Looking for fun things to do in Venice that go beyond walking between St. Mark’s Square and the Rialto Bridge? The city has plenty of ways to spend a few hours actually doing something: rowing a traditional Venetian boat, making a carnival mask, exploring the canals by kayak, learning how Murano glass is made or turning the streets into a giant puzzle.

The best fun activities in Venice are often the ones that make the city itself part of what you're doing. So rather than listing another set of places to visit, this guide focuses on hands-on, social and unusual experiences that work for couples, friends and families, with practical details to help you decide what fits your trip.

In this guide

Learn to Row a Traditional Venetian Boat
Make Your Own Venetian Mask
Explore Venice Through a Self-Guided Puzzle Trail
Try a Kayak Tour Through the Canals
Make Your Own Murano Glass Bead
Solve an Escape Room Inside a Venetian Palace
Take a Venetian Cooking Class
Look for Venice's Stranger Side
Spend an Evening Around Cicchetti and Local Bars

Learn to Row a Traditional Venetian Boat

Row Venice: Try Voga alla Veneta Yourself

A gondola ride lets you sit back and watch Venice pass by. Learning to row gives you a completely different relationship with the canals.

Row Venice offers private 80-minute lessons on traditional Venetian boats, with an instructor showing you the basic rowing technique before you head out onto the water. The lessons are available in English as well as Italian, and you don't need previous rowing experience.

The current price depends on the number of people in the boat: €100 for one or two people, €130 for three and €150 for four. A five-person batela is also available for €220. The price is calculated per boat, including people who are riding rather than rowing.

The lesson takes place on the quieter canals rather than following the same route as a standard sightseeing boat. You can also take turns trying the steering position if conditions allow.

Best fit: couples, families and anyone looking for one of the most genuinely Venetian things to do in Venice.

Make Your Own Venetian Mask

Learn One of Venice's Most Recognisable Crafts

Venetian masks are usually something you see behind glass in a souvenir shop. A mask-making workshop lets you get behind the scenes and decorate one yourself.

Several workshops in Venice offer sessions where you learn about the materials and techniques traditionally used to create and decorate Carnival masks. Depending on the workshop, you can work on a pre-made mask and concentrate on its decoration rather than making the papier-mâché base from scratch.

Current workshop options include sessions of roughly one hour, with prices around €45-€60 depending on the atelier and format. English-language sessions are available from some providers, so check the individual workshop when booking.

This is one of the easier unique things to do in Venice if you want to take something home that you actually made during your trip.

Best fit: couples, families, small groups and anyone looking for a creative souvenir rather than another purchased one.

Explore Venice Through a Self-Guided Puzzle Trail

ClueGo Venice: Turn the City Into a Game

If you'd rather stay outdoors and have the city itself as your playing field, ClueGo Venice combines a walking route with riddles based on the places you encounter along the way.

The trail covers about 4 km, takes roughly 2-4 hours, includes 11 stops and costs €19.99 per group of 1-5 people. It is available in English and Italian.

You don't need to meet a guide or start at a fixed time. After purchasing the game code, you open the ClueGo Web App on your smartphone, reach the starting point at Ponte delle Tette and follow the directions from one puzzle to the next.

The route includes major landmarks such as Rialto Bridge, St. Mark's Square, the Doge's Palace and Scala Contarini del Bovolo, while the puzzles also lead you to lesser-known details and places along the way.

You can pause the game and continue later, which makes it easier to fit around lunch, a museum visit or changing weather. The trail is entirely outdoors and the code can be activated within six months of purchase.

Best fit: friends, couples and families with older children who want to explore Venice while having something to solve along the way.

Try a Kayak Tour Through the Canals

See Venice From Water Level

Venice looks different when you're sitting almost at canal level. A kayak also takes you into parts of the city's waterways that feel very different from the Grand Canal.

Venice Kayak offers guided tours through the canals, with equipment, a kayak tutorial and an experienced guide included. The current canal tour lasts around 2 hours, is suitable for beginners and starts from €110.

Tours can be conducted in English, Italian or French. The route focuses on quieter canals and less obvious corners of the city rather than simply following the busiest sightseeing route.

This is more physically demanding than a vaporetto ride, but the listed tour difficulty is beginner level. You'll still need to be comfortable paddling and following the guide's instructions on the water.

Best fit: active travellers, couples and friends looking for unusual things to do in Venice away from the usual walking route.

Make Your Own Murano Glass Bead

Work With Glass Instead of Just Watching a Demonstration

A trip to Murano often means watching an artisan transform molten glass into a vase or sculpture. If you want something more hands-on, there are workshops where you can make a small glass object yourself.

One current Murano workshop lets participants create their own decorated glass bead under the supervision of glass artists. The experience includes a short introduction and demonstration before you work directly with the blowtorch under constant guidance.

The workshop is listed at around €44 per person and takes place in a professional studio in Murano. The activity is designed for beginners, so previous glassmaking experience isn't required.

It's a particularly good choice if you've already seen a traditional glass-blowing demonstration and want to do more than watch.

Best fit: creative travellers, couples and anyone interested in Venetian craftsmanship.

Take a Venetian Cooking Class

Learn to Make Local Food Instead of Just Eating It

Food is one of the easiest ways to spend an afternoon in Venice, but a cooking class gives you something to do with it.

The Istituto Venezia runs a Thursday cooking course where participants prepare traditional local and regional dishes under the supervision of chefs before sitting down to taste what they've made.

The current 2026 programme runs on Thursday afternoons from 5pm to 9pm. The listed price is €50 per person for students of the institute and €60 for people who aren't taking an Italian course.

The class combines cooking with an informal introduction to Venetian food culture, making it a useful option when you want an activity that naturally turns into dinner.

Best fit: couples, food lovers and travellers looking for a slower evening activity.

Look for Venice's Stranger Side

Go Beyond the Classic Postcard Views

Not every fun thing to do in Venice needs to involve booking an activity. Some of the city's most entertaining discoveries come from deliberately looking for things you wouldn't normally put on a first-time itinerary.

You could visit the Libreria Acqua Alta, where books are stored in boats and other containers because of the city's relationship with water. Or head to the flooded crypt of San Zaccaria, whose interior can be affected by the lagoon's water level.

Another option is to take a vaporetto to Murano and look for the so-called dragon bones inside the Basilica of Santa Maria e Donato. The bones are traditionally associated with a medieval legend, although they are generally considered to belong to a large marine animal.

These aren't conventional "activities", but they work particularly well when you're looking for unusual things to do in Venice Italy and want to add some curiosity to a day of walking.

Best fit: curious travellers, repeat visitors and anyone who likes strange stories more than standard sightseeing.

Spend an Evening Around Cicchetti and Local Bars

Turn an Aperitivo Into Part of the Experience

Venice has its own version of an evening food crawl: moving between bacari, the city's traditional small bars, and stopping for cicchetti with a drink.

You don't need a formal tour to do this. Pick a neighbourhood such as Cannaregio, San Polo or Dorsoduro and build your own evening around a few stops rather than sitting down for one long dinner.

Cicchetti are small savoury dishes traditionally served in Venetian bars, so the format works particularly well when you're travelling with friends and want to keep moving. Order a few different things at each stop and continue walking when you're ready.

For a more structured version, Row Venice also offers a Cicchetto Row, combining a Venetian rowing lesson with stops at two bàcari for cicchetti and wine.

It's one of the simplest ways to turn dinner into an activity and one of the better answers to fun things to do in Venice at night.

Best fit: adults, couples and groups of friends who want an informal evening rather than a scheduled show or attraction.

Frequently Asked Questions

Some of the most interactive choices are learning Venetian rowing, making a Carnival mask, kayaking through the canals, trying a glassmaking workshop or playing an escape room. If you'd rather stay outdoors, a self-guided puzzle trail lets you combine sightseeing with a game.
For a group of friends, kayaking, an escape room, Venetian rowing and a cicchetti evening all give everyone something to participate in. ClueGo is another option if you want to spend several hours walking around the city while solving puzzles together.
Try rowing a traditional Venetian boat, making your own mask, working with Murano glass or exploring the city by kayak. You can also look for some of Venice's stranger sights, such as the flooded crypt of San Zaccaria or the unusual collection of books at Libreria Acqua Alta.
Yes. ClueGo Venice is completely self-guided: you use the Web App on your smartphone, follow the route and solve the riddles without a guide or fixed starting time. The current trail covers around 4 km and takes approximately 2-4 hours.

Fun Things to Do in Venice: 8 Ideas Beyond Sightseeing (plus an unusual treasure hunt)