When in Italy  ›  Venice Attractions Map

Venice Attractions Map

Every major Venice sight, plotted by area — each with the best-rated tours and skip-the-line tickets. Open an area to light up its sights on the map.

Where to start? First time? Start at San Marco — the basilica and Doge’s Palace. Love art? Dorsoduro and the Accademia. After atmosphere & food? The Rialto market and the bacari, or the lagoon islands by boat.

Tap an area in the list below (or a coloured pin) — that area’s sights enlarge on the map, the rest stay as dots. Click any pin for its top tour, or “◉ map” on a sight to locate it. Prices & ratings via Viator.

The lay of the land

Venice is a maze — so navigate it by sestiere

Venice has no streets to speak of and a map that defeats everyone; the way to make sense of it is by sestiere, the six districts the city has used for a thousand years. Get your bearings around San Marco, then work outward — the further you walk from the basilica, the quieter and more real Venice becomes.

This map splits the city into six areas, each a walkable half-day. San Marco is the monumental heart — basilica, palace, campanile; Rialto is the bridge, the market and the food; Dorsoduro is the art quarter; San Polo hides the Frari and the Tintorettos; Cannaregio is the quiet north and the historic Ghetto; and the lagoon islands — Murano and Burano — are the half-day on the water.

Open any area below to light up its sights on the map and pull the best-rated tours and tickets for each.

Everything radiates from Piazza San Marco, the only square Venetians dignify as a piazza. St Mark’s Basilica is a Byzantine treasure-house of golden mosaics raised over the relics of the evangelist; the Doge’s Palace next door, all pink Gothic lace, was the seat of the Republic, linked to its prisons by the Bridge of Sighs. Climb the rebuilt Campanile for the lagoon laid out below. The basilica and palace are the two bookings to make ahead — both queue badly, and a skip-the-line ticket earns its keep.

The Renaissance clock where two bronze Moors strike the hour.

15 tours & tickets · showing top 2

Venice: St Mark's Basilica After-Hours Tour with Optional Doge's Palace4.7★ (1,479) · from $152Check availability →Gondola Ride with Private Walking Tour in Venice5.0★ (136) · from $93Check availability →

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The Rialto Bridge, a single marble arch finished in 1591, is the oldest crossing of the Grand Canal and still the city’s commercial heart. Beside it, the Rialto Fish Market has supplied Venice with its lagoon catch for a thousand mornings, and the surrounding bacari pour an ombra and a plate of cicchetti by mid-morning. It’s the place to eat your way through Venice; for the food tours and tastings that do exactly that, see our guide to Italian food tours.

Dorsoduro is the art quarter and the antidote to San Marco’s crush. The Accademia holds the definitive collection of Venetian painting — Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese — while the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, in her unfinished palazzo on the Grand Canal, answers with Picasso and Pollock. At the canal’s mouth rises Santa Maria della Salute, the great Baroque dome built in thanks for the end of the 1630 plague. The student square of Campo Santa Margherita runs the nightlife.

Modern masters in Peggy Guggenheim’s unfinished palazzo on the Grand Canal.

23 tours & tickets · showing top 4

Venice: Peggy Guggenheim Museum Private Tour4.9★ (14) · from $215Check availability →Peggy Guggenheim collection Venice private tour5.0★ (10) · from $76Check availability →Venice Peggy Guggenheim Art Walking Tour5.0★ (3) · from $176Check availability →Venice: Peggy Guggenheim Collection Private Tour with Tickets4.7★ (3) · from $217Check availability →

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Venice’s oldest and smallest sestiere hides two of its greatest interiors. The Gothic Frari church holds Titian’s towering Assumption of the Virgin above the high altar, and a short walk away the Scuola Grande di San Rocco — ‘Venice’s Sistine Chapel’ — is wrapped floor to ceiling in sixty paintings by Tintoretto.

The quiet north of the city, where long straight canals and workaday bacari feel a world away from the basilica. Cannaregio holds the Jewish Ghetto, established in 1516 as the first enclosed Jewish quarter in the world — the place that gave the word ‘ghetto’ to every language since — and Tintoretto’s own parish church, Madonna dell’Orto, hung with his masterpieces.

Half the magic of Venice is out on the water. Murano has blown glass since 1291 and still demonstrates it in its furnaces; Burano, further out, is a riot of brilliantly painted fishermen’s houses and needle lace. A half-day island-hopping boat tour links them with Torcello, where the lagoon’s story began.

Putting it together

How to plan your days in Venice

Book San Marco, then wander. Only two things in Venice really need booking — St Mark’s Basilica and the Doge’s Palace, both timed-entry with long queues. Reserve those, and the rest of Venice is meant to be got lost in.

A classic two days. Day one, San Marco early — basilica, palace, campanile — then across to the Rialto market and into San Polo for the Frari. Day two, Dorsoduro’s galleries and the Salute, then a boat out to Murano and Burano for the afternoon.

On the water. Don’t leave without one trip down the Grand Canal — by vaporetto if you’re counting euros, by gondola if you’re not — and a half-day in the lagoon, where the islands tell the oldest part of the Venetian story.

Quick answers

Do I need to book Venice’s attractions in advance?

Yes for St Mark’s Basilica and the Doge’s Palace — both timed-entry with long queues. The Rialto, the squares, the lagoon islands and most churches you can do on the day.

How many days do you need in Venice?

Two days covers the six areas: San Marco and Rialto on day one, Dorsoduro and the lagoon islands on day two. A third day lets you slow down and get properly lost.

Are the lagoon islands worth it?

Yes — Murano for its glass furnaces and Burano for its painted houses and lace make the classic half-day boat trip, a world away from the San Marco crowds.

What’s the best way to see the Grand Canal?

The number-1 vaporetto runs the whole length cheaply; a gondola or private boat is the romantic, pricier option. Either way it’s the single best introduction to the city.

How these are chosen. Each sight shows the highest-rated, most-reviewed Venice tours and tickets that visit it, pulled live from Viator.

Independent travel guide. Tours are booked on Viator; we may earn a commission at no cost to you. Ratings and prices were current at the last update and can change.  ← Back to When in Italy