Grand Canal Private Boat Tour

Near the station we pass the Scalzi bridge and the Renaissance palace begun by Mauro Codussi and completed by the Lombardo family (1481–1509), where Richard Wagner died in 1883.

Baldassare Longhena's Baroque Ca' Pesaro, completed in 1710 by Gian Antonio Gaspari, now houses the International Gallery of Modern Art. Across the canal, the Veneto-Byzantine arcades of the Fondaco dei Turchi recall the trading houses of foreign merchants.

The most delicate Gothic façade on the canal, built from 1421 for Marino Contarini and once highlighted in gold. Seen from the water, its lace-like loggias make sense.

We pass the market and the Pescheria, the neo-Gothic fish market hall of 1907, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi rebuilt in 1505–1508 for German merchants, and glide under Antonio da Ponte's Rialto Bridge, completed in 1591.

At the widest bend of the canal stands Ca' Foscari, rebuilt from 1453 for Doge Francesco Foscari and home to Ca' Foscari University since 1868. Next to it, Ca' Rezzonico by Longhena and Massari, now the Museum of 18th-Century Venice, faces Palazzo Grassi by Giorgio Massari.

Past the Accademia bridge, Palazzo Barbaro recalls Henry James, who finished The Aspern Papers there, and John Singer Sargent. Further on, on the Dorsoduro side, the unfinished Palazzo Venier dei Leoni was Peggy Guggenheim's home and now houses her collection.

The votive church designed by Baldassare Longhena after the plague of 1630 marks the mouth of the canal, beside the old customs point. Ahead opens St Mark's Basin with the Doge's Palace.

Where traffic and tides allow, we leave the Grand Canal for quieter rii, to see water gates, small bridges and the back façades of palaces at close range.