Visiting the Doge’s Palace in Venice, starting this 2026 that has just begun, will be a bloodletting: not that the ticket to the city’s most visited site used to be cheap, but as of this year the Venice Civic Museums Foundation has decided on a 5 euro increase on many of its museums, with the result that the Doge’s Palace ticket now costs a whopping 35 euros. It should be said that the admission ticket also allows visitors to visit the Correr Museum, the National Archaeological Museum and the Monumental Rooms of the Marciana Library, but it should also be pointed out that it is not possible to buy separate tickets, except for the National Archaeological Museum and the Monumental Rooms of the Marciana Library, which are two Ministry sites, consequently they belong to a different management and can be visited separately (with a full 8 euros, a reduced from 2 as in all state museums, and an annual subscription of 25 euros). Basically, the visitor who was interested only in the Doge’s Palace or the Correr Museum still has to get a single ticket. The only way to save something, if you do not fall into the categories entitled to the reduction (which has remained unchanged: 15 euros), is to get the ticket online, however, at least one month in advance of the visit: 30 euros instead of 35 (even on the ticket purchased in advance, the increase has been introduced: in fact, before it cost 25 euros).
The increases, as mentioned, affect all civic museums: the Museums of the Venetian Eighteenth Century (Ca’ Rezzonico, Palazzo Mocenigo, and Casa di Carlo Goldoni) from January 1, 2026 will go from 15 to 20 euros. The Museums of the Modern and Contemporary (Ca’ Pesaro and Fortuny Museum) ditto, from 15 to 20. The Museums of the Islands (Glass Museum in Murano and Lace Museum in Burano) increased by as much as 8 euros: from 12 to 20. Again, the Museum Pass, which allows one admission to all museums over a six-month period, rises from 40 to 50 euros. More fortunate are the beneficiaries of the reduced Musei del Settecento and Musei Moderni: for them a reduction of 2 euros, from 12 to 10. Instead, the reduced Museums of the Islands (from 8 to 10) and the reduced Museum Pass (from 22 to 25) increase.
The Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia did not give notice through press notes or via social media of the new rates: visitors found them on the museums’ website out of the blue. And inevitably, the increases are already causing discussion. “The continuous price hikes,” the Mi Riconosci association points out, “are the children of touristification and the idea that cultural heritage is a commodity to be sold only to the highest bidder, one above all to the tourist who visits Venice once in a lifetime. Let us not forget that in 2021 the Venice Civic Museums Foundation left all employees, internal and otherwise, at home because there ’were no tourists’ in Venice, while culture was denied to those who lived in the city. The turnover of the Venice Civic Museums Foundation is 40 million, the managers have salaries of 150 thousand euros a year, while those who continue to see not a euro more are the outsourced workers, who have not even reached an agreement for a supplement to the unworthy Multiservizi contract, applied for decades by the contractor Coopculture. The same people who welcome and open the civic museums year-round, including Christmas and New Year’s Eve, do not even have the opportunity to live in the city where they work, because they cannot afford to pay rent or buy a house, not only in Venice. But even those who are willing to pay a sky-high rent will not find it, because every property is being used as a tourist rental, a disease that is eating away at the city, a Venice that is depopulating under the eyes of the most total denialism of those who govern it and the most blatant individualism of those who profit by taking a roof from those who need it.”
For journalist Leonardo Bison, who broke the news of the price increases in Venice Today, “it will be a fare choice destined to cause discussion, given that only a few weeks ago the contracted staff had opened a state of agitation complaining about wages inadequate to the cost of living. The Museums of St. Mark’s Square ticket until 2012 was 16 euros, so the increase (over 100 percent) was much faster than the increase in wages.”
|
|
| Venice, museum tickets rise: Doge's Palace becomes a 35-euro bloodletting |
Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.
