Buy tickets & tours:VivaTicket Hidden just behind the ornate façades of the Doge’s Palace, a short stroll from the crowds of Piazza San Marco, the Bridge of Sighs (Ponte dei Sospiri) feels like a secret suspended over water. Many visitors arrive in the square without realizing that, only a few steps away, the pale, enclosed arch of the Ponte dei Sospiri quietly connects the Doge’s Palace with the former prisons across the narrow Rio di Palazzo canal. From the outside, the bridge looks like a delicate marble jewel-box balanced between two massive buildings. Inside, however, are narrow stone passageways that once carried prisoners from the palace’s interrogation chambers directly to their cells. This contrast between beauty and severity has made the Bridge of Sighs one of Venice’s most intriguing landmarks: at once a symbol of harsh justice and a modern icon of romance. Today, visitors can admire the Ponte dei Sospiri from the small bridges on either side of the canal or glide beneath it in a gondola. Short History of the Bridge of Sighs (Ponte dei Sospiri) In the late 1500s, the city constructed a new complex of jail buildings, Prigioni Nuove, across the narrow Rio di Palazzo Read more [...]