Venice

More than 200 original canals have been linked together to form a dense urban network on either side of the curving Grand Canal, which describes a great backward S more than two miles long, from the railway station to San Marco Basin in front of the Doges’ Palace. Its width varies from about 100 to 225 feet (30 to 70 metres), and it is lined by buildings that once were the palaces of great merchant families and the public warehouses, or fondaci, used in foreign trade.