Venice is situated about 3 hours driving from Florence, which means that you can visit Venice, stay there for several hours and go back in the same day. While we would definitely recommend spending at least 2 days in Venice, if you don't have the time the next best thing is to take a day tour from Florence. These tours are quite long so be prepared for a long day, but a really amazing one!
Venice has so many sights to visit that it would take several pages to write a meaningful list of attractions, but just to mention a few that you shouldn't miss:
the San Marco square (St Mark's Square) with the St. Mark's Basilica, the Doge's Palace, the Grand Canal, Rialto Bridge, Bridge of Sighs, and many others. But it's not only the specific sights that are at the hearth of Venice. The city atmosphere is just something out of the ordinary. There are no cars, no bikes, only boats. This includes public transportation by so called Vaporettos, and you even see police boats, post office boats, garbage boats... And lots of gondolas. Gondolas are not used so much for transportation but are a tourist attraction and it's a nice experience and a memorable one for sure. A thing to note is that
all gondoliers are organized by the local administration and so they
have to keep the same prices. They will probably not risk loosing their licence just to give you a discount, so just pick the friendliest gondolier and enjoy the ride!
Being such a popular destination, there are some downsides to
Venice - the services can be really pricey. And when you have a bad experience with for example a restaurant, you feel that it's a tourist trap and that you were cheated. This happens in a lot of very popular tourist destinations, so we suggest that you don't pay that much attention to it, but rather
enjoy the beautiful sights, atmosphere, enjoy the boat rides, the bridges, the architecture. After all, you didn't come to Venice for the pizza!
While Venice is one of the top destinations to visit in Italy, being a bit far from Florence there not so many guests deciding to book only a day tour. This means that the offer is a bit limited but still there are some good options, such as going by a minivan (or coach) or by booking return train tickets. We are at your disposal if you have additional questions about booking a day tour to Venice from Florence!