Venice and the Lagoon

Venice and the Lagoon: Introduction

Palazzo Ducale, Venice

An ever-growing range of features, links and practical information to help you plan and enjoy your visit to Venice, including guides to hotel accommodation, restaurants, bars, tourist attractions, city neighbourhoods and getting about. There’s a lot here already and we are hard at work adding the sections to complete the menu, so just dig in!

See Our Photo Highlights of Attractions

Our Venice photo gallery covers not only famous venetian landmarks like San Marco (St Mark’s Square) and the Doge’s Palace, the Rialto Bridge and the Grand Canal, but also photos of shopping in San Polo, the Venice Lagoon islands of Burano and Murano, glass-makers, gondolas and much more.

Getting Your Bearings: The Main Areas

Venice ("Venezia" in italian, "Venedig" in german) is situated about four kilometres from the mainland, on 117 or 118 (depending who you believe) islands of the Venetian Lagoon. With an intricate network of more than 150 canals and 400 bridges, the city is divided into six districts known as `sestieri’ (Cannaregio, Castello, Dorsoduro, Santa Croce, San Marco, San Polo). Added to these are the island of Giudecca and the famous Lido. The city’s boundaries also include the mainland areas of Mestre and Porto Marghera, which are connected to Venice by road and rail bridges. The lagoon islands of Burano, Murano and Torcello are also administered by Venice.

Explore Venice by Satellite photo!

Use this satellite image service from Google to zoom in to see individual buildings, you can move the image around as you like (as you zoom in to maximum, you’ll get a surprise!):

Italy