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With an exotic air and distinctive round arches, this Veneto-Byzantine building (1225) was the Turkish trade centre for 200 years. It is now the Natural History Museum (see Museo di Storia Naturale).

This colossal Baroque palace, decorated with diamond-point ashlar work, was the final creation of architect Long-hena. Home to the city’s modern art collections, it is beautifully floodlit at night (see Ca’ Pesaro Galleria d’Arte Moderna).

One of the city’s most familiar views, the striking 28-m (92-ft) span, 8-m (26-ft) high Istrian stone Ponte di Rialto dates from 1588.

A sunny quayside with a string of open-air restaurants, this is one of the few accessible banks of the Grand Canal. Barrels of wine (vino ) used to be off-loaded here, hence the name.

The finest feature of this imposing palace is its grandiose staircase. Today it is a museum of 18th-century Venice.

The lovely wooden Ponte dell’Accademia, built in 1932 by the engineer Miozzi, was intended as a temporary measure until a more substantial structure was designed, but it is now a permanent fixture. It affords stunning views of the Grand Canal.

With an ornamental Renaissance façade studded with multicoloured stone medallions, this lopsided palace is supposedly cursed due to a number of misfortunes that have overtaken its various owners.

Longhena’s 17th-century masterpiece of sculpted whorls beneath a towering dome, this church commemorates the end of a devastating plague in the city (see Santa Maria della Salute).

The figure of Fortune stands atop the erstwhile customs house, doubling as a weather vane. This is where the Grand Canal joins St Mark’s Basin and the lagoon.

Legendary watering hole of Ernest Hemingway, this is also where the Bellini apéritif was invented (see Bellini). Opened in 1931 by Arrigo Cipriani, it was named after the American who funded the enterprise.