There’s nothing like exploring a city with a local to discover the hidden corners and quirky stories you’d otherwise miss – and a tour of Venice with kids is the perfect way to keep children entertained as you walk.
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With a choice of tours of Venice for kids, we loved our experience with Lucia from Venice Walks and Tours, a fabulous scavenger hunt starting in the oldest part of the city and taking us to the Rialto Market, and through the streets to the Basilica San Marco.
But as well as visiting some of the key landmarks and sights of the floating city, we got a whistlestop journey through Venice’s history, spotted details we’d never have seen otherwise, and learned tips on everything from navigating the maze of alleys to finding the best gelato in Venice – just for starters.
Where better to start than at the beginning, in San Polo – the oldest of Venice’s six sestiere – at the Campo San Giacomo di Rialto, home to the city’s oldest church.
After a brief introduction to Venice’s geography by Lucia, including a chance for us all to decide which animal we thought the map of La Serenissima looked like, we picked our group name (‘The Lion Hunters’) and set off to track down the first places on our Venice treasure hunt.
It’s the perfect way to get kids engaged: my daughter can be shy with strangers at first, but Lucia is fantastic with kids and soon had her chatting away as we scampered around the square looking for the first places on the scavenger hunt tour.
With so many centuries of history behind almost every stone, it took us 15 minutes to make it out of the first square – a reminder of just how much there is to discover in the city.
For more ideas of the best things to do in Venice with kids, check out my top picks
The statue, Il Gobbo di Rialto, for example is quirky for kids to look at and also has a string of stories attached to it – it could supposedly communicate with the talking statues of Rome, where satirical notes about those in power would be attached to the base.
Around the corner sits the Rialto market, which has been feeding the citizens of Venice from this site for over 900 years.
Between spotting the catches of the day and eyeing up the fabulous fresh produce, we learned more about where local fruit and vegetables are grown in the lagoon, got tips on great places to eat and snack as we explored, and found more historic details to tick off on our hunt.
While many tourists visit the Rialto market, most will head back over the bridge to San Marco or down to Dorsoduro without exploring the oldest part of the city.
Without a guide, you certainly wouldn’t appreciate everything that’s to be found in this maze of narrow, twisting alleys: a round opening at the base of a door to roll barrels through, curved brick or stone structures in the corners of buildings to stop men, ahem, using them as toilets.
You know you’ve found the best tour in Venice for kids when it’s got all the gruesome and yucky bits of history left in!
I also felt less bad at constantly losing my bearings when Lucia explained how Venice’s confusing street and house numbering system came into effect as well.
Although handily she also had a tip on how to navigate the city, with letters showing the district on lampposts, as well as the occasional signs on the walls showing which area you were entering.
For more tips on visiting Venice with kids, check out my complete set
As we strolled, we had a bonus game to play – spotting lions. The symbol of Venice, they’re on the city’s flag, as well as sitting proudly on top of columns, on door-knockers, decorating shops and countless other places.
We got to 100 lions impressively fast, but it was a handy game to play for the rest of our day in Venice too.
Along the way, as we walked along the Ruga dei Oresi and its painted arcades to the Rialto Bridge, there were more stories of the city – including a slightly rude and risque one about the carving of the woman with flames!
The tale behind it? Ah, you have to go on the tour to find out…
Lucia was a fount of information, pointing out the pharmacy where you can find the current population of Venice and an older one with a golden head above the door, famed for its cure-all concoction (which turns out to have contained opium).
We learned more about Venice’s famous cicchetti and where to find them (as well as the places where Venetians go to eat, away from the tourist traps), how to tell a real gondola from a sandalo and why you can walk through countless squares but there’s only one piazza in the city.
We crossed the bridge to heaven, mimicked grotesque faces on buildings and found out how aristocratic Venetian ladies made the most of the Italian sun and the city’s tall buildings to get the fashionable blonde-haired but still pale-skinned look.
Around every corner, there was a new fact to learn or unexpected sight to spot, all told in a child-friendly and engaging way – with thieving monks, a long-running feud with Istanbul, a sinking city and the notorious enforcers and informers of the Council of Ten, Venice’s history is never dull, after all!
Eventually our Venice tour led us to the Piazza San Marco, home to the city’s famous basilica and the Doge’s Palace itself.
We’d prebooked tickets to enter the Basilica and see the Pala D’Oro, with some more tips on how best to do it from Lucia – the big bonus of a private tour of Venice with kids is that you can also adapt what it includes, so she very kindly accompanied us inside to reveal some of the basilica’s secrets.
Then after learning the secret behind the two red columns on the Palazzo Ducale, where the Doge would announce death sentences – and heading to another nearby column to attempt the nearby impossible challenge which would let the condemned escape execution, almost three hours had gone by, apparently in a flash.
With everything ticked off our scavenger hunt, there was one last bonus on our fantastic family friendly tour of Venice: finding out about the best free view in Venice at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, where Lucia had booked us free tickets to go and enjoy looking down onto the Grand Canal for ourselves.
Not to mention testing out her recommendation for the best gelato in Venice too!
Well, you can’t have a great tour of Venice for kids without some ice cream…
For more of the best things to do in Venice with kids, check out my top picks
Tour of Venice with kids: need to know
Venice Walks and Tours has several different choices for families if you want to take a tour of Venice with kids, including the highlights of Venice and routes off the beaten track.
You can also arrange tailor-made tours and personalised options, as well as heading inside the Doge’s Palace or making your own Venice carnival mask.
Check out my complete guide to Italy with kids for more information and family travel inspiration
Disclosure: Our tour was free for the purposes of review – all opinions about whether this is the best tour in Venice for kids are my own (and my daughter’s!) This post contains affiliate links – any purchases you make are unaffected but I may receive a small commission
Images copyright MummyTravels
