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Venice-Along The Grand Canal To Saint Mark's Square™

Culinary Tours For Women Travelers Venice ~ 7 Day

Tie on your aprons and join us in a hands-on cooking experience and cultural program – including a Food and Shopping Tour in Venice – often called Serenissima!!!

Join us in Venice for food, wine, and hands-on cooking classes in our Renaissance Women Tour.  Sail on a gondola, stroll along the majestic Piazza San Marco, and visit the Rialto Market.  Venice’s beauty is magical and its food is exquisite.  You’ll discover Renaissance Venice in a week filled with cooking, touring, and a boat excursion to an artisan glassblowing workshop on the island of Murano.

Venice is a dreamy destination where food and culture blend – gondolas glide along narrow canals, festive Carnival masks are displayed everywhere, and the local cuisine wows.  Venice’s cuisine blends centuries and centuries of culture past.  During your stay, visit the Rialto Market which dates back to the 9th century, and see the local vendors who sell their daily catch of fish, farm-fresh fruits and vegetables, artisan cheese, herbs, bread, and wine.  Vendors display their produce and products with passion and pride.  Also during your stay, learn about Venetian art, literature, and opera – and the great artists, writers, and composers who were inspired by its beauty while living here.  Our English-speaking guide welcomes you and shares stories and facts on this beautiful city.  Get ready to cook, explore, and fall in love with bella Venice.

Venice Cooking Classes

Tie on our aprons in beautiful Venice and learn how to prepare full course menus using farm-to-table ingredients from the Rialto Market.  Cooking classes focus on local and seasonal cuisine.  Learn to make antipasto, fresh pasta, risotto, cicchetti, main courses and desserts.  Fresh fish, meat, fruit, and vegetables are key ingredients Discover peperonata, a local antipasto with red pepper, capers, and olives.  Venetian recipes also include creamy risotto and sea bass with artichokes.  You will learn to make Venetian desserts such as zaletti and bussole biscotti.   Everyone enjoys the food that was prepared in the cooking class with a toast of local wine included.  

Venice Accommodations

Check into the beautiful 4-Star property in the most desirable area of Venice.  The property dates back to the 17th century and has been updated and refurbished keeping its old-world charm while offering many amenities.  Nestled on a quiet waterway just off the Grand Canal, is a short walk from the Accademia Bridge and vaporetto stop.  Rooms are large, lovely, and furnished with comfortable beds adorned with Italian linens.  Decorated in luxurious Venetian style, the property has antique accents with modern comforts:  air conditioning, a mini bar, international TV, a private ensuite bath, and in-room wireless internet.  A friendly and professional staff is at your service and ready to answer any questions and help you during your stay. An expansive daily breakfast with Venetian cakes, biscotti, fresh fruit, eggs, artisan bread, yogurt, ham, cheese, cappuccino, tea and fresh fruit juices, espresso, and cappuccino is served in the elegant breakfast room overlooking the garden and waterway.  Following breakfast, step outside and stroll along the canal where artisan shops, bookshops, wine bars, and museums are conveniently located.  The 4-star property is set in one of the most beautiful areas of Venice.

Rialto Market

Venice’s famous Rialto Market is a bustling place starting at dawn.  Venders sail from their barges, unload their products, and set up their areas for a colorful scene of buyers, sellers, and spectators negotiating their between produce piled high on display.  Locals and chefs come daily and shop for high-quality ingredients while visitors come to learn about its history.  This outdoor marketplace dates back to the 9th century and continues with the same generation of family merchants selling their produce and goods.  The endless stalls of fish – Venice is famous for fish and shellfish – along with farm-to-table fruits, vegetables, herbs, and spices is an experience for the food lover!!!

The Campo Margherita

The Campo Margherita is a vibrant and welcoming place and the heart of the Dorsoduro district.  The Campo takes its name from the Church of Saint Margherita, dating back to the 9th century.  Surrounded by ancient buildings, today it is home to caffés, bookshops, wine bars, and artisan shops. The Campo wakes each morning with an outdoor market where locals vie for the best flower, fish, vegetable, and fruit vendors.

The Accademia Museum

The Accademia is home to a collection of Venetian paintings from Veneto, as well as from the Byzantine and Gothic 14th centuries.  There is a beautiful collection of Renaissance art from Bellini, Carpaccio, Giorgione, Veronese, Tintoretto, and Tiziano to Gianbattista Tiepolo and Vedutisti.  A must on every guest’s visit!!!

Glassmaking in Murano and Lacemaking in Burano

Murano, the closest island to the mainland of Venice, is the most famous of the Venetian Islands and is noted for its artisan hand-blown glass. Venetians have been making crystal and glass here since the 10th Century – when the merchants of Venice brought back the secrets of glass production from the East. Murano is home to several famous glass producers who carry on the tradition of making Murano glass chandeliers, vases, and glasses.  The island of Burano, the most picturesque of Venetian Islands, is known for its famous artisan lace makers.  Small shops where Venetian women still produce this precious lace line the canal.  It’s a magical island that is also noted for its brightly painted houses built on the lagoon.  Take time for lunch in any one of the quaint trattorias.

Food and Shopping Tour 

Join us on a Food and Shopping Tour with our English-speaking guide.  You’ll meet Venetian artisans in one-of-a-kind boutiques who handcraft leather bags and shoes, silk scarves, fashionable hats, linens, and textiles along with glass and gold jewelry.  Learn about the first coffee shop in Venice that introduced the caffè society, and the first cocoa dating back to the 1700s.  We visit a famous chocolaterie, chocolate artisan.  The tour concludes with a final stop to Venice’s most famous caffè set in an XIX-century greenhouse.  Enjoy a glass of Prosecco or coffee and a Venetian aperitivo

 

Itinerary ~ 7 days, 6 nights

Day 1: Arrival & Welcome Dinner

  • Arrival and transfer from the Venice Train station or airport with your captain for a water taxi transfer to the hotel.  Check in, relax, and enjoy your welcome Prosecco.  Enjoy your Cooking Vacations’ Welcome Bag with chef’s apron, Prosecco toast and hand-made Venetian journal.
  • Later in the evening, enjoy your Welcome Dinner featuring a Chef’s Tasting with an antipasto, pasta and sauce, main course, and dessert.

Day 2: Cooking Class 1 ~ Venetian Food and Shopping Tour with Prosecco or Coffee & Pastry

  • Breakfast is served.
  • Following breakfast, meet your chefs in the kitchen for your hands-on cooking class 1.  Tie on your apron and get ready for a morning of slicing, dicing, and preparing an authentic Venetian lunch. The cooking class includes an antipasto, pasta, main course, and dessert.  Lunch follows and includes the foods that were prepared in the class. Wine and water included.
  • In the afternoon, meet your English-speaking guide and visit the Campo Santa Margherita.  Discover the best secret addresses in this exclusive area of Venice brimming with boutiques, art galleries, and trattorias.
  • During the tour, everyone will enjoy Tea Time followed by a visit to the famous 18th Century caffé serving hand-made pastries, biscotti, and gelato.
  • Evening free and dinner on your own with suggestions provided.

Day 3: Rialto Market Tour & Cooking Class 2

  • Breakfast is served.
  • Following breakfast, meet our Chef for a tour of the Rialto Market.  The Rialto Market is a historic place where vendors have been selling fruits, vegetables, fish, artisan cheese, wine, and bread since the 9th century.  Learn about the local cuisine as you discover the market’s history and products.  After the market visit, head into the kitchen for your hands-on cooking class 2 preparing an antipasto, fresh pasta and sauce or risotto, main course, and dessert.  Following the cooking class, everyone enjoys the food that was prepared in the cooking class with wine and water included.
  • Later afternoon, explore on your own or relax by the hotel in any one of the local caffes or wine bars.
  • Evening free and dinner on your own with suggestions provided.

Day 4: Cooking Class 3 – Cicchetti Making Class

  • Breakfast is served.
  • Return to the kitchen for your hands-on cooking class 3 preparing the traditional and exceptional Venetian Cicchetti, small bites. Following the cooking class, everyone enjoys the food that was prepared in the cooking class.  Wine, water, and dessert included.
  • The afternoon is free to explore Venice on your own – take a gondola ride along the Grand Canal, or visit La Fenice, and Harry’s Bar for a Bellini.
  • Evening free and dinner on your own with suggestions provided.

    Day 5: Full Day Tour To Murano and Burano – Artisan Glassblowing & Lacemaking

  • Breakfast is served.
  • This special Murano full-day tour includes a boat trip to Murano for glassblowing and then to Burano for lacemaking.  Meet your guide at your hotel and set off on a private panoramic tour by motorboat. Sail to Murano and visit the world’s most prized glass artisans. Artisan glass blowers transform glass into beautiful art pieces.  Experience the art of glass blowing and see the masters turn glass into art.  Then, continue onto Burano known for the artisan lace, and the local specialty bussolai buranelli, Venetian biscotti. Stroll through the narrow alleys with houses painted in rainbow colors, and visit a typical lacemaker on the island. After, take time on your own to enjoy a typical seafood lunch, before returning on your private boat to your hotel.
  • Return to the hotel.
  • Evening free and dinner on your own with suggestions provided.

Day 6: Bacaro & Cicchetti Tour With Wine & Food Tastings

  • Breakfast is served.
  • Morning is free to relax.
  • In the afternoon, meet your guide for your Bacaro Tour, a 3-hour walking tour through Venice with stops in the most historical bacari, Venetian wine bars, where cicchetti, small bites, and ombra, wine, are served,  Enjoy the Venetian aperitivo with small food tastings while learning about this ancient tradition.
  • Later afternoon, enjoy any one of the museums or sip a vino at any one of the local wine bars.
  • Evening free and dinner on your own with suggestions provided.

Day 7: Departure

  • Breakfast is served.
  • Following breakfast, meet your captain and transfer to the Venice train station or airport.
  • Ciao – Arrivederci!

 

Program Includes:

  • 7 days, 6 nights in a 4-Star luxury boutique hotel set on a beautiful canal, based on 2 guests in a Classic Room overlooking the rooftops of Venice or in a Superior Room with Canal View.
  • Daily breakfast and maid service.
  • Welcome Dinner featuring a Chef’s Tasting Menu with a full-course Venetian menu including an antipasto, fresh pasta and sauce, main course, and dessert.
  • 3 Hands-on cooking classes, followed by lunch or dinner including the foods prepared in the cooking class with wine and water included.
  • A Tour of the Rialto Market with an English-speaking guide.
  • Tour of Campo Santa Margherita including Tea Time with afternoon tea and pastry with English-speaking guide.
  • Boat excursion to Murano and Burano on a private boat for glassblowing tour and shopping with English-speaking guide.
  • Arrival and departure transfers from Venice Santa Lucia Train Station by water taxi to the property.
  • Cooking Vacations Welcome Bag with chef’s apron, Prosecco, hand-made journal, and recipe booklet.
Program Prices

$5,395 per person, based on 2 guests in 4-Star Boutique property set on a beautiful canal in a Classic Room overlooking the rooftops of Venice.

$6,195 per person, based on 2 guests in 4-Star Boutique property set on a beautiful canal in a Superior Room with Canal View.

For Single Guests: If you are traveling on your own, please call us for the best group price. We are happy to welcome you into an already scheduled group.  Prices may vary during holidays and trade fairs.  An Italian visitor tax may apply in some cities and is be paid to the hotel at check out.

Check Availability

2025 Dates: This program is available throughout the year. Check-in and start your program any day of the week. Rates are subject to change based on currency exchange. Call for updated rates. Airfare not included. Group transfers for any cooking tour or tours that include transfers, are for the group and are not private. Transfers before, after or to another destination outside of your cooking tour are not included in the program price. If you would like to add on a private transfer or transfers, let us know and we will send you pricing.