The experience

Venice is the queen. There are no adequate words to tell the story. The philosopher Nietzsche wrote, “If I had to look for a word to replace ‘music,’ I could only think of Venice.”

And the visitor, even if only passing through, is definitely and inevitably enraptured by its beauty, its monuments, its works of art, its “music,” in fact.

St. Mark’s Square, the heart of the city, an important urban and architectural complex, is named after the famous Basilica, the “Golden Basilica,” so called because of its glittering mosaics, topped by five Byzantine domes. The vast space opens on one side toward the lagoon and on the others is bordered by the tall Campanile and the prestigious historic palaces of the Procuratie Vecchie and Nuove and the Doge’s Palace.

Not far away, the elegant Bridge of Sighs is a must-see stop on the romantic gondola ride that traditionally goes up the Grand Canal, the city’s main waterway, which is crossed by the Rialto Bridge, one of the city’s liveliest and most curious sights.

Venice is to be experienced on foot, forgetting the map and directions, getting lost in the tangle of calli, in that up and down of bridges, to discover the treasures of the baroque Madonna della Salute, the Gallerie dell’Accademia, which houses the masterpieces of Venetian painters between the 14th and 18th centuries, and the Scuola di San Rocco, with its extraordinary cycle of canvases by Tintoretto.