Doge's Palace Guided Tour

That the tour didn't start at the Doge's Palace but already above St. Mark's Square with a lot of background knowledge. The process from the meeting point and organization to the entrance at the various points. Very understandable and expert explanations.

Phillipo was a terrific guide and we learnt lots from him about Venice and its history. It was great in a smaller group and to be in the palace with not too many other people. Going from the bottom prisons through to all the levels of government was a great way to understand the system

My wife and I, having arrived in Venice by train only ninety minutes earlier, at the height of our excitement already along the water cab ride to the landing on the Riva degli Schiavoni, at fifteen o'clock on May 18, 2025, move from the nearby hotel to the place agreed upon when we purchased tickets online for direct access to the magnificent monument. One of the efficient and courteous young people at the Tour Shop in Campo San Zaccaria escorts to the southern portico of the Doges' Palace the group of those who, like us, had booked the tour and entrusts them to the various experts, depending on the nationalities of those present. Professional and clear, our Italian guide begins by telling us about the symbolic value, for the city, of Mars and Neptune, whose statues stand in the courtyard at the top of the Scala dei Giganti: the two classical deities are expressions of Venice's power both on land and sea. We ascend to the Gothic loggia, then to the first piano nobile-formerly the Doge's residence-along the Golden Staircase, so named for the gleam of the gold-leaf coverings of its stucco decorations. We continue our visit to the second piano nobile and contemplate the sumptuous vaulting of the Sala del Collegio, embellished with paintings by Paolo Veronese, completed in 1578. Between the two figures of Mars and Neptune is painted the winged lion of St. Mark, symbol of the lagoon city. The "Venetian blond" that characterizes the hair of female figures is highlighted, for example in the allegory of Dialectic, shown in the act of weaving a spider web. "Venetian terrazzo" is the mixture of cement and stone fragments that has been used in the city for floors over the centuries; our guide tells us about it as we stand in the enormous Great Council Chamber. Here, on an entire wall we admire Jacopo Tintoretto's Il Paradiso (Paradise), completed in 1592, crowded with characters, painted - the guide explains to us - on a single 24-and-a-half-foot-long canvas, specially made to be woven by the master. The black panel in the frieze of the doges represents the "damnatio memoriæ" of Marino Faliero, who was beheaded in 1355 for having wanted to conspire against the city's patriciate, aiming at the establishment of a tyrannical regime. During the passage in the Bridge of Sighs - in which in the past the condemned from the court to the prisons called the Wells passed - our escort tells us about the escape of Giacomo Casanova in 1756 from the Piombi, cells located higher up, under the roof of the palace. I am convinced that it would have been difficult to receive a warmer and more competent "Welcome to Venice!" than the one Headout reserved for my wife and me upon our arrival in the Serenissima.