I’ll say this plainly, the same way I say it to every guest standing in the courtyard on Via Cappello:
Every visitor to Venice eventually has the same experience: phone out, blue dot spinning uselessly in the middle of a
Almost two thousand years ago, Roman engineers built an amphitheater on the edge of Verona to host gladiatorial combat. Today,
Most people come to Venice looking down — into canals, through doorways, along the pavement for the next nizioleto sign.
Stand at the right spot on the Grand Canal and you can watch four centuries of Venetian taste go by
Of everything Andrea Palladio built across his career, one villa outside Vicenza has been copied more than any other building
By the second or third hour of a hot afternoon, almost every visitor to Venice asks me some version of
Every time you look at a building in the United States with a columned portico, a triangular pediment, and a
There’s a particular Venice moment every guest eventually has: walking down an ordinary calle, the sky suddenly disappears overhead, the
Most visitors who make it to Padua spend their time inside buildings, the Scrovegni Chapel, the Palazzo della Ragione, Palazzo
Ask any first-time visitor to read a Venice street sign out loud and you’ll usually get a confused pause, then
Fifteen minutes. That’s roughly how long you get inside the Scrovegni Chapel once your timed entry slot arrives, and it’s
Walk through almost any Venetian sestiere for more than ten minutes and you’ll start to notice her: a small painted
Most visitors leave Venice thinking of it as a Gothic city, and it’s easy to see why — the pointed
Most visitors who walk between Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza della Frutta in Padua see the Palazzo della Ragione from
Venice never had a Renaissance the way Florence did, and it never really wanted one. While the rest of Italy
Most Americans know Galileo as the man who got in trouble with the Catholic Church for saying the Earth orbits
Spend enough time looking up in Venice — genuinely up, past the window boxes and the laundry lines — and
Most American visitors who make it to Padua come for the Scrovegni Chapel and never realize they’re standing a few
Most visitors to Venice have a mental list of what counts as a monument: churches, palaces, bridges, maybe a museum
I'm Igor Scomparin. I have been a Venice graduated and licensed tour guide since 1997. I will take you through the secrets, the history and the art of one of the most beautiful cities in the World.
