Discover Venice with a professional historian

Poveglia is one of the more photogenic islands in the Venetian Lagoon

About

The tours

  • Bespoke, private history walks
  • Small groups only
  • Experienced tour leader
  • In English or Italian
  • Children very welcome

The guide

I’m René Seindal, a Danish historian living in Venice. With these tours and walks I want to share with you my passion for Venice, its traditions and history, especially the lesser known parts.

Tours on offer

Hidden History

Depiction of 16th century gondolas on an alter at Santa Giustina in Venice

A walk around Venice, exploring the many messages from Venice of yore, often hidden in plain view.

Plague Island

Drawings on the walls on Lazzaretto Nuovo island, from the 16th century

A guided visit to the island Lazzaretto Nuovo, where quarantine was invented to fight the Black Death.

Lagoon tours

Abandoned remains on Batteria Ex-Poveglia

A boat tour in the Venetian lagoon reveals that there’s much more to Venice than just the city.

What others said

Read all the reviews

Five star review

I took every available tour of Venice during my three days here. Rene beats all other guides here 10 to 1, he is simply the BEST story teller, accurate research, curious facts and attention to detail, very passionate about the city and loads to learn even for a book worm like me. If I could give him ten stars I would. He will definitely be my guide next time in Venice. You can miss out on all the other tours here but you will not have seen Venice if you don’t go on his tour. Thank you so much Rene for making this visit so special!

Anna (Nov 2021)

Five star review

Book this experience, you’ll thank me later!

Rene is a phenomenal story-teller and possesses such a wealth of knowledge on the history of Venice. If you want something more beyond the basic facts you learn on the mainstream history tours, this is the experience for you. He opened our eyes to a Venice we would have never seen otherwise and kept us engaged the entire time and even long after we finished the tour. From climate-change and political/socio-economic forces that shaped the city to ancient graffiti and chips on a blank stone that mean way more than you would think they do. This was, hands-down, one of the most valuable experiences we had as first-timers and lovers of history in Venice.

Michael (Nov 2021)

Five star review

Rene is incredibly knowledgeable

Rene is incredible knowledgeable about history in common and Venice in particular! he knows a lot about The history but also how it is to live in a city that is so special! ask questions and you will get tons of answers and he is someone who won‘t stop after the time is over, when he has time he will go on telling you stories about things you probably would not notice. we have done another typical tourist tour which wasn‘t good at all, so we can only recommend this kind of tours, if you are interested to hear something off the beaten path and where you don‘t have the feeling to being ripped off.

Jörg (Dec 2021)

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Writings on the
History of Venice

You’ll find blog posts, long form articles, newsletters, various lists and the occasional translation of entries from the Curiosità Veneziane on this site.

There’s a unified list of all the articles.

Recent writings

Most popular articles

  • The population of the city of Venice has been in a steep decline for the last seventy years, and is now under 50,000 inhabitants.

  • Old maps are an important source for our understanding of how Venice looked and functioned in the past

  • Archaeological digs in the Piazza San Marco have uncovered parts of the ancient church of San Giminiano and a grave of four persons

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