Attractions

The Veneto-Byzantine basilica at the heart of Murano, the lagoon island famed since 1291 for its glassmaking tradition.

An enclosed limestone bridge linking the Doge's Palace to the old prisons, immortalized by Lord Byron.

A vividly painted lagoon island renowned for its centuries-old lace-making tradition and photogenic canals.

A Gothic palace on the Grand Canal, once covered in gilding, now home to the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti.

The Gothic seat of Venetian power for a thousand years, connected to the old prisons by the Bridge of Sighs.

A monumental Gothic basilica in San Polo housing masterpieces by Titian, Bellini, and Donatello.

Venice's principal art museum, holding the world's largest collection of Venetian painting from Bellini to Titian.

The 1516 Cannaregio quarter that gave the world the word "ghetto," still home to historic synagogues and a Jewish community.

A Grand Canal palace turned natural history museum, whose star attraction is a 7-metre Ouranosaurus skeleton — a reliable hit with children between churches and museums.

Venice's only "piazza" — the grand civic and religious square framed by the Basilica, the Campanile, and the arcaded Procuratie, and famously described by Napoleon as "the finest drawing room in Europe."

The oldest of the four bridges spanning the Grand Canal, lined with shops since the 16th century.

A lagoon island facing Piazzetta San Marco, crowned by Palladio's white marble church, one of the most painted views in Venice.

A grand Baroque basilica at the mouth of the Grand Canal, built as a votive offering after a devastating plague.

A former confraternity headquarters famed for its extraordinary cycle of paintings by Jacopo Tintoretto.

One of the last working gondola boatyards in Venice, its wooden sheds and slipway looking much as they did centuries ago, best seen from across the canal on Fondamenta Nani.

Venice's cathedral church, a Byzantine-domed masterpiece covered in gold mosaics on Piazza San Marco.

The freestanding bell tower of St Mark's Basilica, standing 98.6 metres tall as the tallest structure in Venice.

An astronomical clock tower on Piazza San Marco famed for its bronze bell-strikers and gilded rooftop lion.

Venice's storied opera house, rebuilt twice after fire and still the stage where Rossini, Bellini, and Verdi premiered some of their greatest works.

A vast medieval shipyard and armory complex that pioneered assembly-line shipbuilding centuries before industrialization.