Hi All,

I am planning to travel to venice and i will be there for a day reaching at 5 pm and leaving at 5 pm. I would like to enjoy a gondola ride and i do not see any tour which is there after 5pm, does that mean around 28th december there are no gondola rides in teh city after 6pm?

Please do let me know as i would like to change my iternary incase...

Thanks!
D

ttt...

It's hard to imagine there is any time when gondola rides aren't available. If someone can confirm that all the hundreds of gondoliers are for some reason taking a holiday that day, I'll be very surprised. I am unclear what you mean by "i do not see any tour which is there. . ." What does a tour have to do with doing a gondola ride?

Actually, NeoP -there are a LOT less gondoliere at the time (due to the cold, side canals freezing up) than there are obviously when it gets warmer. Late Dec. /Jan. is when most gondoliere take holiday, so it is possible that very few will be out-and particularly if it happens to be snowy weather-there'd be none.

Also-there are loaded up gondola tours-in other words, you can take a gondola ride as part of a tour, and they rope a couple of them together, with 10 or 15 people on each, and there's a singing gondoliere -I've seen that many a warm summer night on the Grand Canal-but I'm thinking not around Dec. 28.

Hi D,

It does get cold in Dec.

You don't need to book a tour. Just find a gondola and haggle over the price.

For 50 cts you can take a traghetto across the grand canal.

No singing, and everyone stands, but it is cheap.

We were there in Feb. and it was very cold and the water was very rough. There were a few gondolas in operation that day. We rode the water bus and loved it.

We were there in February 2003 and the weather was cool but clear.

There was a full moon and we had a memorable ride on smooth water. We even took a bottle of wine with us.

There were plenty of gondolas afloat that night.

Byrd

I think I was misunderstood. Sure, as there is less demand, there are fewer gondoliers. But my comment was that I couldn't imagine NONE being available. If there were more people looking for rides regularly than there are gondoliers, I can assure you many wouldn't be going on vacation then. The reason there are so few available at certain times is because there is far less demand for them.

Hi

they are available. I went on one by moonlight after dinner. The singing is extra and quite expensive.

You can negotiate prices at the Gondola station in front of the Doges Palace.

If on a budget, you can take the public maxi Gondola (no singing !) across the Grand canal.

Peter
www.the-languedoc-page.com

Thanks all for your replies..
I am really excited about the gondola ride n i hope i cna enjoy it!!

D

Check out http://tinyurl.com/yy35mg for a serenade tour.