History is writ large in this northeastern Italian city and when visitors ease through the morning mists on empty canals with grandious buildings rising up on all sides, it is easy to slip back through the centuries, to the time of the Doges - the omnipotent rulers, whose influence spread well beyond the Venetian Lagoon.
Venice then was an exotic melting pot of East and West, where travellers breezed in and out and traders peddled their silk and spices. Venice under the Doges was a land of unimaginable wealth and riches were spent wisely in crafting some of Europe’s most memorable buildings, from the imposing Dode’s Palace to the grand architecture of St. Marc’s Square famously described by Napoleon as the ‘drawing room of Europe’.
Here are some restaurants in Venice:
