Poveglia Island tour from Venice on a private boat

This Poveglia Island tour from Venice takes you away from the city on a private boat across the calm southern lagoon. The destination is one of the lagoon's most mysterious places, and few travellers ever set foot on it.

The island's story is heavy. In the 15th century it held people in quarantine during the Black Plague, and from the 19th to the 20th century it was home to an insane asylum. These days nobody lives there, and vegetation is slowly swallowing the paths and the buildings.

When the boat docks you get roughly an hour to walk the island at your own pace. Follow the overgrown tracks, peer into the crumbling buildings and look for corners where time seems to have stopped. There are no crowds and no modern development, so the silence does much of the storytelling.

• Private boat to Poveglia and back
• About one hour on the island
• Water

Then the group gathers again and the boat returns across the lagoon to Venice. The whole outing takes about two hours. Food is not included.