The 35 best things to do in Venice

Venice delivers culture and history at every turn - Petya De Simone/Sincerita

A break in Venice will deliver culture and history in spades. The Lagoon City is tightly packed with museums and galleries, spanning everything from ancient palaces and collections of art through the centuries, to cutting-edge contemporary exhibits. And don’t miss a chance to listen to the city's classical music in an appropriate setting, such as a deconsecrated church or at the splendid La Fenice opera house.

All our recommendations have been hand selected and tested by our destination expert to help you discover the best things to do in Venice. Find out more below, or for more inspiration, see our guides to the city's best hotels, restaurants, bars and cafés and shopping. 

Find things to do by type:

• Best for culture
• Best for art and architecture
• Best for history
• Best for music
• Best free things to do

Best for culture

Venice's waterways

Drift around the canals on a gondola

Pricey it may be, but a gondola ride is part of the Venice ritual. Choose a gondola you like the look of at one of the stands around the city, pay only the going rate (set by regulatory Ente Gondola and posted by each stop) and remember that you're not obliged to go on the gondolier's standard circuit – you can choose your route. Bacino Orseolo is a popular starting point.

Insider tip: You can experience a short gondola ride for just €2 in the large traghetto (ferry) gondolas that cross the Grand Canal at strategic points – for example between the Hotel Gritti and the Salute church. It’s de rigueur to do the crossing standing up but remember: for Venetians this is a crucial means of transport not a tourist attraction. Don't rock the boat.

Price: £££

A Venetian gondolier steers his way under a bridge at dusk - This content is subject to copyright./Westend61

Scuola Dalmata

Admire the city's scuole

Venice’s flourishing scuole (schools) were part guilds, part charitable foundations. Some were rooted in a craft or profession, others had a common cultural background. The city's Dalmatian community built its HQ – Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, aka Scuola Dalmata – at the beginning of the 16th century, calling on artist Vittore Carpaccio to decorate it. There are intricate details everywhere, from elaborate turbans to a little dog looking pleadingly at his master St Augustine. Currently undergoing an in-place restoration, Carpaccio's works are looking ever more glowingly splendid.

Insider tip: Carpaccio was a master at capturing Venetian light, and he also painted from life. Don't leave without seeing The Calling of St Matthew: it’s set in Venice’s Ghetto, capturing it exactly as it was around 1505.

Nearest vaporetto stop: San Marco-San Zaccaria

Price: £

Grand Canal

Explore Venice's watery main street

Lined with the palazzos of the Venetian ruling classes – many of them now hotels or pricey wedding venues – the city’s watery main street is one of the highlights of any visit. Halfway down the Grand Canal is the shop-lined 16th-century Rialto bridge. Also look out for the fairytale façade of Ca d'Oro, the busy Pescheria or fish market, and the charmingly lopsided Ca' Dario, said to be cursed.

Insider tip: For the best view, take vaporetto (boat) number 1 from ‘E’ jetty outside the train station and be quick to nab one of the coveted outside seats at the front or back.

Vaporetto stop: Piazzale Roma or Ferrovia

Price: £

Venice's main canal is a must-visit for anyone exploring the City of Water for the first time - This content is subject to copyright./Pinghung Chen / EyeEm

Palazzo Mocenigo

Learn the art of perfumery

Palazzo Mocenigo is a charming museum of Venetian aristocratic life and costumes in the 17th and 18th centuries. Opulent and utterly outlandish dresses once worn by Venetian noblewomen are displayed amid patrician interiors and furnishings. There's also a series of rooms dedicated to the history and science of spices and perfume in Venice. 

Insider tip: Palazzo Mocenigo offers courses on fashion history and on perfumes, available in English, which can be booked through the website.

Nearest vaporetto stop: San Stae

Prices: £

An elaborate perfume display at the Palazzo Mocenigo

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Best for art and architecture

Palazzo Grassi

Contemplate contemporary art in an 18th-century palazzo

The imposing 18th-century Palazzo Grassi on the Grand Canal stages challenging contemporary art and photography exhibitions, mostly drawing on the vast collection of its owner, luxury brand magnate François-Henri Pinault. Exhibitions usually run from April to December, and range from single-artist affairs to themed collectives. One highlight from recent years was an ambitious sea-themed extravaganza of art pieces created by Damien Hirst.

Insider tip: Next door, the Teatrino Grassi extends Palazzo Grassi’s activities on to the stage, with a programme of talks, films, performances and children’s workshops, all of which are free. The full schedule of events can be found online.

Nearest vaporetto stop: San Samuele

Price: ££

Contemporary art abounds within the canalside Palazzo Grassi

Palazzo Grimani

Look up to fabulous frescoed ceilings

The under-visited Palazzo Grimani is one of the city's great Renaissance palazzos. Its architecture, decoration and contents breathe the classical enthusiasms of the man responsible for its transformation in the mid 16th-century, Cardinal Giovanni Grimani. The ceiling frescoes and stucco work by artists such as Federico Zuccari have also been beautifully restored. In the Sala ai Fogliami, look to the ceiling for a riot of lovingly observed flora and fauna.

Insider tip: If you're planning to visit the Galleria Franchetti–Ca' d'Oro as well, you can save money by getting the combined ticket.

Nearest vaporetto stop: San Marco-San Zaccaria

Price: ££

Palazzo Grimani is largely under-visited

Santi Giovanni e Paolo

Enjoy one of the city's most beautiful churches

A massive Gothic barn of a church forming part of Venice’s main hospital, Santi Giovanni e Paolo was built for the Dominican order from the 13th to the 15th centuries. The contents are remarkable: this is one Venetian church where it's worth taking time over some of the exquisite funerary sculptures. The standout painting is Lorenzo Lotto's St Anthony Giving Alms: note the rich Turkish rug and the typically Venetian street scene.

Insider tip: Outside in the square stands Florentine artist Andrea del Verrocchio's 15th-century monument to mercenary soldier Bartolomeo Colleoni.

Vaporetto stop: Ospedale

Price: £

Santi Giovanni e Paolo forms part of Venice's main hospital

Ca' d'Oro

Enjoy the artwork in a forgotten palazzo

The flamboyant Gothic flourishes of the 15th-century Grand Canal palazzo Ca' d'Oro distil the essence of Venice. Inside is the art collection assembled by a former owner, Baron Giorgio Franchetti. Its highlight is Mantegna’s visionary and unfinished Saint Sebastian, displayed in a marble-lined chapel built expressly to house his prize possession. Don't miss the view of the Grand Canal from the first-floor balcony. 

Insider tip: Universally known as the Ca’ d’Oro (golden house), the real name of this building is Palazzo Santa Sofia. Originally the façade was a multi-coloured marvel of red and blue with extravagant gold detailing, hence the nickname.

Vaporetto stop: Ca’ d'Oro

Price: ££

In-the-know visitors flock to Ca' d'Oro for the tip-top views of boats floating down the Grand Canal

Madonna dell'Orto

Discover some of Tintoretto's finest canvases

Everybody knows Madonna dell'Orto as "The Tintoretto Church", not only because the 16th-century maestro is buried here, but also because this Gothic church holds some of his most significant canvases. The Last Judgement is a maelstrom of dark intensity; his Presentation of the Virgin is a visionary work, the innocent girl somehow dominating the composition.

Insider tip: Far from the tourist hordes, the area around the church is a fascinating less-visited part of Venice. Look out for the marble relief of a turbaned man with a camel on a wall opposite the church – testimony to Venice's mercantile links with the Arab world.

Nearest vaporetto stop: Orto

Price: £ (donation appreciated)

Santa Maria dei Miracoli

Marvel at marble

What makes Santa Maria dei Miracoli so special is the fact that Pietro Lombardo, who designed it in the 1480s, was a stonemason, so he approached the thing as a piece of sacred sculpture rather than just a building. Polychrome marble adorns every inch of the façade. Inside, balustrades and pilasters are alive with marble saints and cherubs, sea monsters and vegetation.

Insider tip: If you're planning to visit four or more of the 18 Venetian churches that (like this one) belong to the Chorus scheme, invest in a €15 (£13) Chorus Pass, available online or in situ.

Nearest vaporetto stop: Rialto/Fondamente Nove

Price: £

The charming view on the approach to Santa Maria Dei Miracoli includes a traditional Venetian footbridge - © 2017 Maurizio Antonetti/Numbersix

Scuola Grande di San Rocco

Read the Bible – across canvases of Renaissance art

Brace yourself for artistic overload at the imposing HQ of the Confraternity of St Roch – the richest of Venice's scuole, or charitable brotherhoods. Tintoretto worked at the Scuola Grande di San Rocco for 27 years, illustrating almost the entire Bible, from Adam and Eve to Christ's Ascension, in a series of epic-scale canvases arranged on the walls and ceilings of the complex’s lofty halls.

Insider tip: The prolific Tintoretto won a competition in 1564 to decorate the scuola by wowing the selection committee with a finished painting rather than the required sketch. A free leaflet explains the order in which he created the works.

Nearest vaporetto stop: San Tomà

Price: £

Tintoretto decorated the Scuola Grande di San Rocco's chapter room with impressive biblical paintings

Peggy Guggenheim Collection

Check out some surrealist art

The redoubtable Peggy Guggenheim assembled a remarkable hoard of modernist and surrealist art, including works by Picasso, Magritte, Max Ernst (her husband for a while), Giacometti and Jackson Pollock. The display case for the Peggy Guggenheim Collection is equally original: the 18th-century Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal is just one storey high and was never finished. The museum shop is excellent too.

Insider tip: Peggy placed Marino Marini's bronze horse-and-rider sculpture The Angel of the City in a garden facing the Grand Canal.

Nearest vaporetto stop: Accademia/Salute

Price: ££

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection - Diritti di sfruttamento economico: Collezione Peggy GuggenheimDiritto d'Autore: © Andrea Sarti - Crediti Fotografici: ph. Andre/Andrea Sarti

Palazzo Grassi

View contemporary art in a historic building

When the historic former customs warehouse Punta della Dogana reopened in 2009 after a top-to-toe rehaul by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, it consolidated Venice's growing reputation as a contemporary art destination. Ando's modernist raw concrete plays off against the brick walls and wooden ceiling beams of the 17th-century building, as a showcase for exhibitions mainly drawn from the vast vaults of the collection of French luxury goods magnate François-Henri Pinault.

Insider tip: Pinault also occupies Palazzo Grassi, a Grand Canal-facing structure superbly revamped, like Punta della Dogana, by Japanese architect Tadao Ando. 

Nearest vaporetto stop: Salute

Price: ££

A previous Damien Hirst exhibition at the Punta della Dogana – Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable

Gallerie dell'Accademia

Walk through a highlight reel of Venetian masterpieces

The Gallerie dell'Accademia is to Venice what the Uffizi is to Florence: a superb repository of the very best of the city's art. Tintoretto's ghostly Transport of the Body of St Mark is my favourite, but there's so much else to enjoy: Titian’s moving Pietà; Veronese’s OTT Feast in the House of Levi; Giorgione’s mysterious Tempest; some exquisite Bellinis; and Carpaccio's detailed Life of St Ursula fresco cycle.

Insider tip: Venice has Napoleon to thank for this collection: he ordered churches closed, and moved masterpieces here for budding artists to study – a move which arguably saved them from being carted off to Paris.

Nearest vaporetto stop: Accademia

Price: ££

The Gallerie dell'Accademia show the very best of the city's art

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Best for history

Doge's Palace

Explore the many rooms of a duke's palace

Venice’s doges (dukes) were elected from among their aristocratic peers, after which their whole lives were owned by the state. Venice was all about shimmering exteriors concealing hard-nosed commercial or administrative activity. The mainly 15th-century Doge’s Palace has immense meeting halls and formal reception rooms with acres of canvases by Tintoretto – and narrow chambers where bureaucrats beavered away in cramped darkness.

Insider tip: To visit the piombi, the attic prison cells from which lover-boy Giacomo Casanova once made a famous escape, and the dungeons by the Bridge of Sighs, be sure to book the Itinerari Segreti guided tour.

Nearest vaporetto stop: San Marco-San Zaccaria

Price: ££

Doge's Palace is a stunning showcase of history - andrea avezzu'

Museo Correr

Delve into centuries of history and traditions

The Museo Correr is the museum of Venice – its collection designed to illuminate the history and traditions of this remarkable city. A Napoleonic-era ballroom, the suite occupied by Austrian Emperor Franz Jozeph and his wife Sissi in the 19th century, classical statuary in the Museo Archeologico and Jacopo Sansovino's 16th-century temple of learning the Biblioteca Marciana, all show Venice at its finest.

Insider tip: Less magnificent but equally as fascinating, the maps, globes, coins, musical instruments and feast-day banners on display here are a great introduction to the life and times of the Serene Republic. The Doge's Palace is included on the same ticket.

Nearest vaporetto stop: San Marco-Giardinetti

Price: ££

Museo Correr showcases the best of the city - andrea avezzu'/andrea avezzu'

Museo Storico Navale

Learn about Venice's naval past

The might of the Venetian republic was based on its sea power, and the Museo Storico Navale is a tribute to its prowess. It’s a charming collection of seafaring memorabilia. You may not wish to study every scale model of all the fighting and trading ships ever built in the nearby Arsenale, but a quick browse is fascinating, especially for children. Just along the way – and visitable on a cumulative ticket – is the vast Padiglione delle Navi, where a host of full-sized craft are displayed, including Marconi’s research boat Elettra and the Doge’s ceremonial barge.

Insider tip: For a small surcharge visitors can enter the magnificent spaces of the historic Arsenale proper, to clamber inside a Cold War-era submarine.

Nearest vaporetto stop: Arsenale

Price: ££

Museo Storico Navale reveals the city's naval past - This content is subject to copyright./Richard Baker

Museo Querini Stampalia

Find out what Venetian life looked like in the 18th century

A particularly fascinating collection of furniture, paintings, and objects is displayed at the Museo Querini Stampalia. Inside the gallery's ornate rooms you'll find Giovanni Bellini's intriguing, mysterious Presentation in the Temple and Hieronymus Bosch’s brilliantly unhinged Vision of the Afterlife. It also has superb genre scenes of everyday Venetian life in the 18th century by Pietro Longhi and Gabriele Belli.

Insider tip: The café on the ground floor, which spills out into the contemporary garden designed by 20th-century architectural master Carlo Scarpa, is a delightful place to rest and recharge over a coffee, snack or light lunch.

Nearest vaporetto stop: San Marco-San Zaccaria

Price: ££

Museo Querini Stampalia has a fascinating collection

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Best for music

Interpreti Veneziani

Listen to baroque music in an atmospheric church

Venice is awash with bewigged musical ensembles sawing away at Vivaldi. Interpreti Veneziani are a major cut above most of the competition. Serious musicians play mainly baroque works with not a period costume in sight, though performers are not above exchanging high fives after virtuoso passages. Concerts take place most nights in the deconsecrated church of San Vidal.

Insider tip: Preview the kind of period instruments the ensemble’s repertoire was originally played on at the Museo della Musica, where tickets for Interpreti Veneziani concerts can also be purchased.

Nearest vaporetto stop: Accademia

Price: ££

Members of the Interpreti Veneziani playing a classical music concert in San Vidal church

Teatro La Fenice

Dress to the nines for an evening at the opera

Periwigged flunkeys no longer hand ladies from gondola to theatre steps on opening nights as they once did, but Venice's historic opera house is still a marvellously atmospheric place to take in some Verdi or Donizetti. Restored "where it was, as it was" after a devastating fire in 1996, La Fenice is a jewel box of red velvet, ornate gilding and many-faceted chandeliers.

Insider tip: To catch an opera, you’ll need to book months ahead. But you can tour the theatre premises by day with an audioguide, or catch a performance at La Fenice's scarcely less sumptuous sister venue, the Teatro Malibran.

Nearest vaporetto stop: Giglio

Price: £££

Venice's historic opera house La Fenice

Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari

Combine music and art at a Gothic church

I Frari (or Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari to give it its full name) is the vast, penumbral Gothic church of the Franciscan order. It may be simple in style, but the artworks inside are truly sumptuous. Titian's dramatic, intensely spiritual Assumption of the Virgin (1518) over the high altar dominates. Other highlights include the serene Giovanni Bellini triptych of the Virgin and Child with saints (1488) in the sacristy, and Titian’s daringly off-kilter Madonna di Ca’ Pesaro in the left aisle.

Insider tip: The basilica often hosts concerts, and any chance to hear choral music echoing through this lofty space should be seized. View the schedule online.

Nearest vaporetto stop: San Tomà

Price: £

The lofty, Gothic church I Frari comes to life when it hosts choral concerts

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Best free things to do

St Mark's Basilica

Take a look inside St Mark's Basilica

From its four great bulbous domes outside to its one-and-a-half square miles of glimmering mosaics covering the splendid interior, there's nothing understated about Venice's mother church. Queues lengthen scarily once the basilica opens for tourist visits at 9.30am (2pm on Sunday and important feast days), but you can avoid the wait by booking a timed entry slot through the website. The main body of the basilica costs €10 [£9] to visit; there are areas where a steeper fee is charged, the best of which is the upstairs loggia (the Museo di San Marco, €14 [£12]) which affords spectacular views over the piazza. Worshippers enjoy the Basilica for free however, entering for mass by the door in piazzetta dei Leoncini.

Vaporetto stop: San Marco-San Zaccaria

There's nothing understated about St Mark's Basilica - This content is subject to copyright./Westend61

St Mark's Square

Wander St Mark's Square

Piazza San Marco is an elegant colonnaded square lined with swanky cafés, jewellery stores and glass shops, dominated by the dreamy domes and glittering mosaics of St Mark's Basilica. Strolling around "the drawing room of Europe" – as Napoleon is rumoured to have referred to it – is a pleasure in itself, but there are sights to admire as well. The only free-standing building in the square is the Campanile (bell tower, €15 [£13]), which provides wraparound views over the city and lagoon.

It's also worth also making time for the Museo Correr (€40 [£35], includes Doge's Palace), a museum charting the Serene Republic's rise and fall, and the fascinating Torre dell'Orologio (€14 [£12], booking essential), where you can observe the workings of the elaborate clock that still marks the hours in the piazza. The interior of the Procuratie Vecchie – recently restored by British architect David Chipperfield – can be visited free. The view from the roof is superb.

Vaporetto stop: San Marco-San Zaccaria

Piazza San Marco is lined with cafés and shops - This content is subject to copyright./tunart

Arsenale

See where the ships used to be made

The Serene Republic's shipyard, or Arsenale, occupies a large swathe of eastern Venice. Founded in 1104, this huge city-within-the-city of docks, warehouses, rope walks and workshops was a marvel of the pre-industrial world. In the 16th century, it employed 16,000 people on an assembly line that was able to turn out a ship a day. The Arsenale is not regularly open to the public, but parts are used as exhibition space for Biennale shows (ticket prices vary). At other times, you can admire the four mismatched marble lions outside the glorious Renaissance main gate – war loot from crusades and campaigns.

Vaporetto stop: Arsenale 

Arsenale was a marvel of the pre-industrial world - This content is subject to copyright./Jon Arnold

Giardini Pubblici

Let off some steam in the gardens

Beyond a few frustratingly unreachable private gardens, green space is in short supply in Venice. If the children need to let off steam, or you do, head for the eastern end of island Venice, where 19th-century planners factored in a public park. By the Giardini vaporetto stop is a kids' play area with swings, slides and climbing frames. Beyond, the Giardini della Biennale is open only during the Biennale shows. It's dotted with national pavilions, some (like Alvar Aalto's Finnish pavilion) designed by big names. Nearby, in leafy viale Garibaldi, a former greenhouse is now bar-restaurant La Serra dei Giardini. There's another play area nearby.

Vaporetto stop: Giardini  

San Zaccaria

Look at the incredible artwork

Dedicated to the father of John the Baptist (his body supposedly lies under the second altar on the right), this church was begun in Gothic style in the 1440s but completed in Renaissance style 50 years later by Mauro Codussi. The interior has two unmissable works of art: Giovanni Bellini's masterful, harmonious Madonna and Four Saints, and Tuscan artist Andrea Castagno's saints and putti on the ceiling vaults of the San Tarasio chapel, perhaps the greatest Florentine early Renaissance fresco that's not in Florence. The church is free; there's a charge to visit the crypt.

Vaporetto stop: San Marco-San Zaccaria 

San Zaccaria houses unmissable art - Marco Brivio/Marco Brivio

The Ghetto

Visit the home of Venice's Jewish community

Island Venice is a cluster of islands – city blocks separated from each other by canals. In 1516, Venice's Jewish community was confined to one such island called the 'Ghetto', as this was where iron was gettato (smelted). Still the centre of the city's small Jewish community, this tranquil district centring on the square of campo del Ghetto Nuovo betrays little of the hardship of life here in former years. In the square, the Museo Ebraico offers guided tours (€17 [£15]) taking in three ancient synagogues dotted around the campo. But a restful independent wander around the atmospheric area will be just as rewarding.

Vaporetto stop: Guglie

Museo Ebraico offers guided tours - Copyright 2014 Rosmarie Wirz/Rosmarie Wirz

Rialto

Explore the markets and soak up the atmosphere

Venice may look flat, but it's an illusion. Rivoaltus ("high bank") – later shortened to Rialto – was settled early in Venice's history in the 5th century, because it was (relatively) high and dry. Spanning the Grand Canal here, the Ponte di Rialto was designed between 1588 and 1591 by the aptly named Antonio da Ponte (Tony Bridge) to replace a series of wooden predecessors, the earliest of which was a 12th-century pontoon affair. Visit for the daily morning produce market, which has been held here since 1097. Or drop by of an evening, when the market area becomes a buzzing aperitivo hub.

Vaporetto stop: Rialto or Rialto Mercato

Rialto spans the Grand Canal, with famous attractions including the market and bridge - This content is subject to copyright./Westend61

Santa Maria della Salute

Marvel at a Baroque masterpiece

Dominating the final stretch of the Grand Canal, La Salute is the uncontested masterpiece of the Venetian Baroque. With its playful scrolls supporting an airy balloon of a dome, the church has an ineffable grace, a lightness that plays against the huge bulk and scale of the thing. It was built to give thanks for the city's delivery from its final plague epidemic in 1630. Health (salute) and light are built into the very fabric of the church. It was designed in the round, in homage to the "crown of 12 stars" of the Virgin Mary.

In the sacristy hangs Tintoretto's busy masterpiece Marriage Feast at Cana. Entry to the church is free; there's a €6 [£5] for the museum in the sacresty. Other areas of the basilica are open from time to time, including a trip up the cupola (€8 [£7]). Check the website for details. Note the splendid newly restored Nuovo Trionfo trabaccolo fishing boat moored just along from the basilica. It’s the last working example of this traditional craft left on the lagoon, and can be rented for events.

Vaporetto stop: Salute

La Salute was built to mark the end of the plague - CopyRights by Henryk Sadura Travel Photography/Henryk Sadura

The Human Safety Net

Enjoy an alternative view over St Mark’s Square

The newest addition to the sights of St Mark’s comes courtesy of the giant Generali insurance group which has taken over much of the 16th-century Procuratie Vecchie – the long building lining the north side of the piazza – and turned it into a home for its “Human Safety Net” project with galleries, work spaces, activity rooms, lecture theatres; you name it, it’s in there.

There’s a charge for revolving exhibitions, otherwise entry to the building is free, though you may have to wend your way through hordes of children doing musical happenings or making use of the library. There’s a fine view of Venice’s rooftops from the roof terrace, and an interesting slant on the piazza below through low porthole windows.

Insider tip: The Procuratie makeover was designed by British architect David Chipperfield. You can see more of his work in the modern extension of San Michele, Venice’s cemetery island.

Nearest vaporetto stop: San Marco-Giardinetti

Price: Free

Burano

Visit the lace makers

The jauntily-hued houses of this fishing island in the northern lagoon look like the result of a bunch of children let loose with a giant paintbox. The sheer prettiness of the place tempts plenty of visitors to make the trip across from Venice on the number 12 vaporetto, as does the island's tradition of merletto (lace). A couple of delightful lace-making ladies are generally in residence in the mornings at the Museo del Merletto in the main piazza, where the church of San Martino has an early work by Tiepolo.

Vaporetto stop: Burano

Burano is a traditional fishing island

San Giorgio Maggiore

Admire wondrous Venetian glass

There's something calm about the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, its church dominating the lagoon view from St Mark's. Up close you're struck by the harmony of Andrea Palladio's 1565 design. Inside are two fine canvases by Tintoretto (don't miss the cat peeking into a basket in The Last Supper). The view from the adjacent bell tower (€6 [£5]) sets Venice in its watery context as a series of islands in the lagoon. The former monastery buildings behind the church house the Cini Foundation, which organises exhibitions, and the Stanze del Vetro (free) which stages exhibitions of wondrous Venetian modern and contemporary glass.

Vaporetto stop: San Giorgio

San Giorgio Maggiore island is a calm corner of the city - Carmen Martinez Torron/Carmen Martínez Torrón

The Lido

Go for a quick dip

Nowadays Venice's seaside strip, the Lido, is more of a dormitory suburb than the elegant haunt depicted in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice. But this unfussy quality is part of its charm. Walk 10 minutes down the Gran Viale, the Lido's main street, to the sea-facing side of this long, thin island, and you can be making sandcastles in no time. Alternatively hop on the number 11 bus or hire a bicycle and head for the dunes at Alberoni at the south end of the island. The sleepy Lido wakes up for 10 days in August-September during the Film Festival.

Vaporetto stop: Lido

The dunes at Alberoni offer a different side to Venice - Aldo Pavan/Aldo Pavan

Murano

Experience the magic of glass-blowing

It's fascinating to see glass being blown in the workshops on Murano, but remember: any excursion offered "free" by your hotel comes with serious pressure to buy. Far better to make your own way there. Murano's destiny was written when glassmaking activities were transferred here in 1291 because of the fire risk in central Venice, but there's more to this island than glass. After you've seen a demonstration, head to the church of Santi Maria and Donato to see its glorious 12th-century mosaic floor alive with animal and plant motifs. The Museo del Vetro (€10 [£9]) boasts an important collection of historic glassware, including some Roman pieces. 

Vaporetto stop: Murano Colonna, Murano Faro or Murano Museo

It's fascinating to see ornaments being blown at Murano - © 2014 Perfect World Photography/J.M.F. Almeida

Torcello

Learn the history of how Venice began

Venice began in Torcello in the 5th century, when citizens of Altino on the mainland fled here to escape Barbarian invasions. By the 14th century, Torcello was the most populous island on the lagoon, but the rival settlement of Venice soon gained the upper hand. Today this sleepy island is a poignant witness to past glories. A stroll around the echoingly atmospheric island is a welcome break from Venice's crowds. Two handsome churches remain: the ancient Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta (€5 [£4], church and belltower €9 [£8]), simple on the outside but richly decorated inside with mosaics dating from the 9th to the 12th centuries; and austere Santa Fosca, a perfect, unadorned Greek-cross church from the 11th century.

Vaporetto stop: Torcello

The ancient Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta - Evgeni Dinev/Evgeni Dinev Photography

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How we choose

Every attraction and activity in this curated list has been tried and tested by our destination expert, to provide you with their insider perspective. We cover a range of budgets and styles, from world-class museums to family-friendly theme parks – to best suit every type of traveller. We update this list regularly to keep up with the latest openings and provide up to date recommendations.

About our expert

Anne Hanley

Anne has lived in Italy for almost 40 years – first in Rome, now deep in the Umbrian countryside. But her first love is Venice, where she still manages to lose herself in the beautiful backstreets. 

Anne Hanley, Telegraph Travel's Venice expert

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