Meeting with the guide in front of the entrance to the Hotel Danieli.
One of the great religious buildings of the entire world, the Basilica was begun in 830 to house St. Mark's bones, which had been smuggled out of Alexandria. It started out as a small, modest chapel and, over the intervening 1200 years, it has become one of the most extravagant and fascinating structures anywhere. If you go to Venice you owe it to yourself to visit the basilica with a qualified licensed guide, who can organize all the bewildering details into an interesting tale that you will actually remember. Also included in this itinerary is a visit to the renowned Golden Altarpiece.
Next to the basilica is the city's other monument, the Doge's Palace. The graceful pink-and-white building, with its rare double loggia, has been painted by almost every artist who lived in the last 200 years. Works by most of those who lived in this part of the world before that are on display in the building's grandiose salons, as well as in the apartments of Venice's rulers the doges. The Bridge of Sighs connects the palace to the very atmospheric dungeons where generations of political and criminal prisoners spent their miserable last days before being executed.
Outside once again, you'll see the Piazza San Marco, which Napoleon called "the finest drawing room in Europe." The guide will tell you all about the bell tower, the clock with its two giant bronze Moors, and the symbol of the city, the winged lion, who gazes eternally out across the Grand Canal into the Lagoon.
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