Best of Venice

The Ca' d'Oro, or House of Gold, is unmistakable for the intricate, lace-like stone tracery on its facade overlooking the Grand Canal. Built in the fifteenth century for the merchant Marino Contarini, the palace earned its name from the…

The Gallerie dell’Accademia is housed within a sprawl of three connected buildings on the south bank of the Grand Canal: the former church, monastery, and Scuola Grande of Santa Maria della Carità. You can identify the complex by the…

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection sits on the Grand Canal as a long, low, white stone structure that rises only one story high. Known locally as the palazzo non finito, or the unfinished palace, its clean, restrained horizontal lines…

The Basilica Santa Maria della Salute is defined by its massive, white-domed octagonal structure sitting at the narrow tip of the Punta della Dogana. It was commissioned by the Venetian Senate in sixteen thirty after a plague killed nearly…

Teatro La Fenice is marked by its neoclassical facade, which stands apart from the surrounding Venetian architecture as a deliberate monument to operatic tradition. Its name, meaning the Phoenix, was chosen by a group of Venetian noble…

Piazza San Marco is the only square in Venice to bear the title of piazza, distinguished from all others in the city, which are called campi. It stretches out as a vast, paved rectangle of stone, anchored by the Byzantine domes of the…

The Doge's Palace is recognizable by its Venetian Gothic design, characterized by two levels of airy, open arcades topped by a solid upper wall of white and pink Verona marble. This building served as the seat of government, the…

The Bridge of Sighs is an enclosed, white Istrian stone passage that spans the narrow Rio di Palazzo, connecting the Doge’s Palace to the historic New Prisons. Built between sixteen hundred and sixteen hundred and three by the architect…