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The Best Places to Visit in Venice A Guide to the City's Most Extraordinary Destinations

The Best Places to Visit in Venice 

A Guide to the City's Most Extraordinary Destinations

1. Piazza San Marco and St. Mark's Basilica

Piazza San Marco is the heart of Venice and one of the most beautiful public squares in the world, a vast and magnificently proportioned space enclosed by the Procuratie buildings, the Campanile, the Museo Correr, and the extraordinary facade of St. Mark's Basilica. The basilica itself, with its golden mosaics, Byzantine domes, and extraordinary treasury, is one of the greatest religious buildings in the world and the essential starting point for any visit to Venice. The square is at its most atmospheric in the early morning before the day-trippers arrive, or in the evening when the orchestra plays at Caffè Florian and the piazza fills with a golden light that makes it feel like a stage set for the most beautiful city on earth.

P.za San Marco, 328, 30100 Venezia VE, Italy

The Grand Canal is the main waterway of Venice, a magnificent reverse-S-shaped canal that cuts through the heart of the city from the Piazzale Roma to the San Marco basin, lined on both sides with an unbroken sequence of Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque palaces that constitute one of the greatest open-air architectural museums in the world. The best way to experience the Grand Canal is by taking the Number 1 vaporetto from one end to the other, a slow and extraordinarily beautiful journey that passes beneath the Rialto Bridge and the Accademia Bridge and reveals the full grandeur of the Venetian palazzo tradition in all its variety and magnificence.

30100 Venice, Metropolitan City of Venice, Italy

The Doge's Palace is the most magnificent secular Gothic building in the world and one of the most historically rich and visually overwhelming museums in Italy. The former seat of the Venetian Republic's government, justice, and ceremonial life, the palace contains an extraordinary sequence of state rooms painted by Tintoretto, Veronese, and the greatest artists of the Venetian Renaissance, the terrifying Council of Ten chambers, the Bridge of Sighs, and the dark prisons beneath. Allow at least three hours and book tickets well in advance to fully appreciate one of the most important and extraordinary buildings in European history.

P.za San Marco, 1, 30124 Venezia VE, Italy

The Rialto Bridge is the oldest and most iconic of Venice's four Grand Canal crossings, a magnificent late 16th-century single-arch stone structure whose views up and down the Grand Canal are among the most photographed in Italy. The surrounding Rialto market, one of the oldest and most atmospheric markets in Europe, is equally essential, with the morning fish market on the Grand Canal and the adjacent fruit and vegetable market offering a vivid and sensory window into the everyday food culture of the city. The surrounding streets of San Polo are home to some of the finest bacari in Venice and make the whole Rialto area one of the most rewarding and enjoyable destinations in the city.

30125 Venice, Metropolitan City of Venice, Italy

Dorsoduro is the most culturally rich and enjoyable of Venice's six sestieri, a beautifully compact neighborhood that contains the Gallerie dell'Accademia, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, the Punta della Dogana contemporary art space, the magnificent Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, the Zattere waterfront promenade, and the Campo Santa Margherita, the most lively and enjoyable public square in the city. The neighborhood has a wonderfully balanced character, combining world-class cultural institutions with an authentic residential atmosphere, excellent restaurants and bars, and some of the most beautiful canal views in Venice.

Murano is one of the most rewarding and enjoyable destinations in the Venice lagoon, a cluster of small islands approximately 1.5 kilometers north of Venice that has been the center of the world's greatest glassblowing tradition since the late 13th century. The island's working furnaces, showrooms, and the excellent Museo del Vetro offer a fascinating and often spectacular insight into the extraordinary craft of Venetian glass, while the quieter residential canals, the beautiful Gothic church of Santi Maria e Donato, and the more relaxed pace of life on the island make Murano a genuinely rewarding half-day or full-day destination in its own right.

Burano is one of the most visually extraordinary and photogenic places in Italy, a small fishing island in the northern Venice lagoon whose houses are painted in brilliant, saturated shades of red, yellow, blue, green, and orange that reflect in the canals with dazzling and completely unexpected effect. The island is also famous for its centuries-old tradition of needle lacemaking, and the Museo del Merletto preserves and celebrates this extraordinary craft. Beyond the famous colors and the lace, Burano has an authentic and charming fishing village atmosphere and several excellent seafood restaurants, making it one of the most enjoyable island day trips from Venice.

Cannaregio is the largest and most densely populated of Venice's sestieri, a wonderfully authentic and diverse neighborhood that stretches from the railway station to the northern lagoon shore and contains some of the most interesting and historically significant sites in the city. The Jewish Ghetto, the oldest in the world, is in Cannaregio, as is the beautiful church of the Madonna dell'Orto containing Tintoretto's greatest works, the magnificent Ca' d'Oro palace on the Grand Canal, and the Fondamente Nuove waterfront from which the vaporetti depart for the lagoon islands. The Fondamenta della Misericordia and the Fondamenta degli Ormesini are lined with the most authentic and lively bars and restaurants in Venice.

The Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, universally known as the Frari, is one of the greatest churches in Venice and one of the most important repositories of Renaissance art in Italy. The vast Gothic interior contains an extraordinary concentration of masterpieces, including Titian's magnificent Assumption of the Virgin above the high altar, widely considered one of the greatest paintings in the history of Italian art, his Pesaro Madonna, and Giovanni Bellini's incomparable triptych in the sacristy. The church also contains the tombs of Titian himself and the sculptor Antonio Canova. A visit to the Frari is one of the most profound and moving artistic experiences Venice has to offer.

Torcello is the most ancient and most haunting of the inhabited islands in the Venice lagoon, a largely deserted island in the northern lagoon that was once the most populous settlement in the entire region. Today the island has fewer than 20 permanent residents, but it contains the magnificent Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, one of the oldest and most beautiful Byzantine churches in Italy, with extraordinary mosaics including a breathtaking Last Judgment covering the entire western wall. The surrounding landscape of wild meadows, reed beds, and ancient canals has a profoundly peaceful and otherworldly beauty that makes Torcello one of the most moving and memorable destinations in the entire Venice lagoon.

Sunset in Venice at the island of Torcello with boats docked in the canal

The Scuola Grande di San Rocco is one of the most extraordinary and overwhelming artistic destinations in Venice, a magnificent confraternity building in the San Polo sestiere whose walls and ceilings are covered with an astonishing cycle of paintings by Jacopo Tintoretto, created over a period of more than 20 years between 1564 and 1587. The sheer scale, ambition, and dramatic intensity of Tintoretto's achievement here is breathtaking, and the experience of standing in the Sala dell'Albergo beneath the vast ceiling painting of the Crucifixion, one of the largest and most powerful paintings in the history of Western art, is one of the most genuinely overwhelming cultural experiences Venice has to offer.

Campo S. Rocco, 3052, 30125 Venezia VE, Italy

The Zattere is the long and beautifully atmospheric fondamenta running along the southern edge of the Dorsoduro sestiere overlooking the wide Giudecca Canal, and it is one of the finest and most enjoyable walks in Venice at any time of day or season. The waterfront promenade offers beautiful views across the canal to the island of Giudecca, excellent gelaterie and cafes, and a wonderfully peaceful and local atmosphere that is quite different from the busier tourist areas of the city. The Zattere is at its most magical at sunset, when the light on the Giudecca facades turns golden and the canal fills with the reflections of the evening sky.

Localita' Isola Giudecca, 801N, 30100 Venezia VE, Italy

Castello is the largest of Venice's sestieri and one of the most varied and rewarding to explore, stretching from the tourist-facing streets near San Marco through the extraordinary historic shipyard complex of the Arsenale to the quiet, residential neighborhoods of Sant'Elena and the Biennale gardens at the eastern end of the island. The Arsenale, the vast medieval shipyard that once produced the most powerful fleet in the Mediterranean, is one of the most impressive industrial monuments in Europe, and the surrounding streets of the eastern Castello have an authentic and unhurried Venetian character that is increasingly rare in the more central parts of the city.

Campo de la Tana, 2169, 30122 Venezia VE, Italy

The Lido is the long barrier island that separates the Venice lagoon from the Adriatic Sea and offers a completely different but equally rewarding Venice experience. Famous for its beautiful Adriatic beaches, its elegant Belle Époque hotel architecture, and its role as the home of the Venice Film Festival, the Lido has a pleasantly unhurried and residential character that makes it a wonderful half-day or full-day escape from the intensity of the main island. The combination of beach, garden villas, cycling paths, and excellent restaurants along the Gran Viale makes the Lido one of the most enjoyable and versatile destinations in the wider Venice area.

The Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute is one of the most beautiful and dramatically sited churches in Venice, a magnificent 17th-century Baroque masterpiece that stands at the entrance to the Grand Canal on the tip of the Dorsoduro sestiere. Built as a votive offering to the Virgin Mary in thanksgiving for the city's deliverance from a devastating plague, the church's extraordinary octagonal form, its soaring dome, and its breathtaking position overlooking the Grand Canal and the San Marco basin make it one of the most recognizable and photographed landmarks in Venice. The interior contains important paintings by Titian and Tintoretto.

Venice's best places to visit are spread across the city and its surrounding lagoon, and making the most of them rewards a stay of several days with a well-located and comfortable base. We recommend booking your Venice accommodation through 

. With a wide selection of properties across every Venice sestiere and budget, genuine guest reviews, competitive rates, and the Hotels.com Rewards program that earns you a free night for every 10 nights booked, it is the most reliable and rewarding way to plan your Venice visit.

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