Venice

St Mark's Basilica, begun in 1063 modeled on the Basilica of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople to house the relics of the evangelist Mark, stolen from Alexandria in 828 by two Venetian merchants who reportedly hid them under layers of pork to deter Muslim customs officers, is one of the most beautiful religious buildings in the world. Its golden mosaics, created over nearly six centuries by generations of Byzantine and then Venetian masters, cover 8,000 sqm of vaults and walls in a continuous shimmer. The Treasury of St Mark and the famous gilded bronze horses adorning the loggia (a copy, the originals kept in the adjoining museum) bear witness to the 1204 sack of Constantinople by Venetian crusaders, who brought back numerous trophies from the plundered Byzantine capital.

Vaporetto lines 1 or 2, San Marco stop - the basilica sits directly on Piazza San Marco.

Book St Mark's Basilica

The Doge's Palace, the official residence of the Doges of Venice and seat of every branch of Serenissima power for nearly 700 years until the Republic's fall in 1797 under Napoleon, is the largest gothic palace in the world, its lacy pink-and-white stone facade seemingly defying gravity as it rests on slender colonnades. The Great Council Hall, where up to 2,000 Venetian noble patricians once sat, is adorned with Tintoretto's Paradise, the largest canvas painting in the world (7.45 x 24.65 meters), created when the artist was over 70. The Bridge of Sighs, built in 1600 to link the palace to the newly built adjoining prisons, owes its romantic name to the sighs that, according to a 19th-century legend popularized by Lord Byron, prisoners let out as they caught a last glimpse of the lagoon before their imprisonment.

Vaporetto lines 1 or 2, San Zaccaria stop - next to Piazza San Marco.

Book Doge's Palace tickets

Piazza San Marco, Venice's only 'piazza' (every other square in the city is only a 'campo'), was called by Napoleon in 1797, during his conquest of the city, 'the finest drawing room in Europe'. St Mark's Basilica, the 98.6-meter Campanile (rebuilt identically after its sudden collapse in 1902), and the long neoclassical arcades of the Procuratie, the Republic's former administrative offices, frame this unique square regularly flooded by acqua alta, the exceptional high tide that submerges Venice several times a year. The historic cafes Florian (1720, one of the oldest cafes in the world still operating, once frequented by Casanova and Byron) and Quadri, facing each other under the arcades, still offer classical music concerts on their terraces today - at correspondingly high prices. The square is especially ghostly and photogenic at dawn, before the first cruise-ship groups arrive.

Vaporetto lines 1 or 2, San Marco Vallaresso or San Zaccaria stop.

San Marco audio guide

Dorsoduro ('hard back', a reference to its firmer ground than other sestieri, built on a compact sandbank), is the favorite neighborhood of Venetians themselves and the many students of the IUAV architecture university, with a relaxed, student-driven atmosphere far from the mass tourism overwhelming San Marco. Campo Santa Margherita, a large irregular square lined with trees, rare in Venice, comes alive every evening with its bacari (traditional wine bars) where locals nibble on cicchetti standing up, glass of ombra (local wine) in hand. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection, housed in the eccentric American heiress's unfinished palazzo on the Grand Canal, holds one of Europe's finest modern art collections (Picasso, Pollock, Dali, Magritte), while the Santa Maria della Salute basilica, a baroque votive monument built after the 1630 plague, majestically closes off the canal's entrance.

Vaporetto lines 1 or 2, Accademia, Ca' Rezzonico, or Salute stop depending on your exact destination.

Dorsoduro tour

The Accademia Galleries, housed since 1807 in a former convent complex in Dorsoduro on Napoleon's orders, who gathered here works confiscated from suppressed churches and convents, hold the world's most important collection of Venetian art, tracing five centuries of Serenissima painting. Tintoretto, Tiepolo, Veronese, Giovanni Bellini, and Titian are all represented by their absolute masterpieces. Giorgione's The Tempest, an enigmatic scene whose exact meaning still eludes art historians five centuries after its creation, and Veronese's monumental Feast in the House of Levi - a 13-meter canvas originally painted as a Last Supper and renamed after the artist was summoned before the Inquisition for blasphemy over details deemed too profane - rank among the collection's masterpieces.

Vaporetto lines 1 or 2, Accademia stop.

Book Accademia Gallery

The Grand Canal, the former bed of a pre-existing river around which Venice developed from the 9th century onward, winds 3.8km in an inverted S shape through the city, acting as its main circulation artery for over a millennium. Its banks are lined with more than 170 gothic, Renaissance, and baroque palaces, residences of the great Venetian merchant families who competed in splendor on their waterfront facades - the Ca' d'Oro, a 15th-century gothic palace once gilded in gold leaf, and the baroque Ca' Rezzonico are its most sumptuous examples. A full crossing by vaporetto line 1, the slowest but most scenic water bus, lets you admire it end to end in about forty minutes, from the Ponte della Liberta to St Mark's Basin.

Vaporetto line 1 (slow, all stops) or line 2 (fast) - crosses the whole city from west to east.

Grand Canal audio guide

The Rialto Bridge, whose first wooden version dates back to 1181, was rebuilt in stone from 1588 following the plans of Antonio da Ponte, chosen in an architecture competition over bolder proposals from Michelangelo and Palladio, deemed too risky for such unstable ground. Its single-arch, 28-meter structure, considered an impossible engineering feat at the time, houses a double row of shops on its two ramps that have traded without interruption for over four centuries. The surrounding Rialto district was for centuries the beating heart of Venetian commerce and one of the leading financial centers of medieval Europe; its fish and vegetable market, bustling from dawn Monday to Saturday, remains one of the city's most authentic, far from the tourist bustle of the bridge itself.

Vaporetto lines 1 or 2, Rialto stop - at Venice's geographic center.

Rialto audio guide

The Venice Ghetto, created in 1516 by decree of the Venetian Senate, which forced the Jewish community to live on this island, once the site of the municipal foundry (geto in Venetian, hence the word ghetto, which would go on to describe this type of quarter worldwide), was the very first ghetto in history. Locked in each night behind guarded gates, with guards paid by the community itself, residents dealt with the lack of space by building upward, giving rise to Venice's tallest buildings, up to seven or eight stories with surprisingly low ceilings. Five historic synagogues, each built by a community of different origin (German, Italian, Spanish, Levantine, Ashkenazi), still bear witness to this history today; the Jewish Museum of Venice and guided tours allow visitors to see inside, generally closed to the public.

Vaporetto line 4.1/4.2/5.1/5.2, Guglie or San Marcuola stop, then a few minutes' walk into Cannaregio.

Ghetto guided tour

Murano island, about twenty minutes from Venice by vaporetto, owes its status as the world capital of blown glass to a political decision: in 1291, fearing the fires caused by glassmakers' furnaces installed in the heart of Venice, the Republic forced all master glassmakers to relocate there, effectively creating an artisan cluster that would become legendary and jealously protected - craftsmen who tried to leave the island with their manufacturing secrets once risked the death penalty. Master glassmakers today still carry on techniques passed down over more than twenty-five generations, from filigree glass to millefiori glass. The Glass Museum, housed in the former Palazzo Giustinian, traces 700 years of this unique craft; watching a live glassblowing demonstration in one of the fornaci (furnaces) remains the most memorable part of the visit.

Vaporetto line 4.1 or 4.2 from Fondamente Nove (about 10-20 min depending on the stop).

Murano excursion

Burano, about 40 minutes from Venice by vaporetto in the heart of the northern lagoon, is Italy's most photogenic island, with fishermen's houses painted bright pink, red, green, and yellow - local legend holds that the strictly codified color palette, requiring each resident to seek official approval before repainting their facade, let sailors recognize their house from the water, even in fog. Burano's bobbin lace, a craft tradition dating to the 16th century once so prized it adorned royal courts across Europe, nearly disappeared in the 20th century before being revived by a dedicated school; the small Lace Museum, housed in the former school, traces its history. Noticeably less crowded than Murano and its quieter neighbor Torcello, the island offers a far more authentic, peaceful atmosphere outside the busiest hours of organized tours.

Vaporetto line 12 from Fondamente Nove (about 40-45 min).

Burano excursion