Medieval city and Renaissance jewel, all Venice is an architectural wonder. Its own guardian, the “watery city” was built on a score of swampy islands connected one to another by 400 bridges over 177 canals.

An artwork in itself, the city boasts 95 churches and 20 museums full of sculptures and paintings. Visited by millions every year, there are no cars, no noise in Venice, just canals and the famous gondolas, romantic means of transport that take tourists from one part of the city to another.

Palaces, squares, churches, bridges and museums all help make Venice the Pearl of Italy.

An outstanding sight is Piazza San Marcos, a square looking out onto the Gran Canal, flanked by buildings with lovely porticoes housing splendid cafés. First opened in the late-12th century and rebuilt in the 15th, St Mark’s Square is dominated by the imposing Byzantine basilica, the perfect symbiosis of Greek, Byzantine, medieval, Tuscan, Lombard and Venetian styles and adorned by magnificent 12th- and 13th-century mosaics created from cartoons by Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese. Adjoining the basilica is the Duke’s Palace, former residence of the Doge. The façade of this outstanding Gothic monument rests on columns adorned by sculptures representing Adam and Eve and the Judgement of Solomon. The palace is connected to the old prison by the Bridge of Sighs.

The Gran Canal, the city’s main watery thoroughfare, is flanked by ancient Gothic, Renaissance and baroque palaces, and is crossed by such bridges as the Rialto and the Accademia, which leads to the art gallery of the same name and to Santa María de la Salute, a beautiful church resting on wooden pillars.

As our route continues, visitors to this breathtakingly beautiful city can pause to admire such sights as the Vernier de Leoni Palace, which houses the Guggenheim contemporary art collection, the Corner Palace, the magnificent Cá d’Oro, with the Franchetti Gallery, and Cá Pesaro, seat of the Modern Art Museum.