The line 1 ride
Forty minutes, station to San Marco — the world's greatest public-transport tour.
Martin Falbisoner — CC BY-SA 4.0 · This Photo was taken by Wolfgang Moroder. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author and send me a message. This image is not in the public domain. Please respect the copyright pr — CC BY-SA 3.0 · This Photo was taken by Wolfgang Moroder. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author and send me a message. This image is not in the public domain. Please respect the copyright pr — CC BY-SA 3.0 · This Photo was taken by Wolfgang Moroder. Feel free to use my photos, but please mention me as the author and send me a message. This image is not in the public domain. Please respect the copyright pr — CC BY-SA 3.0
The Grand Canal is Venice's main street — four kilometres of water cutting the city in a reversed S, lined by two hundred palaces shoulder to shoulder in façades from every proud century: Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque. No city on earth has a main street like it. The best way to "walk" it is vaporetto line 1: the slow water-bus stopping at every pier from the railway station to San Marco in about forty minutes. Take the open bow or stern seats and let the palaces slide past — the cheapest great tour in Europe for the price of a transit ticket. Ride it at least twice: by day to read the façades, and after dark when chandeliers light up inside the palaces and their reflections streak the black water.
Forty minutes, station to San Marco — the world's greatest public-transport tour.
Every century's façades shoulder to shoulder on water — architecture's history in one reel.
A standing gondola ferry over the canal for small change where bridges are missing.
Canal Grande, Venice
Campo San GeremiaA wide square in Cannaregio on the route between the railway station and the Ria2 minutes walk4.5
The Ponte degli ScalziOne of only four bridges crossing the Grand Canal in Venice, standing near the S4 minutes walk4.7
The Venice GhettoFrom this small quarter of Cannaregio the word "ghetto" entered every language: 4 minutes walk4.4
Ca' PesaroCa' Pesaro is the grandest Baroque palace on the Grand Canal, its heavy marble f5 minutes walk4.4
The Museum of Oriental ArtA museum of Asian art on the top floor of the Ca' Pesaro palace on the Grand Can5 minutes walk4.6Different jobs: the vaporetto shows you the whole Grand Canal for small money; the gondola is an intimate half hour in the silent side canals the vaporetto cannot enter. The right answer: line 1 for the Grand Canal, and the gondola — if you take one — for the watery back lanes.
Open seats at bow or stern; heading from the station towards San Marco, sit left for the closer famous façades and Rialto. Early morning is near-empty, sunset the best light.
Plain working gondolas ferrying across at bridge-less points — two standing minutes for pocket change, a near-free miniature gondola experience few visitors know.