Welcome to Venice

Venice is the only city on Earth that should not exist — and yet, here it is. Built on 118 small islands connected by 400+ bridges and laced with 177 canals instead of streets, Venice sits in the middle of a lagoon, slowly sinking and perpetually defying gravity, logic, and nature itself. For over a thousand years, it was the Serenissima — the Most Serene Republic — one of the wealthiest and most powerful states in the medieval world, built entirely on trade, salt, shipbuilding, and centuries of extraordinary ambition.

There are no cars. No roads. You move through this city by foot and by boat, ducking through narrow alleyways barely wide enough for two people, emerging suddenly into sun-drenched piazzas, crossing dozens of arched bridges over dark jade-green canals. The sound of gondoliers calling "oe!" echoes off Renaissance facades. The smell of the sea is everywhere.

Over the next eight stops, you will enter one of the most gilded churches in Christendom, walk through the palace that governed a republic for a thousand years, stand above a bridge where condemned prisoners took their last look at the sky, drift down the Grand Canal past 200 palaces, visit the island where glass is blown into art, and wander through streets painted every color of the rainbow. Andiamo!