Crossing Bridges: THE 2026 JIVAMUKTI YOGA VENICE RETREAT with Anja Kühnel hosted by Three Boons Yoga
Join Three Boons Yoga Berlin director Anja Kühnel in the summer of 2026 in “undoubtedly the most beautiful city built by man” (New York Times) for The 2026 JIVAMUKTI YOGA VENICE RETREAT.
It is our sincere belief that Venice is the ideal city to “retreat” for some days of yoga and exploration. With no cars and low urban noise, one moves everywhere on foot or by boat, experiencing the city almost as if time had folded back upon itself. Venice naturally invites a deepening of practice in an unforgettable setting. After three beautiful retreats in Venice and a decade-long break, we are finally returning, thanks to an extraordinary new venue we discovered last year.
This retreat will be taught by Three Boons Yoga Berlin director Anja Kühnel. Delicious local vegan brunch will be prepared daily by our Italian chef, and head of our legendary Jivamukti Canteen, Alessia Cecconi.
RETREAT LANGUAGE: English (Anja teaches in English but also speaks German for individual questions, tips, and assists)
THE DATES: Thu., July 23 – Sun., July 26, 2026 (core retreat) with optional extension days, so that your Venice experience could also be up to four days longer than the core retreat. I.e. participants have the highly recommended option to arrive 1–2 days earlier and/or stay 1–2 days longer. This allows you to extend your Venice retreat to up to one full week in our beautiful Three Boons Yoga Venice headquarters and to ease into — and out of — the retreat atmosphere with more calmness and spaciousness. Venice is a city that rewards slowness. Bridges, museums, churches, and lagoon islands reveal themselves best without rush. For those traveling from abroad, extending also makes the travel more worthwhile and the whole experience more cohesive. If your schedule allows, we warmly encourage adding an extra day or two to one or both sides of the journey.
THE LOCATION:
So much has been said about the beauty of Venice that it is difficult to add anything new. You simply have to experience it for yourself. Perhaps Friedrich Nietzsche put it best: “When I seek another word for music, I always find only the word Venice.”
For this reason, we chose a location that allows you to be fully immersed in the historic city of Venice while enjoying the peace and privacy essential for a yoga retreat.
Our retreat headquarters is a private Venetian canal mansion in the heart of the Dorsoduro district, just steps from the Zattere waterfront. The building faces onto a quiet side canal that opens onto the Giudecca canal, with views of San Giorgio Maggiore, Salute, and the island of Giudecca. The canal-facing rooftop terrace and the private courtyard of our Venice yoga headquarters offer perfect settings for yoga, meditation, and shared meals in tranquility, right in the historic center of Venice.
We inhabit the entire building exclusively for our retreat, allowing us to create a peaceful, monastic rhythm within the flow of the city. Daily brunches are prepared and served on-site by Alessia right after our yoga practice.
Dorsoduro is known for its art, students, and intellectual character—home to the Accademia, the Salute, the Guggenheim, and countless ateliers. It offers significantly lower tourist traffic than San Marco, yet all of Venice remains within a short walking distance. Cafés and restaurants in this part of town are lively but still reasonably priced, with a distinctly local Venetian rather than touristic atmosphere.
Little is known about the early history of the structure, other than that it was originally an 17th-century wheat warehouse belonging to the famous Venetian Soranzo family. A reminder of Venice’s rural and mercantile past and the agricultural holdings of the Venetian nobility on the terraferma. In recent years, the building underwent a complete restoration and has been transformed into a refined private loft residence. It features a classic Venetian attic with exposed beams, contemporary Italian design furnishings, a central skylit living space. A stone staircase connects the floors and leads from the downstairs private courtyard all the way up to a private rooftop terrace with sweeping views over the rooftops of Venice.
Today, the house seamlessly blends historic character with contemporary comfort and serves as a unique location for our retreas in the most enchanting city in the world.
GENERAL INFO ON THE YOGA PROGRAM & OTHER ACTIVITIES
THE PROGRAM:
Each morning begins with chanting and a guided meditation, followed by coffee, matcha, fresh fruits, and a wake-up smoothie. Afterwards, Anja teaches a three-hour intensive Jivamukti asana class. These sessions are workshop-style and unfold around changing themes and focal points, allowing us to explore different dimensions of the Jivamukti method in depth, including āsana, kriyā, prāṇāyāma, and elements of yoga history and philosophy.
Every other evening we gather for satsang, meditation, kīrtan, or yoga philosophy discussions. These additional events often weave the beauty of Venice into the practice. In past retreats, for example, we held early morning kīrtan chanting on Piazza San Marco and an unforgettable “bhakti gondola” ride along the Canals of Venice.
During the daytime there is ample time to explore the city at your own pace. Venice is uniquely walkable, and for those who wish, the Lido (Venice official beach) and the Adriatic Sea are easily reached by vaporetto for a refreshing swim.
THE THEME: CROSSING BRIDGES
The theme of this retreat is Crossing Bridges, which in the ancient teachings of the Upanishads signifies the removal of the mistaken notion of duality and the recognition of the Self as non-dual. What appears to be a journey from the individual to the Absolute is in truth only the correction of ignorance. The bridge does not take the seeker to another place but removes the imagined separation between the jīva, the individual being, and Brahman.
The jīva, the individual being, stands on the side of multiplicity where objects, relations, emotions and histories are taken to be real in themselves. This is born of adhyāsa, the superimposition of names and forms upon the changeless Reality. Through steadfast living, discrimination, inquiry and meditation, this superimposition is resolved and the world that seemed to be many is recognized as Brahman alone. The realization does not create oneness, for Brahman was never other than the Self. It only clears away the appearance of duality that ignorance produced.
Venice mirrors this teaching in its very structure. Its bridges do not create connection but reveal the continuity that always existed. The divisions between islands are provisional and sustained only by standpoint and perception. To cross a bridge in this sense is to question the presumed distance between oneself and the world and to see that separation is not ultimate but apparent. For the yogin, this is the essence of sādhana: to discern the Real from the unreal and to recognize that there is only the One Self. All multiplicity belongs to mistaken identity and is resolved through knowledge alone.
REGISTRATION AND PRICES:
BASE PRICE: 1,089 EUR
SIGN-UP DEPOSIT: 279 EUR (holds your spot)
ADDITIONAL UPGRADES: Please check out the registration form for detailed prices, discounts and accommodation options.
THE 2-STEP REGISTRATION PROCESS:
STEP 0: Download the registration form, and make sure the offering, dates, prices, options and terms are agreeable for you.
STEP 1: Make the applicable non-refundable sign-up deposit to hold your spot in the retreat and initiate the registration process. See below for payment options and instructions for the sign-up deposit.
STEP 2: Fill in and sign the registration form you downloaded in Step 0. We kindly recommend to use the free iPhone/Android App “Adobe Fill & Sign”! Alternatively, you can also print it out and fill and sign it and then either snail mail, or fax it to +49-30-48491950 or scan and email it to info@threeboonsyoga.de. Download Adobe Fill&Sign for iPhone/ipad here and for Android hier.
PLEASE NOTE: Your sign-up deposit is non-refundable, if you later change your mind and/or cannot come and/or cannot pay the full retreat price, however, you may find another person to take the retreat instead and who did not pay the sign-up deposit yet and transfer your deposit to this person.
MORE INFO ON BOARD AND FARE:
ACCOMMODATIONS + YOGA HEADQUARTERS:
Venetian buildings rarely lend themselves to the spatial needs of a yoga retreat, since the city’s architecture, born from water and mercantile history, tends to be vertical, discreet and intimate. It took time, and a sequence of fortunate coincidences, to find a house that could welcome both the contemplative atmosphere of practice and the comfort of communal living in the midst of a world-famous city. As of 2026, our Venice yoga retreat headquarters will consist of an entire private canal house in the Dorsoduro district; a former 17th-century wheat granary once belonging to the Venetian Soranzo family, now transformed into beautifully restored residences featuring exposed beams, Venetian chandeliers, refined Italian furnishings and sweeping canal views
Although the exterior remains humble and architecturally faithful to its origins, the interiors have been renovated to the highest standards. Rooms are filled with natural light, high ceilings and carefully chosen furniture that satisfies even the most sophisticated taste, while contemporary amenities such as efficient air-conditioning, excellent beds, fast Wi-Fi, professional kitchens and fully equipped dining spaces ensure comfort of a decidedly modern caliber. The top floor includes a skylit attic living room and a 40 m² rooftop terrace overlooking the Giudecca canal; below, spacious salons with large sofas and long dining tables invite gatherings and shared meals. Our new Venice headquarters will accommodate our entire group with the rare luxury of privacy, quiet and ample space for yoga.
Here, our daily yoga activities unfold through morning practice, meditation and a shared post-practice brunch prepared by our Italian chef. Between sessions you may linger in the private courtyard, read on the terrace as boats glide below, or wander across the bridges and canals that radiate from our retreat headquarters into the city.
Brunch: Our legendary Jivamukti Canteen’s Italian head chef, Alessia Cecconi, will prepare a daily vegan brunch for us after the morning yoga sessions. She will use only the freshest seasonal Italian produce and products during this retreat, dramatically reducing our intake of toxins, supporting the body’s natural detoxification, and protecting the environment at the same time.
The food component of our retreats is an intentional revival of the legendary Jivamukti Canteen which, after the pandemic, continues to live and evolve in our European retreats. At the heart of this revival is our former Canteen head chef, Alessia Cecconi, who continues to develop our culinary vision based on the very best vegan, local and in Italy largely organic ingredients, prepared in an Italian-inflected home-cooking style that participants invariably rave about and crave.
Please note: The brunch as well as coffee, matcha, fresh fruits, and a wake-up smoothie between morning meditation and morning class as described above is the only meals included in this retreat. This is an intentional deviation from our other retreats, as we want you to be able to explore Venice freely after class and experience as much of the city as possible. We consider the entire historic city of Venice part of the retreat itself, and so it feels appropriate to also eat out in different places throughout the archipelago.
This approach differs from our other retreats where we withdraw from the world into a secluded setting. For those who enjoy cooking together, we will also organize informal evening potluck dinners. Each apartment in our Venetian yoga headquarters has its own fully equipped kitchen, and excellent markets and shops for groceries are within walking distance, including the famous Rialto market.
HOW TO GET TO VENICE
Venice is easily connected to the rest of the world. Whenever possible, we recommend arriving by train, as this is both gentler on the environment and remarkably convenient, since the train brings you directly into the historic center. Venice can be reached by rail via a direct connection from Munich.
If you choose to fly, we recommend flights arriving in the early afternoon on Thursday and departing in the late afternoon on Sunday. From Berlin, there are currently flights for around €130 with Ryanair, or, ideally, Ryanair on Thursday paired with the 21:10 EasyJet flight on Sunday for approximately €175. For participants booking the recommended extension days, the exact flight times become less important.
ANJA KÜHNEL
Anja discovered yoga in 2000 while temporarily living in New York for her law studies. Her first experience with Jivamukti Yoga ignited a deep and lifelong dedication to the practice, shaping her path as both student and teacher. In 2008, she founded Yogaloft Berlin, which in 2009 became Jivamukti Yoga Berlin, now known as Three Boons Yoga Berlin, creating a space where the richness of yogic tradition merges with a modern, vibrant community.
For many years, Anja, who is advanced certified in the Jivamukti Yoga method and has been teaching ever since, has been a mentor and facilitator of teacher trainings, guiding students through the Jivamukti method with a profound emphasis on both its philosophical roots and practical application. Her teaching is deeply informed by the ancient wisdom of the Upaniṣads and the Advaita Vedānta tradition, offering a clear, direct approach to Non-Duality (Oneness). She views teaching as an extension of her own practice, an act of sharing that allows both teacher and student to continuously learn, refine, and grow.
Through her classes, Anja inspires students to cultivate clarity, simplicity, a strong and steady connection to all aspects of life, and to discover the inner peace that dedicated practice reveals as our natural state. She encourages an experiential understanding of the teachings, where glimpses of deep insight emerge through consistent effort and devotion.
At Three Boons Yoga, Anja remains committed to honoring the transformative power of yoga while fostering an inclusive and engaged community in Berlin and beyond.
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Glimpses of our Three Boons Yoga Venice headquarters :
