San Lazzaro degli Armeni

San Lazzaro degli Armeni tickets: which one to buy

The island can be visited only on a guided tour given by the monks, which runs once a day in the early afternoon and lasts about an hour and a quarter; there is a modest charge and no way to wander alone. The vaporetto line 20 leaves from San Zaccaria and is timed to arrive shortly before the tour begins, which is the only practical departure; the return boat leaves after it ends.

Miss the connection and you wait two hours. Tours are given in several languages depending on which monk is free, usually Italian and English. Groups should telephone ahead. The monastery shop sells rose jam made on the island and books printed by its own press, which has operated since the eighteenth century. Tickets are paid on arrival at the landing stage, and the monks do not take cards, so bring cash.

Visiting San Lazzaro degli Armeni: what to see

The Republic of Venice gave this small island to Mkhitar Sebastatsi, an Armenian Catholic monk fleeing Ottoman territory, in 1717, and the Mekhitarist congregation has been here ever since; it is one of the two centres of Armenian learning in Europe, with Vienna. The library holds about 150,000 volumes and 4,000 Armenian manuscripts, among the most important collections outside Armenia, and the monks produced the first complete dictionary of the Armenian language here between 1749 and 1769.

The tour takes in the church, the cloister, the refectory, the library rooms and a museum whose holdings run from an Egyptian mummy to a Buddha and a sword given by an Indian donor. Byron came here in 1816 to learn Armenian, described the work as a mental discipline, and his room is shown. The printing press produced books in thirty-six languages, and the monastery's gardens supply the roses used for the jam sold in the shop. The island was a leper colony from the ninth century until the eighteenth, which is how it came to be empty and available when Mkhitar and his followers arrived.

San Lazzaro degli Armeni opening hours and the best time to go

One tour a day, in the early afternoon, every day of the year; the timing has been unchanged for decades and the whole visit depends on it. The vaporetto ride takes about twenty minutes from San Zaccaria. Venice's acqua alta occasionally affects the landing stage. The island is quiet at any season and the tour group is usually small. Dress modestly for the church. Photography is restricted in the library and museum.

Allow three hours door to door from central Venice. The Lido is one stop further and the Armenian community still runs a school in Venice itself, which the monks will mention if asked. The island is exposed and the crossing can be rough in winter, when the tour occasionally does not run. The tour is the only activity on the island and there is no cafe, so eat in Venice before you take the boat.