Venice's main water thoroughfare, lined with great Renaissance palaces, is a colorful and busy spectacle of gondolas and vaporetti.

A masterpiece of Gothic architecture, the building and its sculptural decoration date from various periods. The interior, with works by artists such as Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto, A.Vittoria and Tiepolo, includes vast council chambers, superbly decorated residential apartments, and austere prison cells. Along the facades of the Palace run loggias that overlook St. Mark’s Square and the lagoon. The combined entrance ticket to the St. Mark’s Square Museums grants access to the Doge’s Palace, Museo Correr, Museo Archeologico Nazionale and Monumental Rooms of Biblioteca Marciana.

It is said that Napoleon called San Marco "the drawing room of Europe." And it is a breathtakingly beautiful place. But the square has long been a lure for massive numbers of pigeons, drawn by the massive numbers of tourists who readily feed them. While the tourists happily post for photos amid the flock, there are concerns that the birds' presence--and what they leave behind--will damage the centuries old architecture and art work.

Blending the architectural styles of East and West, Venice's magnificent basilica was consecrated in 832 AD as an ecclesiastical building to house the remains of St. Mark.

Originally built as a lighthouse to assist navigation in the lagoon, visitors can be whisked by elevator to the top of St. Mark's Campanile or bell tower to savor incredible views of Venice, the lagoon and the Alps in the distance.

Considered the true heart of Venice, this landmark bridge, characterized by its 24-foot arch, is built on approximately 12,000 wooden pilings that still support the bridge more than 400 years after it was built.

The northernmost of Venice's six sestieri (districts) is where the former Jewish ghetto was located. The main street, Strada Nuova, is often bursting with activity.

The Scuola Grande di San Rocco is a lay confraternity founded in 1478. The popularity of the cult of St. Roch, whose remains had been in the possession of the brotherhood since 1485, contributed to the latter’s rapid expansion to the extent of it becoming the richest Scuola of the city. At that point it was decided to build a new monumental headquarters and engage Tintoretto to decorate it with his most celebrated pictorial cycle, illustrating episodes from the New and Old Testaments. It is the only one of the historic Scuole Grandi to have survived the fall of the republic. It is a unique site, where over 60 paintings are preserved in their original setting in a building that has hardly undergone any alteration since its construction. The confraternity is still active today, carrying out its traditional charitable duties as well as looking after its extraordinary artistic patrimony.

Originally built in the mid-13th century, Santa Maria Glorisoa dei Frari (St. Mary of the Friars) houses many masterpieces of Venetian Renaissance art, notably Giovanni Bellini's triptych "Madonna and Child with Saints," the "Assumption" and the "Pesaro Madonna" by Titian, Saint John the Baptist by Donatello.

This satellite gallery of the famous Guggenheim in New York occupies the 17th-century Customs House in Venice, featuring modern and contemporary works of art.