GONDOLA GUIDE · THE WORLD BY GONDOLA & CABLE CAR
Down the canal, up the mountain.
Reviews of the world’s best gondola rides and cable cars, place by place. The rowed gondolas of Venice and the lagoon islands, the Banff and Whistler gondolas over the Rockies, Mount Pilatus above Lucerne, the Namsan cable car over Seoul. Whether the ride floats or flies, we sort the standouts from the queues.
Belongs to one place
Three rides you can only take where they were built.
Plenty of cities will sell you a boat trip or a viewpoint. But a hand-rowed gondola down the Grand Canal, the eight-minute climb up Sulphur Mountain in Banff, and the cable cars scaling Mount Pilatus belong to those waters and those peaks alone.
On the Grand Canal
A Gondola Through Venice
Nowhere else puts you here: a hand-rowed gondola slipping down the Grand Canal, then turning off into the silent side rii where the city closes in around you. The gondolier stands at the stern and reads the water by instinct, easing under bridges barely wider than the boat. Six hundred years of practice, and still the only honest way to see Venice.
- 1 Venice: Grand Canal Gondola Ride with App Commentary
- 2 Venice: Grand Canal Gondola Experience with Live Commentary™
- 3 Venice: Shared Gondola Ride Across the Grand Canal
Up Sulphur Mountain
The Banff Gondola
In eight minutes the Banff Gondola lifts you 2,300 feet to the top of Sulphur Mountain, where a boardwalk runs along the ridge and six mountain ranges stack up to the horizon. Below, the Bow Valley and the turquoise sweep of the rivers; above, nothing but sky. The classic Canadian Rockies day out, and the easiest summit you will ever stand on.
- 1 Banff: Banff Gondola Admission Ticket
- 2 Banff Gondola Ride Admission
- 3 Banff: Sunshine Sightseeing Gondola and Standish Chairlift
Above the lake
Mount Pilatus by Cable Car
From Lucerne you ride a string of cable cars and the steepest cogwheel railway in the world up the face of Mount Pilatus. The lake drops away beneath your feet, the air turns thin and clear, and the summit opens onto a ring of Alps you could not reach any other way. A full day of Swiss engineering doing the climbing for you.
- 1 From Lucerne: Mt. Pilatus Gondola, Cable Car, and Boat Trip
- 2 Jungfraujoch Day Trip from Lucerne with Eiger Express Gondola
- 3 Mt. Pilatus Gondola and Aerial Cableway Ticket from Kriens
The one to book first
If you only take one gondola.
More travellers reach for this one than any other on the site. The safe first booking when you want the ride everyone remembers.
The classics
The World’s Most Popular Gondola Rides
Venice’s Grand Canal, the Banff Gondola, Mount Pilatus, the Sea to Sky. The rides travellers reach for first, on the canals and mountains they most want to see.
Where the gondolas run
Pick the place, then the ride.
Venice if you want the canal and the lagoon. Banff or Vancouver for the Rockies overhead. Lucerne for the Swiss summits, Seoul for the city laid out below, Christchurch for the harbour from the crater rim. Each one its own kind of gondola.
Which kind of gondola
A gondola floats. A gondola also flies.
The same word covers two very different rides. One is rowed through Venice at water level; the other is a cabin on a cable that climbs a mountain or a city peak. Here is how to choose your kind of gondola.
The Canadian Rockies
Step out onto a mountain in eight minutes.
The Rockies do gondolas better than almost anywhere. Banff lifts you up Sulphur Mountain to a ridge-top boardwalk; Whistler runs the Peak 2 Peak across a whole valley of air; the Sea to Sky climbs from the fjord at Squamish to a suspension bridge in the trees. Glacier-fed lakes below, summits all around, and a cabin that does the work.
See the best Rockies gondolas & cable cars →Seoul & the city peaks
The cheapest seat to a whole skyline.
Not every great gondola climbs a mountain. The Namsan cable car lifts you out of downtown Seoul to the tower on the hill, the city spreading out in every direction as the light comes on. A short ride, a small fare, and the kind of view most places make you work far harder for.
See the best Seoul cable car rides →The original
A city built to be seen from a boat.
Venice has no roads, only water, and the gondola was made to move through it. Riding low in that black, lacquered hull you see the palazzi the way they were meant to be seen, from the canal that is their front door. The gondolier never hurries; the bridges pass overhead; the city forgets you are a visitor.
Explore Venice gondola rides →The Alps & beyond
The mountains the cable car was built for.
Switzerland practically invented the mountain lift, and it still does it best: Pilatus and Titlis above Lucerne, the cable cars over Grindelwald and the Jungfrau, Norway’s Ulriken above Bergen. You ride up through the cloud line to a summit terrace, the lakes and glaciers laid out far below.
- 1 From Lucerne: Mt. Pilatus Gondola, Cable Car, and Boat Trip
- 2 Grindelwald Gondola Ride to Mount First
- 3 Mount First Gondola Ride from Grindelwald
By altitude
How high do you want to go?
Some rides keep you inches off the water. Some lift you over the rooftops to a city viewpoint. And some climb thousands of feet to a summit you could never walk to. Pick the height, we will point you at the ride.
At water level
Stay down on the canals.The Venetian gondola sits you inches above the water, gliding under low bridges and past front doors that open straight onto the canal. No height, all atmosphere.
Over the rooftops
Rise above a city.A city cable car lifts you clear of the traffic to a tower or a hilltop: Seoul from Namsan, Christchurch over the harbour, Lisbon along the riverfront. A whole skyline at a glance.
To the summit
Go all the way up.The big mountain gondolas climb thousands of feet in minutes: Sulphur Mountain in Banff, Pilatus above Lucerne, the Sea to Sky over the fjord. Step out onto a boardwalk in the clouds.
Beyond the Grand Canal
Venice is a hundred islands, not one.
Most gondola rides stay on the famous canals, but the lagoon spreads far past them: Murano of the glass furnaces, Burano with its painted fishermen’s houses, quiet Torcello where the city began. Many Venice tours fold an island hop or a longer lagoon row into the day, so the gondola becomes the start of something bigger.
See all 167 Venice rides →By place
Pick a place and look up.
Venice for the canals and the lagoon. Banff for the Rockies over Sulphur Mountain. Vancouver for Grouse and the Sea to Sky. Seoul for the city from Namsan. Lucerne for the Swiss summits. Christchurch for the harbour from the crater rim.
More places
Every place the gondolas reach.
Calgary and the Canadian foothills. Krakow over the Vistula. Oahu above Honolulu. Squamish on the Sea to Sky. Durban’s beachfront, Canmore in the Rockies, Bergen above the fjord, Lisbon along the river. The rides beyond the headline names.
Three for the list
The gondola bucket list.
If you chase gondolas the way some people chase mountains, these are the three to ride: the canal that named them, a Rockies summit, and a cable car over a great city. Water, then sky, then skyline.
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