Venice’s status as the capital of a commercially active state means that the sheer amount of history and heritage in the city is staggering. New discoveries can be made every visit: few tourists think to stop by the Fondaco dei Tedeschi on their first visit, a depot and trading center used by medieval German merchants which has been turned into a stylish shopping mall. Few also have the time to discover that Venice also is home some of the few to orthodox and protestant churches in Italy (a vestige of the city's cosmopolitan history) while its city limits contain anything between islands housing little more than ruins and orchards (like Torcello) to sandy beaches, world-class restaurants, and designer shops: every visit to Venice can be completely different.