St Mark's Square, the Basilica and the Doge's Palace

Napoleon famously called Piazza San Marco the "drawing room of Europe", and it remains the only open square in Venice big enough to bear the title piazza (every other square in the city is called a campo). See it twice: once at 07:30 when only street-sweepers and pigeons share the marble arcade under the Torre dell'Orologio clock tower, and again after 21:00 when the quartet bands play outside historic Caffè Florian (opened in 1720) and Gran Caffè Quadri.

St Mark's Basilica (Basilica di San Marco)

Built in the 11th century to house the relics of St Mark smuggled out of Alexandria in barrels of pork, and remodelled after the Fourth Crusade of 1204 with marble columns and treasures brought from Constantinople, the basilica feels more like Byzantium than Rome. Book a timed skip-the-line entry online beforehand and add the two interior extras that transform the visit:

• The Pala d'Oro: behind the high altar sits a Byzantine gold and silver-gilt screen studded with nearly 2,000 pearls, sapphires, emeralds and cloisonné enamels assembled between the 10th and 14th centuries.
• The Loggia dei Cavalli and St Mark's Museum (upstairs): climb the steep stone stairs inside the atrium to walk at eye level beside the golden mosaic domes, inspect the original gilded copper Horses of St Mark inside their climate-controlled room, and step out onto the open exterior balcony directly above the main doors for a commanding view over the Piazza and Lagoon.

The Doge's Palace (Palazzo Ducale) and Bridge of Sighs

Next door, resting its heavy pink-and-white Verona marble wall above two rows of delicate Gothic tracery arches, the Doge's Palace was simultaneously the residence of the elected Doge, the seat of the Senate, the supreme court and the secret police of the Venetian Republic. Climb the gilded Scala d'Oro (Golden Staircase) into the institutional chambers, culminating in the vast Sala del Maggior Consiglio, whose entire end wall is covered by Tintoretto's Il Paradiso. From the courtroom corridors, the route crosses the enclosed limestone Bridge of Sighs (Ponte dei Sospiri) (named by Lord Byron for the last glimpse of the lagoon prisoners caught through its stone-lattice windows) into the 16th-century New Prisons. For those interested in Casanova's 1756 escape from the attic cells under the lead roof (I Piombi), book the morning Secret Itineraries Tour weeks in advance.

The Campanile vs San Giorgio Maggiore

A lift whisks visitors to the top of the 98.6-metre brick Campanile di San Marco in the square, though queues build quickly by mid-morning. For an equally dramatic view with almost no line (and with the Campanile and Doge's Palace actually in your photograph), take Vaporetto Line 2 one stop from San Zaccaria across the water to the island church of San Giorgio Maggiore and ride its bell-tower lift instead.