Venice

It's difficult to know where to begin in a city as densely packed with tourist attractions as Venice. The ideal method is to simply get lost for a few hours meandering around its charming small alleyways and passageways, strolling alongside its canals, and discovering its hidden gems. At every turn, you'll see something worth remembering with a photo. No matter where this exploration takes you, it's easy to find your way back to Piazza San Marco and the Grand Canal. Most of the best sights you'll want to visit lie around these two landmarks. Venice is divided into six sestieri, neighborhoods that have distinctly different characters. San Marco is the central one, surrounded on three sides by a great loop in the Grand Canal. To plan your stay so you won't miss any of the best places to visit, use these top places and enjoy your trip.

Venice's most well-known church and one of the most easily recognisable in the world, was once the Doge's private chapel, embellished with Byzantine art treasures brought back by Venetian ships after the fall of Constantinople. The gold-backed mosaics above the entrances on the façade merely hint to the mosaic craftsmanship inside, where the domes and walls are covered in 4,240 square metres of gold mosaics. These give the cathedral's soaring interior a very Byzantine feel, but you'll also find gems from other periods, including as later mosaics by Titian and Tintoretto - names you'll see all over the city.

The Grand Canal, which runs through the heart of Venice in a large reverse S curve, is the city's primary thoroughfare, connecting Piazza San Marco, Rialto Bridge, and the mainland rail station and bridge arrival sites. Only four bridges cross its 3.8-kilometer length, but stripped-down gondolas called traghetti shuttle back and forth at several points between bridges. The Grand Canal was the address of choice for anyone who claimed any influence in Venice. Palaces of all the leading families open onto the canal, their showy Venetian Gothic and Early Renaissance facades facing the water, by which visitors arrived.

Rialto Bridge, once the sole bridge spanning the Grand Canal, represents the site of the island's first colony, Rivus Altus (high bank). This stone arch was built in 1588, 150 years after a previous wooden bridge collapsed, and it supports two busy streets and a double group of stores. In addition to functioning as a busy crossing point midway along the canal, it is a popular vantage point for tourists taking - or posing for - photos, as well as for seeing the variety of boats that pass beneath it. One of the most visited places and tourist loved places.