.Palazzo Mocenigo.

Historic Venetian palace which is open as one of the city's Civic Museums, incorporating an exhibition of 18th-century dress

Palazzo Mocenigo is in the Santa Croce district of Venice, just off the Grand Canal, behind the Church of San Stae. It has facades on two sides: one looks on onto a small canal and the land entrance is on a narrow lane. Consequently there are no grand views of the palace, but inside it is a typical and imposing Venetian aristocratic residence. The palace was left to the city of Venice by its owner, the last of this branch of the Mocenigo family, in the mid-twentieth century. Nowadays it is open as a museum in which visitors can view the state rooms on the piano nobile first floor along with a collection of eighteenth-century costume.

The visitor arrives in the ground floor entrance hall (androne), which stretches from the water entrance to the land entrance and is ornamented with stone busts. A stairway leads upstairs to the exhibition area, emerging in the portego, a large reception hall above the androne. Around the walls are paintings of notable members of the Mocenigo family, along with public figures such as Charles II of England.

The museum isn't terribly large; there are just a handful of rooms on the first floor which are open to the public. Most contain interesting decorative features, such as stucco or frescoed ceilings, along with a few paintings and historic furniture. Dotted through the exhibition space are costumes from the eighteenth century, displayed in glass cases. Most of the paintings relate to the Mocenigo family, including some large evocative scenes by Antonio Stom of balls and celebrations, labelled 'Splendours of the Mocenigo Family'. A religious scene in the bedroom is by the Bellini workshop.

This isn't the same Palazzo Mocenigo that Byron stayed in; the poet lodged in another building belonging to the same family further down the Grand Canal.

.Ca' Rezzonico.

A Grand Canal palace now open as the Museum of the Eighteenth Century in Venice 

Ca' Rezzonico, in the Dorsoduro district, is one of the grandest palaces on the Grand Canal, dating in part from the seventeenth and in part from the eighteenth century. Since 1934 it has belonged to the City of Venice, and it houses the Museo del Settecento Veneziano, the Museum of Eighteenth-Century Venice. The fine rooms, some with ceilings frescoed by Tiepolo, are ornamented with a collections of eighteenth-century furniture and art. It's not an essential tourist attraction for your first, short trip to Venice, but if you have the time and inclination for getting to know the town better, it's a fascinating place. Unless the Art Biennale is on, this may be your only chance to view the interior of a Grand Canal palazzo.

.Palazzo Fortuny.

Gothic palace once owned by Mariano Fortuny, open for exhibitions 

Palazzo Fortuny is a Gothic palazzo in the San Marco district of Venice. It's a fifteenth-century building, once the property of the Pesaro family, and also known as Palazzo Pesaro degli Orfei. It's an imposing building and largely unrestored, its shabbiness giving it a real sense of history. At the beginning of the twentieth century it belonged to Spanish fashion designer Mariano Fortuny, also a photographer, artst and the inventor of a successful method for printing luxurious fabrics.Although it comes under the umbrella of the Venice Civic Museums, Palazzo Fortuny does not currently have permanent displays, and is open only when a special exhibition is taking place. The two piano nobile floors, with lofty reception rooms, Gothic windows and rooftop views are lovely spaces, decorated with a clutter of Fortuny fabrics, paintings and objets d'art as well as temporary exhibits. You can see the environment in which Fortuny worked as well as admiring the evocative state of the building itself, with its faded fragments of fresco, carved beams, external staircase, loggia and small courtyard.

.Peggy Guggenheim Collection.

Perhaps surprisingly, one of Venice's most-visited museums is a collection of twentieth-century art. If you have cruised down the Grand Canal, you will probably have been struck by the unfinished Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, former home of heiress Peggy Guggenheim and now home to her art collection. This grand white palazzo of Istrian stone was built in the 1750s, but the work was never completed (either the money ran out, or that neighbours objected to the palace's scale) and the building remains a one-storey oddity. 

Peggy Guggenheim's father died in the Titanic, and with her inheritance she travelled around Europe, mingled with artists, collected their works and married one too: Max Ernst, whose 'The Robing of the Bride' is on display here. In the process she become famous for her art collection, her lifestyle and her exaggerated sunglasses. After the Second World War she bought this Venetian palace, perhaps seeing herself as the spiritual heir of a colourful previous owner, the Marchesa Luisa Casati, a flamboyant hostess and muse to earlier artists and writers. As well as setting up the art collection which is now so popular a tourist attraction, Guggenheim brought a dose of individualistic glamour to twentieth-century Venice, where she travelled around, an instantly-recognisable figure, in her private gondola. She died in 1979, and her ashes are buried in a corner of the garden alongside her pet dogs.

.Ca' d'Oro.

Ca' d'Oro

The Ca' d'Oro is the most celebrated palazzo on the Grand Canal; a fabulous Gothic palace which used to gleam with gold. Nowadays it houses a small art museum, but just as good as the art is the opportunity to admire the lovely courtyard and to stand on the loggia above the Grand Canal. 

If you're on a short break and don't feel you have time to dive into one of Venice's major museums, the Ca' d'Oro offers a good taste of the city's art and architecture, and doesn't take very long to look around.