If Peter Ackroyd’s definitive series on the unique history, art and culture of Venice has inspired you to pack your pencil, paintbrush or, er, piano, and head for La Serenissima to follow in the footsteps of Ruskin, Canaletto and Vivaldi, we have all the information you need. Courtesy of our friends at Sky Travel, here’s a concise guide for the traveller keen to get to the heart of the city, from the current exchange rate to the short break shortlist of essential sights to see. 

The Grand Canal
If you want to make like Canaletto and take in Venice in all its architectural splendour, there’s no better place to do it than from a viewpoint along the Grand Canal. It’s the main artery of the city and the one that is quintessentially Venetian, lined as it is by the beautiful facades of the Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque palaces whose interiors, by comparison are unadorned and functional. Take a vaporetto – or a gondola, if you’re feeling extravagant – through the heart of the city and admire the exquisite buildings John Ruskin lovingly referred to as “a heap of ruins”.
Click here for Sky Travel’s tips on the best ways of seeing the Grand Canal.


Piazza San Marco
The vast St Mark’s Square is perhaps the most famous of all Venice’s many attractions, and is the only square in the city to be awarded the title ‘piazza’, a nod to the Venetian desire to mark it out from all of the other, smaller ‘campi’ elsewhere in the city. Stop here for a coffee and a spot of people-watching, imagine it knee-deep with water, as it was during the floods of December 2008, or if you’re feeling musical, go for a stroll: as Peter Ackroyd notes; “It is considered a rite of passage for visitors to Venice to stroll through the arcades surrounding the Piazza san Marco – once described as ‘the greatest drawing-room in Europe’ - and to take tea at Florians or Quadri. The musicians at the restaurants in the square take it in turns to entertain their guests.”
Click here for Sky Travel’s mots justes for making the most of St Mark’s.


Palazzo Ducale
Fans of art and architecture should make a bee-line for the Doge’s Palace, just off St Mark’s Square. Its superb Gothic architecture is executed in an ice-cream palette of pink and white marble and limestone, while inside, the lavishly-decorated rooms feature paintings by Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto, including the latter’s Il Paradiso, reputed to be the largest oil painting in the world, which hangs in the magnificent Grand Council Chamber. The geographically-minded might also like to know that in Tintoretto’s Paradiso, the figures of saints Theodore and Mark, and of Moses and Jesus, were placed one to another in the same positions as their respective public churches in Venice.
Click here for Sky Travel’s guide to what to look out for.


Bridge of Sighs
The Bridge of Sighs is just one example of Venice having captured the imaginations of innumerable writers, artists and musicians over the years: to the Venetians, the Ponte dei Sosperi - Antonio Contino’s white marble bridge connecting the Doge’s prisons with the inquisitor’s rooms in the main palace – is just another pretty bridge designed by the same family that produced the Rialto Bridge. But to Lord Byron, staying in Venice in the early years of the 19th century, its romance couldn’t be ignored: he imagined the prisoners taking one last glance at Venice from the bridge’s windows before their incarceration and sighing, and the appellation stuck. Modern-day terminal romantics might also like to try out the local legend that if you kiss beneath the bridge at sunset, your love will last forever...
Click for the Sky Travel lowdown.


Torcello Island
Often overshadowed by the lively neighbouring islands of Murano and Burano, Torcello is a delightfully nostalgic island which was actually the capital of the lagoon until the 10th century. It now only has a handful of inhabitants, but its numbers are swollen daily by those seeking out its spectacular 11th-century cathedral, the Cathedral of Santa Maria dell’Assunta. Filled with awe-inspiring mosaics from the 12th and 13th centuries, it contains some of the world’s most important examples of Byzantine art, including a golden depiction of the Madonna and Child, as well as a Breugel-esque Last Judgement. Slightly off the tourist trail, Torcello is a peaceful trip into the lagoon.
Click here for the Sky Travel guide to Torcello.


District of Dorsoduro
If you haven’t managed to spend all of your time gazing in awe at the interior of the Doge’s Palace, or snogging at sunset under the Bridge of Sighs, make some time for the academic district, Dorsoduro. It has some of Venice’s most picturesque canals and palazzi, and some of the city’s great art showcases, without tourists that you’re likely to find elsewhere. Home to Venice’s Ca’ Foscari University, it has a studenty feel and boasts a wealth of must-see sights, from the great Accademia gallery to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, to the church of San Sebastiano, decorated almost entirely by Paulo Veronese, where he is also buried. And if you fancy a tipple, the district has more late-night drinking bars than anywhere else in Venice.
Click here for more Sky Travel essential info.


Scuola Grande di San Rocco
In the spring of 1564 one of the Venetian guilds, the Scuola of San Rocco, ran a competition for the painting of their hall. Tintoretto and Veronese were two of the contestants, and it was agreed that each artist should submit a design for the central ceiling panel of the room. Tintoretto however, obtained the measurements of the panel and began work on a full-size canvas, which he later smuggled into the room and fixed to the ceiling. When the artists gathered for their designs to be judged, Tintoretto merely pointed upwards. As Peter Ackroyd drily notes; “the comments of his thwarted competitors are not reported”, but it won Tintoretto the commission for the rest of the building. Is there any better reason to include it in your itinerary?
Click here for more on Tintoretto’s cheeky masterpiece from Sky Travel.


Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari
Grandiose, imposing and moving: this awe-inspiring 15th century church is a short stroll from the Rialto Bridge and will delight both art and architecture fans equally. Architecture buffs will love this fine example of Venetian Gothic at its peak, while art enthusiasts will be amazed by the interior, which houses some of the finest works of art ever produced in Venice. From Titian’s Assumption (the altarpiece over the high altar, thought to be the largest of its kind in Venice), to Donatello’s figure of St John the Baptist (in the south choir chapel), to Bellini’s Madonna and Child (the sacristy altarpiece), via a host of others, this church- even by Venetian standards – has to be seen to be believed.
Click  for more on the church known as ‘the Frari’ from Sky Travel.


Shopping
It’s hard to imagine that after all the galleries, churches and restaurants, you’ll have much time left for shopping, but if you can squeeze it in, do. Venice has a wealth of shopping opportunities, particularly around the areas of the Fenice, Campo San Stefano, Campo Manin and the Mercerie, where you’ll be able to buy (and sometimes see being made in adjoining workshops) anything from fabrics (Ventian specialities are silks, velvets, brocades, damasks, taffetas and laces) to the spectacular Murano coloured glass; the uniquely marbled paper and stationery; gilded wood; tooled leather; carnival masks; antiques; sweets; jewellery, and if you’re feeling particularly flush, gondolas and power boats. Alternatively, peruse the artists’ stalls that feature throughout the city and take home your own, original version of the Venetian vistas Canaletto recorded three hundred years ago.
Click here for more shopping advice from Sky Travel.