Flights to Venice with Air France from $479*

Many flights to Venice from major US airports with connection in Paris or Amsterdam

Air France offers many cheap flights departing from major US airports to Venice, the legendary Italian city.

US citizens visiting Venice, and Italy in general, only need a valid passport and do not require a visa for stays of less than 90 days.

The Venetian capital has 270,000 inhabitants. It is located in northeastern Italy, in the Po Plain, in the Adriatic Sea lagoon.

After arrival at the Marco Polo airport, you can reach the city center by boat or bus.

In Venice, due to the omnipresence of water, people travel mainly by boat, like the vaporettos, public water transportation! Gondolas are only used as tourist attractions. However, the best way to discover the city is on foot!

Venice has a special layout. It has 177 canals with, of course, the main one, the Grand Canal. There are 455 bridges that cross the canals and the city covers 118 islands that are divided into six historical neighborhoods: on the left bank of the Grand Canal, San Marco, Castello and Cannaregio, and on the right bank, Santa Croce and San Paulo.

Summers are humid and winters are cold with frost and fog in Venice. The city is often flooded, which the Venetians call “acqua Alta”, a phenomenon that weakens the city and its buildings.

Venice, economic and cultural capital

If you travel to Venice, you will notice that the city has a lot of nicknames: the Serenissima, the City of the Doges, the Pearl of the Adriatic…

Venice is what it is due to its long, rich history. It was Italy's economic capital during the Middle Ages. However, it was first ruled by the Byzantine Empire. Then, Venice became independent with the election of its first Doge, in 726 AD. Venice took advantage of its former ties with Byzance and the nearby sea to become a trade hub between the East and West. The city began to lose its economic power in 1453 with the fall of Constantinople.

Nevertheless, Venice remained a major artistic center in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, producing many painters such as Titian, Tiepolo and Veronese. Venice fell to the hands of Napoleon at the end of the 18th century and was annexed to the Italian Kingdom in 1866.

Today, Venice attracts tourists from around the world for its exceptional design (houses on wooden piles, seaways, etc.), as well as the city's romantic atmosphere and innumerable works of art and architecture.

Venice: a romantic city on the water

Venice has a thousand and one tourist attractions to be discovered as you stroll through the city. That is one of the pleasures when you visit Venice: getting lost in the narrow, winding streets.

Among the must-see attractions are the famous Saint Mark's Square, dominated by its 325-foot bell tower, named after the city's patron saint, as well as the ornate, same name basilica. There are 84 churches to discover in Venice, and they are all free entrance!

Not far from there, the Doges' Palace is also worth the visit. It was the official residence for the city's Doges. The interrogation rooms were connected to the old prisons by the famous Bridge of Sighs.

The Doges' Palace is a Gothic-style palace, as were many of the city's buildings, in particular along the Grand Canal, the city's main artery. The legendary shop-lined Rialto Bridge crosses the canal.

The ghetto in Venice is also worth visiting because it is very different from the rest of the city with buildings that are higher than the others in the City of the Doges.