Romantic Venice

Romantic Venice with its canals and its period palazzi. San Marco square is very distinctive and striking, the only one of its kind since all other square-shaped urban spaces are properly called campi (with the exception of Piazzale Roma). Particularly striking is the basilica, which expresses the clear meeting between Western and Eastern culture. The only flaw of this wonderful jewel is the tourist crowding, which causes long queues to visit the interior of the basilica and the other monuments. Very beautiful too is the Doge's Palace, presumably erected in the 10th and 11th centuries on the basis of a fortified central core made up of a central body and corner towers; at the beginning of the 17th century the so-called New Prisons were added, beyond the rio, by the architect Antonio Contin.

This new building, which was to be the seat of the Signori di notte al criminàl, magistrates charged with preventing and repressing criminal offences, is linked to the Palace by the Bridge of Sighs, crossed by the condemned being taken from the Palace to the New Prisons.