The water avenue of Venetian palaces
The Grand Canal, the main waterway of Venice, crosses the city in a great S-shaped curve almost four kilometres long, from the railway station to the basin of San Marco. Along its banks stand about 170 palaces, built between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries by the patrician families of the Republic, who competed to show their wealth facing the water: Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque façades follow one another like a catalogue of a thousand years of architecture.
The best and cheapest way to see it is aboard the vaporetto line 1, the slow line that stops at almost every landing stage. Along the way you pass the Ca' d'Oro, the most beautiful Gothic palace, once covered with gold leaf; the Rialto Bridge; the Renaissance Palazzo Grimani; the Ca' Rezzonico, museum of eighteenth century Venice; the Gallerie dell'Accademia and its wooden bridge; the Peggy Guggenheim Collection; and finally the baroque basilica of Santa Maria della Salute, built as a vow after the plague of 1630, at the mouth of the canal. Only four bridges cross it; elsewhere, the "traghetti", gondolas used as ferries, carry people from one bank to the other for a couple of euros.
Tip: take line 1 from Piazzale Roma and sit at the front or back of the boat in the open seats; the trip to San Marco takes about 45 minutes.
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