Punta della Dogana

At the very tip of the Dorsoduro district, where the Grand Canal meets the Giudecca Canal, sits one of the most dramatic meeting points of old and new in Venice. The triangular customs house was built in the 15th century to inspect every ship entering Venice's harbour — nothing got into the city without passing through here. On its tower, a golden globe supported by two bronze Atlas figures is topped by a weather vane shaped like Fortune, spinning with the wind — a fitting symbol for a city built on trade and luck.

In 2009, French billionaire François Pinault transformed the abandoned customs house into a contemporary art museum, with a minimalist interior renovation by Japanese architect Tadao Ando. The concrete walls and steel beams inside the historic brick shell create a tension between old and new that mirrors the larger conversation Venice has been having with modernity for decades. Pinault had originally planned to build his museum in Paris but got frustrated with French bureaucracy and moved the whole project to Venice — an expensive slight that Parisians haven't entirely forgiven.

The art rotates but always pushes boundaries — this is where you'll find installations by Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Maurizio Cattelan, and other provocateurs whose work would look absurd in a Gothic palazzo but somehow makes sense in a renovated warehouse. The juxtaposition of contemporary art and Venetian history is the point.

But even if contemporary art isn't your thing, walk to the very tip of the point and stand on the stone terrace. Ahead is the lagoon and San Giorgio Maggiore. To the right, the Grand Canal with the Salute rising beside you. To the left, the Giudecca. It is, quite simply, one of the greatest views in all of Italy, and it's free.