In a city built on the sea, the most important street isn’t a street at all, it’s a Canal. The Grand Canal in Venice is the city’s main artery, a 2-mile, s-shaped curve of water lined with some of Venice’s most important buildings and jam packed with private boats, vaporetto and barges. The palaces, museums and warehouses that line the Grand Canal were once the abodes of some of Venice’s most prominent mercantile families and trading corporations.

Although Venice’s empire of commerce is a thing of the past, the Grand Canal is still the focal point of people and goods coming into and out of the city. Standing on the banks today, take in the fantastic, relentless ebb and flow of city life as you watch the world float by.