While I think Venice is really a city just to get lost in, there are some pretty amazing sights to see as well. Most of the famous ones are centered around St. Mark’s Square.

St Mark’s Square is grand and opulent. The Doge Palace wraps around the large open square where cafes take turns playing live music, tour groups meet, and people try to find places to sit – there are no benches, and you’re not allowed to sit on curbs in this area. 

St. Mark’s Basilica opens at 9:30am and occupies the fourth wall of the Palazzo, and its domes and tall sculptural spires glitter in the sunlight.  These golden details are just a preview of what awaits inside the cathedral. The inside is floor to ceiling gold details. Painted idols lay over the golden arches.  It was hard to get a sense of scale with the gold on gold. This was also the busiest place I went – tour groups stop midpath to learn about specific elements of the church, which makes it hard for other people to navigate the pathways. 

I bought the add on of the Golden Door, and while I don’t feel like it was worth the extra price to see more golden details behind reflective glass, I did enjoy the reprieve it gave me from the crowds in the rest of the church.  Since this was also a timed ticket entrance, I feel like the church/city should do a better job with crowd control so people can focus on the beauty of the church instead of being distracted by the crowds. 

If you’re able to schedule these as early as possible, you can avoid some of the crowds that pack the city later in the day.  Doge Palace takes timed tickets and opens at 9am.  With few people in the museum with me, I was able to enjoy the grand rooms with beautiful ceilings, sculptures, long corridors, and the Bridge of Sighs.  

The 14th century Gothic Doge Palace encircles St. Mark’s Square.  Doges have been in residence here since the Byzantine Empire but because of fires and renovation, the current building only dates back to 1340. It served as the seat of government until the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797. Since then it has turned into various types of cultural institutions until the city turned it into a museum in 1996. The museum focused on the governmental uses of the building and decorative architectural elements.

It also takes guests through the prisons and over the Bridge of Sighs. The Bridge of Sighs linked the prisons to the Magistrates chambers where prisoners would hear their sentence. It is named for the prisoner’s last sigh of freedom as they glimpse the outside world one last time. 

The Correr Museum opens at 10am and features a mix of Venetian history, political families, cultural artifacts, and art. The Correr Museum is connected to the Monumental Rooms of the Marciana National Library which displays numerous globes – both celestial and terrestrial. This was my favorite section of the museum as it focused on Marco Polo’s explorations and artifacts.

The most impressive map was the beautiful and intricate Fra Mauro‘s map. It takes a little bit to get oriented to it, as it has Africa at the top of the map and Europe at the bottom. Created in 1450 based on Marco Polo’s travels, oral stories, and religion, the Americas don’t even exist yet. However, it does tell the story through pictures and words of the known world, and the people and architecture that were important at the time. 

As St. Mark’s Square turns the corner to the water, the two pillars – one of the Venetian lion and the other of St. George slaying a dragon – serve as frames for the water beyond. The layers of these pillars, the parked gondolas, the water, and the San Giorgio Church beyond, create a beautiful vista.  

After the chaos of St. Mark’s Square, the small shaded Giardini Reali was a welcome respite. The center of these royal gardens features long trestled walkways flanked with benches to sit – finally – and take a moment to breathe. The park has layers of different shades and types of greenery. 

From here I walked south along the waterfront, across the ponte della Paglia – with view down the canal featuring the Bridge of Sighs – to another small park in the Castello district. The Giardini della Marinaressa is not just a place to sit and relax, but often home to modern sculptural exhibits.  The one on site during my visit was a small part of Venice’s Biennial. See Getting Lost in Venice for more about this exhibit 

I was lucky to be staying near the Rialto bridge: one, because being situated in the center of the city, it provided easy access to all parts of the city; and two, because it meant I could check out the bridge in the off hours. Only once did I cross the bridge in the middle of the day, and during that time it was chaotic and overwhelming; however, in the early morning or in the evening, it was nice to stop and enjoy the Grand Canal from the top of the bridge as well as take in the view of the bridge itself from the banks of the river.  Built in the late 1500s, the classic Renaissance architecture of the bridge serves as not just a visual presence in the city but also a main shopping area and crossing point between the San Marco and San Polo districts of the city. There are only three bridges that cross the Grand Canal. If you don’t want to cross at one of these points, the other way to navigate from one point of the city to the other is by boat. 

Boat rides through the Grand Canal are a must do when visiting the city. I didn’t splurge for a gondola ride, but I did buy a multi-day ACTV transit pass so that I could not only enjoy the city from the water but explore multiple areas of the city without exhausting my legs. Individual boat rides are € 9.50(2025), so a 1 day pass (€25), 2 day pass (€35), or 3 day pass (€45) all which include boats to neighboring islands quickly become cost saving. Because Venice is a busy city, it’s hard to get an outside seat on one of these transit boats, so if you want a more picturesque ride, I would say that you should opt for an organized tour of the canal. Later in the evening, I was able to score a seat in the back of a boat, so I took advantage of this and cruised along the Grand Canal a little longer than I originally planned.  Because I only planned timed events for the mornings, I was able to just let the city take me where it wanted me to go.