Grado

The island between lagoon and sea

A sixth-century basilica and a south-facing beach.

Grado sits on an island between the Adriatic and its own lagoon, linked to the mainland by a causeway running over shallow water and fishing casoni. The old town is a grid of Venetian-Istrian lanes around the sixth-century basilica of Sant'Eufemia, which keeps its original mosaic floor. The beach faces south — rare on this coast — and the Austrians made it the bathing resort of Vienna.