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Top Sights in Venice
The most popular museums, churches, and sights in Venice, Italy
St. Mark's Cathedral - Let's just come out and say it: there simply is no church in Europe more lavishly decorated, more exquisitely mosaicked, more glittering with gold than San Marco, the cathedral of Venice. Built in the 11th century, this medieval basilica topped by a quintet of Byzantine domes is swathed inside in 40,000 square feet of glittering golden mosaics... 
Accademia Gallery - If you only make time for one museum in Venice, make it the Accademia. The collections comprise the world's greatest treasure trove of Venetian art, covering the giants of Venetian painting from the 13th to the 18th centuries: Titian, Tintoretto, Paolo Veneziano, Giorgione, Giovanni Bellini, and Carpaccio...
Doge's Palace - The public halls of this fabulously decorated palace from which the Venetian Republic was ruled for 900 years are heavily decorated with canvases and frescoes by Venice's greatest artists like Veronese and Tintoretto. Even better, the "Secret Itineraries" tour takes you behind the walls to see the inquisition room, the hidden chambers where the Council of Ten decided the fate of the Republic, and the "leads" prison cells under the roof rafters where your guide will recount the tale of Casanova's famous escape...
A gondola ride - Long, sleek, black, slightly crooked, looking like a cross between a canoe and a coffin, the Venetian gondola was the primary form of transportation in Venice from the 12th century until speedboats roared into the canals in the late 20th. The official rates for a gondola ride are €80 ($104) for up to 6 people for 40 minutes. After 7pm, the price rises to €100 ($130)...
The Grand Canal - The Grand Canal is Venice's main artery and primary boulevard, a two-mile ribbon of water plied by hundreds of ferries, gondolas, garbage scows, speedboats, and small commercial craft daily. This inverted S-curve of a canal is lined with more than 200 of the most gorgeous Venetian palazzi (palaces), called home by a legion of ex-pats like Wagner, Byron, Robert Browning, Hemingway, Proust, Henry James, and Ruskin...
Piazza San Marco - The living room of Venice is a year-round carnival, one of milling tourists, the glittering mosaics of St. Marks' cathedral, 16th-century arcades, kids feeding an endless supply of pigeons, locals relaxing at outdoor café tables under 16th century arcades, and couples caught up in Venice's romance dancing on the cobblestones to the competing strains of the cafés' live pianists and classical trios...
Peggy Guggenheim Collection - One of Europe's most complete surveys of avant garde art from the early and mid–20th century in the private 18th-century palazzo that belonged to the collector herself, Peggy Guggenheim. There are works by her short-time hubby Max Ernst, by her greatest discovery Jackson Pollock, and by such modern masters as Picasso, Miró, Mondrian, Brancusi, Duchamp, Kadinsky, Chagall, Dalí, Marini, and Giacometti...
Shopping for Venetian glass (and other crafts) - It's estimated the there are over 1,000 glass shops in the San Marco district alone. That's a lot of glasswares. For the best quality, visit Venini, Piazzetta dei Leoncini (off the left flank of Basilica di San Marco), Pauly & Co, Ponte Consorzi (just behind the Doge's Palace, although they also have boutique shops on Piazza San Marco), or Salviati, on Piazza San Marco. Here are more hints for shopping for glass and other Venetian crafts, from Murano chandeliers to hand-tatted lace and Carnival masks...
Ca' d'Oro - Venice's 15th-century "Golden Palace" is one of the best preserved and most impressive of the hundreds of patrician palazzi lining the Grand Canal. After the Palazzo Ducale, it's the city's finest example of Venetian Gothic architecture. Inside is a museum housing sculptures, furniture, 16th-century Flemish tapestries, ceramics, an impressive collection of bronzes (12th–16th century), and a painting gallery including canvases by Andrea Mantegna, Titian, Tintoretto, Carpaccio, Van Dyck, Giorgione, and Jan Steen...
Carnival in Venice - Venice's top event is the theatrical bacchanalia of Carnevale, an unbridled celebration of classical concerts and masked balls when the entire city is filled with costumed people straight out of a baroque painting. A generally more stately and refined affair than its more rowdy cousin festivals in New Orleans and Rio, Venice's Carnival takes up the 12 days immediately preceding Lent, the 40-day period of penitence and abstinence prior to Easter, usually in February or early March. (The name, by the way, is derived from the Latin carnem levare—"to take meat away"—since many people gave up meat for the duration of Lent.)...
Related pages
- Reid's List - Less famous but favorite sights & experiences
- Walking tours of Venice
- Perfect Venice itineraries
- Venice museums
- Venice churches
- Venice for free
- Venice side trips
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This material was last updated February 2011. All information was accurate at the time.
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