Venice ruled the Mediterranean for a millennium from a mudflat. These three days trace that arc: the lagoon's first refugee cathedrals, the shipyard that built a galley a day, the world's first Ghetto, and the palaces of a republic that died in 1797.
Venice's oldest building (founded 639 AD, present church 1008). The west wall holds a vast 12th-century Last Judgement mosaic; the apse has a gold-ground Byzantine Madonna. Torcello held 20,000 people before malaria emptied it. Open 10:00–17:00 winter, 10:30–18:00 summer.
The Palazzo del Consiglio (13th c.) houses lagoon archaeology: Roman glass, Byzantine capitals, altar fragments from vanished Torcello churches. Nearby the Ponte del Diavolo is one of only two surviving parapet-less bridges in the lagoon.
Consecrated 1141 with a spectacular Veneto-Byzantine apse arcade of stacked arches best seen from the canal side. Inside, a 1140 mosaic floor of peacocks and beasts, and a gold-ground Madonna in the apse. Behind the altar hang the bones said to be a dragon's.
Five floors in a 16th-century granary covering Venetian naval power: models of war galleys, the last surviving Bucintoro fragments (the Doge's state barge burned by Napoleon in 1798), and Lepanto-era weapons. Open Tue–Sun 11:00–17:00.
The state shipyard, founded 1104, employed 16,000 arsenalotti and could assemble a galley in a day on the world's first production line. The 1460 Porta Magna is Venice's earliest Renaissance structure; the four looted Greek lions include one carved with 11th-century Norse runes.
On 29 March 1516 the Senate confined Jews to this foundry island — geto meant foundry, and gave the world the word. Gates were locked at sunset until Napoleon burned them in 1797. Buildings rose to eight storeys because the footprint could not grow.
Guided tours enter three of the five scole, including the Scola Levantina (1541) and Scola Spagnola, hidden above shopfronts because the Republic forbade visible synagogues. The 1943 deportation memorial by Arbit Blatas lists 246 Venetian Jews sent to the camps.
Opened 1792 as the Republic died, burned in 1836 and 1996 (arson by two electricians), rebuilt com'era, dov'era in 2003. Verdi premiered Rigoletto and La Traviata here; the Royal Box was installed for Napoleon's Austrian successors.
The confraternity that nursed plague victims commissioned Tintoretto to cover it: 60-plus canvases painted 1564–1588, including the vast Crucifixion in the Sala dell'Albergo. Ceiling mirrors are provided at the door. Open daily 09:30–17:30.
A 1499 spiral staircase in an open loggia tower, built by the Contarini — a family that gave Venice eight doges — as a display of status when facade width was capped. Bovolo is Venetian for snail shell. The belvedere gives a rooftop view across San Marco.
A Longhena palace on the Grand Canal furnished as an 18th-century patrician house: Tiepolo ceilings, Longhi's paintings of daily Venetian life, a reconstructed pharmacy. It documents the Republic's decadent last century before 1797.
A working gondola boatyard since the 17th century, its alpine-style wooden buildings a reminder that the shipwrights came from Cadore. Gondolas are still built asymmetrically — the left side is 24 cm wider so one oar drives it straight.