Your tour begins at a central gondola station, where a friendly host awaits. After your small group has gathered, step into the gondola, settle onto the cushioned seats, and feel the boat sway as your gondolier pushes off. Within moments the city opens up around you, lined with towering palaces, sun-bleached façades, and striped mooring poles rising straight from the water. You drift through Venice at eye level the way travelers have for centuries, every bend revealing another postcard stretch of canal, before gliding back to the same station to round out your half-hour on the water.