Venice

A cathedral of Eastern domes and 8,000 square metres of gold mosaic, looted and built over 800 years to look like nowhere else in the West. Book a timed entry, and pay the little extra for the Pala d'Oro and the loggia horses.

Eight centuries of Venetian power in pink-and-white marble — gilded council halls, Tintoretto's vast Paradise, and the Bridge of Sighs out to the old prison cells. The Secret Itineraries tour behind the walls is the one to book.

The only true piazza in Venice and, as Napoleon supposedly said, the drawing room of Europe — the bell tower to climb, the clock tower, the arcades and the duelling orchestras. Overrun by noon; unforgettable at dawn or after the fireworks.

The oldest and grandest bridge over the Grand Canal — a single marble arch lined with shops that has been the city's beating commercial heart since 1591. Cross it, then shoot it from the wooden bridge or a passing vaporetto.

The world's most beautiful main street, and you ride it for the price of a bus ticket. Take the number 1 slow boat from the station to San Marco, grab a rail seat at the back, and watch 200 palaces slide past the water.

Touristy, pricey and completely worth it once — the only way to slip into the silent back canals the boats can't reach. Fixed price for the boat, not per person, so fill it with friends; go at dusk, and skip the singer.

Six centuries of trading, still going — the Pescaria fish hall and the produce stalls that feed the city, loud and glistening from dawn till lunchtime. Come early, then eat your way along the cicchetti bars tucked in behind.

Venice's answer to tapas — little plates of fried seafood, baccalà and bread, eaten standing at a bacaro with a small glass of wine (an 'ombra'). Hop three or four bars along Cannaregio's canal; this is dinner, done the local way.

The original ghetto — the word was coined here in 1516 — now a quiet, moving square of tall houses and old synagogues, ringed by the city's most local canals. The best aimless wander in Venice, crowds nowhere in sight.

Palladio's white church on its own island, one vaporetto stop across the water — and a lift up its bell tower to the best view in Venice, looking straight back at San Marco. Quieter and better than the campanile queue.

The greatest hoard of Venetian painting anywhere — Bellini, Carpaccio, Giorgione, Titian and Veronese, the colour and light the whole city taught the world. Smaller and calmer than the big Italian galleries; a couple of hours is plenty.

The heiress's own palace on the Grand Canal, left as one of the finest small modern-art collections in Europe — Pollock, Picasso, Ernst, Magritte — with a sculpture garden by the water. The perfect antidote to Renaissance overload.

The great white domed church at the mouth of the Grand Canal, built in thanks for the end of a plague and now the image every painter of Venice returns to. Free to step inside, and the point where Dorsoduro meets the widest water.

The most Venetian bookshop on earth — stock piled into bathtubs and a full-size gondola against the floods, a back door straight onto a canal, and a staircase built of old encyclopaedias. Silly, photogenic, and free to wander.

One of the great opera houses of the world — burned down and rebuilt 'as it was, where it was' after a 1996 fire, all gilt and red velvet. See a performance if you can, or take the audioguide tour by day.