3 Hours Walking Tour in Venice Small Group

Piazza San Marco often known in English as St Mark's Square, is the principal public square of Venice where it is generally known just as la Piazza ("the Square"). All other urban spaces in the city (except the Piazzetta and the Piazzale Roma) are called campi ("fields"). The Piazzetta ("little Piazza/Square") is an extension of the Piazza towards the lagoon in its south east corner. The two spaces together form the social, religious and political centre of Venice and are commonly considered together.

The Doge's Palace is a palace built in Venetian Gothic style, and one of the main landmarks of the city of Venice in northern Italy. The palace was the residence of the Doge of Venice, the supreme authority of the former Venetian Republic, opening as a museum in 1923. Today, it is one of the 11 museums run by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia.

The Grand Canal is the most important "street" in Venice that can be followed by ferry or gondola. The Grand Canal divides the city centre into two parts, it is older than Venice for this reason the city was built following the path of the river. One end of the canal leads into the lagoon near the Santa Lucia railway station and the other end leads into the basin at San Marco. It makes a large reverse-S shape through the central districts (sestieri) of Venice. It is 3.8 km (2.4 mi) long, and 30 to 90 m (98 to 295 ft) wide, with an average depth of 5 metres (16 feet).

In Venice we can count around 354 bridges. All these bridges were built to transportation issues but they add something special to the beauty of th city. The Rialto Bridge is the oldest of the four bridges spanning the Grand Canal in Venice. Connecting the sestieri (districts) of San Marco and San Polo, it has been rebuilt several times since at first it was built with two old ships and than in a wooden structure. The last reconstruction, dated 1591, is the one we can see today.

The Bridge of Sighs (Italian: Ponte dei Sospiri) is one of the most particular bridge in Venice. The Ponte dei Sospiri was built using white Istrian stone in 1602 to connect Palazzo Ducale to the Prigioni Nuove, the new Venetian prisons. It has the peculiarity to be entirely covered and is formed by two, wall-separated corridors, leading to and forth the prison.

The Basilica di San Marco (St Mark’s Basilica) is the cathedral church of Venice. It is located in the Piazza San Marco, which has always been the center of Venetian public and religious life. The building’s structure dates back to the latter part of the 11th century. Much work has gone toward embellishing this, and the famous main façade has an ornamented roofline that is mostly Gothic.