Perillo Tours

The Bridge of Sighs, or Ponte dei Sospiri, connects Venice’s old prisons to the interrogation rooms in the Doge's Palace. Built of white limestone between 1600 and 1603, the enclosed bridge has windows with stone bars.

According to one version of the story, the name was given by Lord Byron in the 19th century from the suggestion that prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice from the bridge’s windows.

Another version has it that as the prisoners were taken across the bridge to receive fierce punishment, they would groan bitterly at their fate. A more upbeat legend promises lovers eternal love if they kiss on a gondola beneath the bridge at sundown.