casanova broke out of in 1756. You walk the passages, then come out into the grand halls.
- 1 Venice: Doge’s Palace Prisons & Secret Itineraries Guided Tour
- 2 Venice: Doges Palace, Prison, and Secret Passageways Tour
- 3 Venice 3,5 hrs tour: Doge’s Palace, St Mark’s and Hidden Gems
Across the canal
The Bridge of Sighs & the Prisons
Every gondola photographs the little enclosed bridge from below. Inside, you cross it the way the condemned did, between the interrogation rooms and the New Prisons. The name is for the prisoners’ last look at the lagoon through the stone lattice; the damp Pozzi cells wait on the far side.
- 1 Venice: Doge’s Palace, Bridge of Sighs & Prisons Guided Tour
- 2 Venice: Doge’s Palace Skip-the-Line Tour with Prisons
- 3 Venice Doge’s Palace & Prisons Tour
Above the loggia
The Terrace & Sky Walk
Step out onto the upper loggia and the whole of Piazza San Marco opens below you, level with the basilica’s golden mosaics and its four bronze horses. It is the one vantage that frames the campanile, the domes and the lagoon all in a single look.
- 1 Doge’s Palace & St. Mark’s Basilica with Terrace Access Tour
- 2 Legendary Venice: Doge’s Palace, St Mark’s & VIP Terrace Access
- 3 Venice: Private Entry Doge Palace & St. Mark Terraces Tour
Before you book
Which way into the palace?
There is more than one ticket on Piazza San Marco, and the right one depends on how far in you want to go. Four routes, from a straight walk-in to the passages behind the panelling.
Start here
If you book one thing, book this.
The single most-booked way into the Doge’s Palace right now. A safe first choice while you are still weighing the rest.
The favourites
The Most Popular Ways to Visit
Doge’s Palace with St Mark’s Basilica, skip-the-line entry, the Bridge of Sighs, the Secret Itineraries. The tickets and tours travellers book most.
St Mark’s Square
The finest drawing room in Europe.
Napoleon’s line for Piazza San Marco, and the palace holds one whole side of it. Next door stands the golden basilica; above it, the campanile; around it, the Correr and the long arcades. Most visitors take the palace and the basilica together: one booking, both queues skipped.
Around the square
The palace, and everything beside it.
St Mark’s Basilica shares a wall. The campanile rises over the piazza. The Correr lines the far end. Then the gondolas, the Rialto and the glass-blowers of the lagoon.
How to visit
Or choose how you go in.
Skip-the-line if your time is short. A guide if you want the stories. A small group for the Secret Itineraries. Private if it should be just you, or pair the palace with St Mark’s next door.
After the gates close
The palace after dark.
The day-trippers are gone, the chambers are quiet and the courtyard is lit. Evening and after-hours visits trade the queues for near-empty halls. Three worth staying out for.
The rest of Venice
When you’ve done the palace.
A gondola through the back canals, the Rialto arching over the Grand Canal, the glass furnaces of Murano and the painted houses of Burano. The city the doges actually ruled. A few favourites to carry the day on.
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