The Peggy Guggenheim Museum Venice

We LOVE Venice! Venice is just one of those places that is absolutely magical and that we can go back to again and again. We fall even deeper in love with Venice every time we’re there. We have so many favorite places that it’s really hard to narrow down our list… During your stay, we absolutely recommend visiting the Peggy Guggenheim Museum Venice!

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The Peggy Guggenheim Museum Venice – The Ultimate Guide to Planning Your Visit

The Dorsoduro neighborhood

If you’re in Venice for a long weekend, there are some spots that you absolutely must check out, starting with the Dorsoduro neighborhood.

This is our favorite neighborhood in Venice. The food, the wine, the art, the ambiance… Sigh. So many places to eat yogurt gelato.

One of the reasons that we love this neighborhood so much is that The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is there! This is one of the best spots in Venice! If you only choose 3 spots to go during a long weekend, please make the Guggenheim in Venice one of them!

View from the gorgeous terrace overlooking the Grand Canal

Peggy Guggenheim – a legend

The museum was created in Peggy Guggenheim’s former residence in Venice, on the Grand Canal. This is absolute prime real estate in Venice and such a magical place to spend an afternoon! The museum houses Peggy Guggenheim’s personal art collection as well as a beautiful garden and café with a divine terrace overlooking the Grand Canal.

Have you read about Peggy Guggenheim? I knew very little about her before exploring her home in Venice. We were so fascinated by the woman behind the art, that we picked up a copy of Out of This Century : The Autobiography of Peggy Guggenheim in the museum gift shop.

Super cool (+inspiring) wall in Peggy Guggenheim’s Venetian garden

What you will see in the Guggenheim in Venice

Inside the Guggeheim in Venice, you can see works of art from such modern greats as Picasso, Braque, Kandinsky and Calder… (to name a few)! You will enjoy modern paintings as well as fabulous modern sculptures in the garden and on the terrace. On a peculiar side note, Peggy Guggenheim had several little dogs (just another reason to love her!) and rumor has it, she is buried along with her canine companions in the gardens of her home. We discovered this in her autobiography.

The added bonus

(Alix here) Anyone who knows me, knows that I LOVE museum gift shops. I also love museums, seriously I do, but I get just as (ok more) excited about the museum gift shop as the actual collection we’re visiting. Let’s just say this is one of the 1,000,000 + reasons Hugo loves me (right, my love?!).

We don’t have kids yet but ever since our first ever weekend away together (to London), we have been collecting kids’ books on each trip we take for our future kids. We even write a little inscription to them on the front page of the book. (#family)

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice – view from the water

Anyway, so The Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice also happens to house what is, in my humble opinion, one of the best museum gift shops I have ever been to! The collection is absolutely amazing and you need to go and spend as much time as you can there. The boutique is quite small but houses an incredible collection of awesome hard-to-find-anywhere-else-books and fun souvenirs to bring back for friends and family. I particularly love the collection of children’s books – available in both English and Italian that foster an early love of art in little minds. One of the books we bought and added to our collection was The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse.

Take your time to visit the Guggenheim in Venice

Eventhough the collection is relatively small compared to larger museums in Venice, we recommend blocking an entire afternoon or even a whole day to just hang out there in the beautiful house and garden, along the Grand Canal. Bring a book or your journal, take lots of photos and have a lazy lunch followed by a cappuccino or two… Pretend this is your home in Venice along the Grand Canal all day long. This is such a fabulous location. You are sure to have a gorgeous day!

Everything you need to know to make the most out of your trip to Venice and your day at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum Venice.