Explore Venice

St Mark's Basilica is the cathedral of Venice, on Piazza San Marco beside the Doge's Palace. Built from 1063 on a Byzantine cross plan crowned by five domes, it is lined inside with gold-ground mosaics; the Pala d'Oro altarpiece, the museum and the terrace with the bronze Horses of St Mark can also be visited.

Ca' Rezzonico is a palazzo on the Grand Canal in Dorsoduro, begun by Baldassare Longhena in 1649 for the Bon family and completed by Giorgio Massari for the Rezzonico. It houses the Museum of 18th-century Venice, with furnished rooms, ceiling frescoes by Giambattista Tiepolo and paintings by Canaletto, Francesco Guardi and Pietro Longhi.

The Bridge of Sighs is an enclosed white limestone bridge over the Rio di Palazzo, linking the Doge's Palace with the New Prison. Designed by Antonio Contin and built soon after 1600, it has two small windows with stone bars. Visitors cross it on the Doge's Palace route and see it from the Ponte della Paglia.

The Doge's Palace was the residence of the Doge and the seat of government of the Republic of Venice. Its Gothic facades on the waterfront and the Piazzetta date mainly from the 14th and 15th centuries; visitors see the council halls, with paintings by Tintoretto and Veronese, and cross the Bridge of Sighs to the former prisons.

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is a museum of 20th-century European and American art in Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, an 18th-century palace on the Grand Canal in Dorsoduro where Peggy Guggenheim lived for three decades. It shows Cubist, Surrealist and abstract expressionist works by artists such as Picasso, Dalí, Miró and Pollock.

The Gallerie dell'Accademia is Venice's main gallery of art from the 14th to the 18th century, housed in the former church, convent and Scuola Grande of Santa Maria della Carità in Dorsoduro. It shows Venetian painting by Giovanni Bellini, Carpaccio, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese; Leonardo's Vitruvian Man is also in the collection.

Santa Maria della Salute is a domed Baroque basilica at the entrance to the Grand Canal, vowed by the Venetian Republic after the plague of 1630. Designed by Baldassare Longhena and begun in 1631, it has an octagonal plan under a large dome. The sacristy holds paintings by Titian and Tintoretto's Marriage at Cana.

Punta della Dogana is the former sea customs house at the tip of Dorsoduro, between the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal, built in 1678–1682 by Giuseppe Benoni and crowned by a golden globe with a figure of Fortune. Restored by Tadao Ando in 2008–2009, it shows contemporary art from the Pinault Collection.

San Giorgio Maggiore is a Benedictine church on the island of the same name, facing St Mark's Basin across the water from the Piazzetta. Designed by Andrea Palladio and built between 1566 and 1610, it has a white classical facade and a bright interior; the presbytery holds Tintoretto's Last Supper and The Gathering of the Manna.

The Naval History Museum occupies a 15th-century granary of the Venetian Republic beside the Arsenale. Founded after the First World War and owned by the Italian Navy, it shows ship models, weapons and naval relics on five floors; the ticket also covers the Ships Pavilion in the Arsenale's former oar workshop, where historic boats are displayed.

The Venetian Arsenal is the former state shipyard and armoury of the Republic of Venice, in the Castello district, enclosed by crenellated brick walls and towers. Its land gate, the Porta Magna of about 1460, is flanked by marble lions brought from Piraeus in 1687. Parts of the complex are used by the Italian Navy and as Venice Biennale venues.

The Murano Glass Museum traces the history of glassmaking from antiquity to the present, with the focus on Murano's own glass. Founded in 1861 by the abbot Vincenzo Zanetti, it occupies the Gothic Palazzo Giustinian, once the residence of the bishops of Torcello, and has been one of the Venice civic museums since 1923.

The Burano Lace Museum is in the former palace of the Podestà of Torcello on Piazza Galuppi, the main square of the island of Burano, which housed the Burano lace school from 1872 to 1970. Founded in 1978 and run by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, it traces Venetian and lagoon lace from its origins to the present through pieces, drawings and documents.

The Museo Provinciale di Torcello occupies two medieval buildings on the main square of Torcello, beside the island's cathedral. Founded in 1872, it shows archaeological finds from the lagoon and the mainland in the Palazzo dell'Archivio, and early Christian and medieval works from the islands in the Palazzo del Consiglio.

Villa Widmann is an 18th-century villa on the Brenta at Mira, between Venice and Padua. Remodelled in the mid-1700s in French Rococo taste, it has a central ballroom with frescoes attributed to Giuseppe Angeli and Gerolamo Mengozzi Colonna, a garden with stone statues, a barchessa outbuilding and a small chapel.