It is challenging to know where to start in a city like Venice, which is full of tourist attractions. It is best to get lost for a few hours and spend that time exploring its charming tiny streets and alleyways, meandering alongside its canals, and discovering its hidden corners.
You’ll come across something worth photographing at every turn. Returning to the Grand Canal and Piazza San Marco will be simple no matter where your adventures take you. The majority of the top attractions are concentrated around these two landmarks.
Venice is separated into six sestieri, or distinct neighborhoods, each with its distinct personality. The giantThe giant loop of the Grand Canal encircles San Marco, which is in the center. San Polo, a neighborhood of artisans, lies across the Rialto Bridge. Dorsoduro. Dorsoduro is a fashionable district with notable art museums and bustling squares across the Grand Canal to the south.
Santa Croce, Castello, and Cannaregio, the old Ghetto, are on the periphery. Beyond the city’s six sestieri or neighborhoods, you should take a Vaporetto to one of its islands, such as Lido, Murano, Burano, or Torcello. The stunning views of San Marco and Venice from the tower of the fourth island, San Giorgio Maggiore, make it worthwhile to travel there.
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Piazza San Marco
The beautiful homogeneity of its architecture on its three sides unites the considerable length of Venice’s most perfect square and gives it an almost intimate feel. However, St. Mark’s Square (Piazza San Marco) is cherished as Venice’s living room, where everyone congregates, strolls, drinks coffee, stops to chat, meets friends and tour guides, or passes through on the way to work or play. This is due to more than just its architectural beauty.
Arcades framed on three sides are home to chic boutiques and even chicer cafés. The irregular, exotic curves, swirls, mosaics, and lacy stone filigree of St. Mark’s Basilica serve as a landmark for the open end.
The Campanile’s masonry shaft rises above it. You can climb to its summit or the top of the Torre dell Orologio, where two “Moors” strike the hour, for views of this crowded piazza.
Torre dell Orologio
One of Venice’s most recognizable landmarks is a clock tower to one side of the basilica, looking out onto Piazza San Marco. The clock tower is finished by two bronze Moors who ring a vast bell once an hour. The clock face features the zodiac and moon phases in gold on a blue backdrop. A small balcony and a statue of the Virgin Mary are located above the clock.
Giorgio Massari added the winged Lion of St. Mark and a mosaic of golden stars on a blue backdrop above that in 1755. The tower is a superb example of Venetian Renaissance design and dates to the 15th century. The Calle Mercerei, one of Venice’s busiest streets, flows through an arched doorway at its base.
Campanile
The Campanile is not the first structure to exist here; it towers over Piazza San Marco like a giant exclamation point. The first one, built in 1153 as a lighthouse, fell abruptly into the piazza in 1902 and had to be rebuilt on a more sturdy foundation. The Loggetta at its foot, a small marble loggia finished in 1540, where members of the Great Council gathered before attending meetings, was also reconstructed.
Sansovino’s four bronze masterpieces, which were extricated from the wreckage following the collapse, can be seen in the loggia at the base between the columns. The history of the Campanile has a darker side: during the Middle Ages, prisoners—including rebel priests—were transported in cages halfway up the exterior and left to hang there for days at a time.
The Campanile is now a well-liked tourist destination because of its panoramic views over the city, the lagoon, and the Adriatic from its apex (try to go early or late in the day, as lines for the lift can be very long).
Santa Maria Della Salute
Santa Maria Della Salute, one of Venice’s most famous churches and one of the most picturesque, rises at the end of a peninsula directly across from the Doge’s Palace.
The enormous Baroque church was erected in gratitude for the 1630 plague’s conclusion. But before the church could be built, its architect, Baldassare Longhena, had more than a million timbers driven into the lagoon’s floor since the brittle ground couldn’t hold its enormous weight.
In addition to the beautiful dome, the Sacristy, where masterpieces like Tintoretto’s Marriage at Cana are located, is the focus of the church’s interior. It is directly across from the Vaporetto landing.
Scuola Grande di San Rocco
Between 1515 and 1560, this beautiful structure made of white marble was constructed to house a San Rocco-inspired charity organization. To the annoyance of his opponent painters, the famous Venetian painter Tintoretto entered the building and placed his picture in its proper location before the judgment, winning the competition to create the central panel for the ceiling of the Sala dell, Albergo, not long after it was finished.
Later, he painted a complete cycle of paintings regarded as the artist’s finest work and decorated the room’s walls and ceilings. The Glorification of St. Roch, Christ before Pilate, the Ecce Homo, and the most potent of all, The Crucifixion, are among the earliest pieces in the Sala dell Albergo, dating from 1564 and 1576, respectively. The paintings in the top hall, created between 1575 and 1581, feature scenes from the New Testament.
Teatro La Fenice
Since it has emerged from the ashes like the mythological phoenix, the name La Fenice (The Phoenix), adopted at the constriction in 1792, has proven prophetic. Three fires have destroyed the theatre, with the most recent one occurring in 1996 and only the exterior walls remaining. It has been renovated each time and is still one of the best opera houses in the world.
Many of the most well-known Italian operas, including those by Rossini, Donizetti, and Verdi, had their world premieres at La Fenice throughout its history, especially in the 19th century. The venue still hosts opera and ballet performances and musical concerts today.
La Fenice is still a very tiny opera house. Therefore tickets are tough to come by, especially for significant events, even after its reopening in 2003 with substantially expanded seating. However, you can use an audio guide to take a self-guided tour of the magnificent Rococo interior, which lasts around 45 minutes and includes the theater’s standard rooms.