Highlights and Hidden Gems Night Tour in Venice

Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta detta I Gesuiti

5 min

Giddily over the top even by rococo standards, this impressive building is a gaudy, glitzy 18th century Jesuit church. Almost impossible to take a picture in all at once!

Scuola Grande di San Marco

5 min

Instead of a father son sunday soccer play, sculptor Pietro Lombardo and his sons had something more ambitious in mind: a high Renaissance polychrome marble facade for the most important confraternity in Venice! Mauro Codussi put the finishing touches of this gem, particularly beautiful at the sunset or at night.
Magnificent lions of St. Mark prowl above the portals, while sculpted trompe l’oeil perspective beguile the eye.
Nowadays this beatiful building is hosting a public hospital

Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo

5 min

Named after two minor martyrs of early Christian Rome, Santi Giovanni e Paolo, elided to san Zanipolo in Venetian dialect, this church was designed to make worshippers feel small and reverential.
The cavernous interior (90m by 38 meters) could accommodate virtually half of the population of the neighbourhood n the 14th century.
Its 33m high nabe is reinforced by a clever series of cross-beams - necessary because of Venice’s waterlogged soil.
Typical of Italian gothic (and different from the French one), its exteriors and interiors have a barnlike simplicity.
Rarest of all is the surviving 15th century stained glass in the south transept, created in the closeby Murano.
For centuries Zanipolo was the site of the Doge’s funerals and the walls are punctuated by 25 of their lavish tombs.

Equestrian Statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni

5 min

Bartolomeo Colleoni ‘s galloping bronze equestrian statue is one of the only two such public monuments in Venice. It commemorates one of Venice most loyal mercenary commanders: from 1448 Coleoni commanded armies for the Republic of Venice, though in true mercenary from he switched side a couple of times when he had been stiffed on pay or promotions!

Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Miracoli

5 min

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Mercati di Rialto

5 min

The market place in Venice is Rialto: its fish and vegetable market in the morning is noisy, raw, authentic and full of true venetian life.
In the night is a quiet place to walk through (with a fish smell!) and one of the hotspot of Venetian nightlife.

Ponte delle Tette

5 min

This bridge is know since the 15th century as “Tits Bridge”. Back in those days, shadowy porticos around this bridge sheltered a designated red light district where neighbourhood prostitutes were encouraged to display their wares in windows instead of taking marketing campaigns to the streets in their legendary platform shoes.

Campo Santa Margherita

5 min

Even in the dead of winter and the heat of the summer, you can count on action here in Venice at night. The oblong, unruly square features a bevy of beverage temptations with several wine bars and restaurants. During the day it hosts a small regular weekday market, an flea market once a week and periodic political protests.

Campo San Barnaba

5 min

This square and church may look familiar, even for newcomers in Venice.
A scene in the 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was shot in the Campo San Barnaba in front of the church, with the church's façade as an imaginary library. Indiana was then escaping from the library through an undergoing tunnel (which of course does not exist) ending up in the middle of this square, surprising elegant italian families having an ice cream.
Also an inconic scene from the movie “Summer Time” (1955) was show shot here, with Catherine Hepburn falling into a nearby canal.

Ponte dell'Accademia

5 min

This wooden bridge was built in 37 days in 1933, to replace a corroded 1854 steel bridge) and was meant to be temporary. It is still here!
It connects Dorsoduro and the Gallerie dell'Accademia with San Marco district offering one of the most scenografic view above Canal Grande

Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute

5 min

This church is a monumental sigh of relief (Salute means health), placed in the final part of the Canal Grande, when the canal ends up into the basin of Saint Mark.. This splendid domed church was commissioned by Venice’s plague survivors as thanks for salvation.

Punta della Dogana

5 min

This warehouse (Dogana means Customs) has been built in 1677 by Giuseppe Benoni to ensure no ship entered the canal Grande without paying duties
It has been renovated and reopened in 2009 (after an intervention by Tadao Ando) and now it belongs to the french Collectionist Pinaul (together with Palazzo Grassi). It is now a art space helding exhibitions organised bt the Pinault collection.
From the top you can enjoy a magnific view spotting in one shot The Doge’s Palace, Piazza San Marco, the island of San Giorgio, the Canal Grande, the Canal Della Giudecca and the Giudecca island with the Zitelle and Redentore church and the Venice Giardini.