VELTRA tours & activities, fun things to do

We did two tours: the Venice Walking Tour in the morning and the Golden Basilica tour in the afternoon. Somehow I was able to book these two tours together as one package at the time. I found that both tours are only so so. The local tour operator was also very dis-organized. We had trouble finding the meeting place and even after we finally arrived, we still had to wait at least 20 minutes for them to sort out the audio device. The morning walking tour was especially a waste of time. The female local tour guide was very poor in English, most of the time you couldn't understand what she was saying. We went through most of the places she took us the day before, and we thought she would take us to places which most locals would go but we were disappointed. In the afternoon, they took in a few last minutes tourists, we we had to wait for them to sort things out before the tour could start. I would have to say it's good to visit the Basilica at around noon as the whole basilica was light up for half an hour at noon. It's worth while to see the gold mosaics illuminated with lights which you otherwise won't be able to see during any other time of the day. Again, the female tour guide has poor command of English so you have to pay attention to understand the history she was trying to tell you. If you just want to visit the Basilica and don't care about the lighting at noon, you can be there at the Basilica at arount 9:00 in the morning as there was no line up then.