Overview
St Mark's & the Doge's Palace
Canals & Getting Lost
Art & the Sestieri
Islands & Cicchetti
Venice is one of the most extraordinary cities ever built — a labyrinth of 118 small islands set in a lagoon at the head of the Adriatic, where canals take the place of roads, boats of cars, and a thousand years of maritime wealth produced a uniquely beautiful city of Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance palaces rising straight from the water. Its monumental heart is St Mark's Square (Piazza San Marco), Napoleon's 'drawing room of Europe', dominated by the golden Byzantine domes and dazzling mosaics of St Mark's Basilica, the soaring brick Campanile, and the pink-and-white Gothic Doge's Palace, seat of the Venetian Republic, linked to its prisons by the famous Bridge of Sighs. The Grand Canal, the city's great S-shaped waterway, sweeps past the finest palazzi and under the iconic Rialto Bridge with its market, best experienced from a vaporetto water-bus or a gondola. But the real magic of Venice lies in getting lost — wandering the quiet back lanes (calli), bridges and tiny squares (campi) of the six sestieri (districts), discovering churches, workshops and canal-side bacari away from the crowds: artistic Dorsoduro with the Accademia and Guggenheim galleries and the great Salute church; Cannaregio with the world's first Jewish Ghetto and local life; ancient Castello; and San Polo with the Rialto market. Beyond the city, the lagoon islands beckon — Murano, home of Venetian glassmaking; Burano, with its rainbow fishermen's houses and lace; and ancient Torcello. Venice is also a city of pleasures: the Venetian small plates (cicchetti) and an ombra of wine at a stand-up bacaro bar, fresh seafood and risotto, the spritz that was born here, the masked drama of Carnival and the great art of the Biennale. Fragile and famously busy, Venice rewards the considerate traveller who stays overnight to enjoy its magical, empty evenings, comes outside peak times, and explores beyond the main routes. Spring and autumn are loveliest; summer is hot and crowded, and winter atmospheric (with the chance of acqua alta high tides).
Discover Venice
The monumental heart of Venice is St Mark's Square (Piazza San Marco), a vast and beautiful space that Napoleon called 'the drawing room of Europe', ringed by elegant arcades and historic cafés (the centuries-old Florian and Quadri, with their orchestras). It is dominated by St Mark's Basilica, the cathedral of gold — a Byzantine masterpiece of five domes whose interior glows with over 8,000 square metres of golden mosaics, with the jewelled Pala d'Oro altarpiece and the bronze horses above the entrance; climb the great brick Campanile for a panorama over the rooftops and lagoon. Beside the basilica stands the Doge's Palace (Palazzo Ducale), the pink-and-white Gothic seat of the rulers of the Venetian Republic, a sumptuous warren of grand council chambers hung with Tintoretto and Veronese, linked across a canal by the enclosed Bridge of Sighs to the old prisons. The square opens to the waterfront and the lagoon, with the columns of St Mark and St Theodore framing the view to the island church of San Giorgio Maggiore — the classic Venetian vista, magical at dawn before the crowds arrive.
Two to three days lets you see St Mark's Square and the Doge's Palace, cruise the Grand Canal, explore the quieter sestieri on foot, visit the major art (the Accademia, the Frari) and take a half-day to the islands of Murano and Burano. Crucially, stay overnight rather than day-tripping — Venice is transformed in the evenings and early mornings once the day crowds leave, when the empty, lamplit lanes and canals are at their most magical.
A gondola ride is the romantic Venetian cliché, and gliding through the quiet back canals is genuinely lovely — but it is expensive and rates are fixed (more after dark), so set expectations and share the cost in a group. For a cheaper taste of canal travel, ride the number 1 vaporetto (water-bus) down the Grand Canal, or take a traghetto gondola ferry across it for a couple of euros. Whether or not you take a gondola, experiencing Venice from the water in some form is essential.
Spring (April to June) and autumn (September to October) offer the best balance of pleasant weather and slightly thinner crowds. Summer is hot, very crowded and can be smelly at low tide. Winter is atmospheric and quiet — and includes the spectacular masked Carnival in February — but bring waterproof footwear, as the acqua alta (high tides) can flood St Mark's and low areas. Whenever you go, early mornings and evenings are the calmest and most beautiful times.
1 embassy based in this city, grouped by region.