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Sights Overview

Built entirely on water by men who dared defy the sea, Venice is like no other place in the world. No matter how many times you have seen it in movies or TV commercials, the real thing is more dreamlike than you could ever imagine. Its most famous buildings, the Basilica di San Marco and the Palazzo Ducale, seem hardly Italian: delightfully idiosyncratic, they're exotic mixes of Byzantine, Gothic, and Renaissance styles. Shimmering sunlight and silvery mist soften every perspective here, making it easy to understand how the city became renowned in the Renaissance for its artists' rendering of color. It's a place full of secrets, inexpressibly romantic, and at times given over entirely to pleasure.

The first step in understanding the lay of the land is to know that central Venice is divided into six sestieri (neighborhoods): San Marco, Castello, Dorsoduro, Cannaregio, San Polo, and Santa Croce. The districts were mandated by the government in 1170; what was at first a rather arbitrary dissection of the city now seems almost as natural a feature of Venice as its hundreds of man-made islands and canals. Over the course of time, each neighborhood developed its own distinctive atmosphere and layout.