Pocket Venice

In Rick Steves Pocket Venice you'll find only the best of Venice — admittedly a tough call! The core of this book is eight self-guided walks and tours that zero in on Venice's greatest sights and neighborhoods; the rest of the book is a traveler's tool kit:​​

• Practicalities
  • Advice on planning your time and avoiding lines
  • ​​Getting around Venice on foot and by vaporetto, traghetto, and water taxi
  • Basic tips on shopping, nightlife, managing money, communicating, reserving rooms, handling emergencies, and other helpful hints
• Self-guided walks and rides
  • Grand Canal cruise
  • St. Mark's to Rialto
  • Rialto to Frari Church
  • St. Mark's to San Zaccaria
• Self-guided tours
  • St. Mark's Square
  • St. Mark's Basilica
  • Doge's Palace
  • Frari Church
• More great sights: Descriptions, ratings, hours, and prices of Venice's other top attractions, from La Fenice to the Accademia to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection to the Jewish Ghetto, and beyond
• Where to stay: Condensed listings for recommended hotels in easy-to-browse tables
• Where to eat: Condensed listings for recommended cafés and restaurants in easy-to-browse tables
• And more
  • Handy, full-color, 11" x 20" foldout map: Venice overview, St. Mark's Square, and the Rialto Area on one side; on the other: the Venetian lagoon (with an outline of Rick's suggested lagoon tour), along with larger map showing most of Italy
  • More full-color maps of Venice's neighborhoods and floor plans of museums and churches
  • Handy Italian survival phrases

What's the difference between this Pocket guide and Rick's other Venice guidebook?

Rick Steves Pocket Venice works best for people taking a short trip, or perhaps a return trip, to Venice. Like our other Pocket guides, Pocket Venice is smaller than the complete guidebook (and in full color), but still offers our best sightseeing advice, a handful of self-guided city walks and museum tours, and a foldout map.

For travelers who want to delve deep into Venice, the full-size Rick Steves Venice guidebook is a better option. It offers more substantial (and more frequently updated) advice on every front: practicalities, sightseeing, self-guided tours, hotels, restaurants, nightlife, shopping, kids' activities, and the city's history and culture, plus complete chapters on the best day trips.​

Latest updates: When we learn of critical changes to the information in our guidebooks on Italy, we post them. (Of course, it's still smart to reconfirm critical transportation and sightseeing details locally.) Armed with a Rick Steves guidebook and these late-breaking updates, you're set for a great trip!

Submit feedback: Once you've used this book in Europe, we'd love to hear your feedback — good or bad — about our advice on sights, hotels, restaurants, and travel tips. We're also interested in any tips or discoveries you made while in Europe. Your comments help us improve our guidebooks for future travelers.