Secret Itineraries Tour at Doge’s Palace

I had pre-purchased tickets for the 10:45am Secret Itineraries Tour at the Doge’s Palace, but this was another case in which Italian tardiness helped me, as I had underestimated the time it took to get to Doge’s Palace from the main plaza.  After a 40 minute vaporetto ride to San Marco, I arrived at the palace right at 10:00am, but still had to line up to grab my pre-purchased tickets. It was about 10:55am before I finally found the meeting place for the tour, and thankfully, I bumped into two British ladies who told me they had been waiting for the tour since before 10:45am and hadn’t seen the guide just yet.  It all worked out in the end and this ended up being one of my favourite things I did on my trip.

We had about 20 people in our group and we were taken into rooms and areas that were off limits for people who held the regular admission tickets.  I learned a great deal about Casanova and the Venetian Doges and left thinking that I’ll have to look up more information once I returned home.

We even got to see one of the old torture devices that were often used.  In another part of the building, we were shown some doors that were designed to be camouflaged to look like closets.

Many of the rooms within the palace were intricately designed and many famous artists worked on creating the art that was on the walls of many of the rooms.

Lastly, perhaps the most well known part of the tour is the view of the Bridge of Sighs.  The bridge connects the interrogation rooms with the prison and is known to offer the convict’s last view of Venice before their imprisonment.

The tour lasted just over an hour and afterwards, we were free to explore the rest of the palace on our own.

As I mentioned earlier, it was one of my favourite tours and I came away from the tour with so much new knowledge.  I highly recommend this tour to anyone visiting the Doge’s Palace.  Tickets can be purchased directly on the Doge’s Palace Website.