A spiral stair and a flooding bookshop: Venice behind the Rialto
A spiral staircase in a courtyard, a bookshop that floods and an island of fifty people — the Venice beyond the three kilometres everyone crosses.
- Where
- Off the station–Rialto–square axis
- When
- Any time — most are empty even in season
- How long
- Half an hour
Ninety per cent of visitors move along the same axis, from the station through the Rialto to St Mark's Square. That is under three kilometres, and the rest of the city, six sestieri and a lagoon, stays empty even in August.
The campanile of San Giorgio Maggiore
From the campanile on St Mark's Square you see the whole city, bar the square itself and its own campanile. From the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, one vaporetto stop across the water, you see exactly that: the square, the Doge's Palace and the basilica in one frame. The tower is closed for works, with no confirmed reopening date, so a day plan can't count on it.
The Scala Contarini del Bovolo
A fifteenth-century spiral staircase in a palace courtyard, five minutes from the Rialto and hidden down a dead-end lane that is easy to miss. It climbs to a loggia with a view over the roofs, one of the few views of Venice from above that is not from a campanile. Few people, because you have to mean to go.
Libreria Acqua Alta
A bookshop in Castello where the books are stacked in bathtubs, boats and a gondola; that is literally true, because the ground floor floods every time the high water comes. Behind it is a staircase built from soaked encyclopedias, from which you look at the canal. Free to enter and nothing must be bought, though social media has made the afternoon queue for a photo on the staircase a real thing.
Four more
- Torcello is an island of about fifty residents with an eleventh-century cathedral and a Last Judgement mosaic; at its medieval peak it had up to twenty thousand people, more than Venice itself, before a silted lagoon and malaria pushed them out.
- The Squero di San Trovaso is one of the last two workshops still building and repairing gondolas, in Dorsoduro. Free to watch from the quay across the narrow canal, weather permitting, since the work happens outdoors.
- The bacari of Cannaregio are small bars with cicheti and wine by the glass, where you stand. An hour before dinner, two or three of them, and that is a Venetian meal.
- Castello and Via Garibaldi are the easternmost quarter, with washing strung across the street and prices that are not touristic. Fifteen minutes from the square and another city.
One hack
A traghetto is an undecorated gondola that ferries people across the Grand Canal at a handful of points where there is no bridge; how many lines run changes from season to season. It costs about what a coffee does, the crossing takes two minutes, and you stand, as Venetians do. For anyone who wants to say they rode a gondola without paying for the full ride, this is the honest answer.
Before you go
Short answers to what people ask most before setting out.
Where is the best view of Venice?
From the campanile of San Giorgio Maggiore, one vaporetto stop from the square — but it is closed for works, with no reopening date. While it stays shut, the closest view is from the campanile on St Mark's Square itself.
What is a traghetto?
An undecorated gondola that ferries people across the Grand Canal where there is no bridge. It costs about what a coffee does, takes two minutes, and you cross standing.
Is Torcello worth it?
Worth it if you are doing the islands. Five minutes from Burano, about fifty residents and an eleventh-century cathedral — and it is where the lagoon began.
Ready for Venice?
Where to next
What to eat in Venice
→Venetian food leans on fish and salt before pasta and tomato — the city looked at the sea for centuries…
Verona · 104 km
→An amphitheatre that still stages opera in summer, a courtyard tied to Shakespeare's tragedy and a fortress over the river — all inside a loop you can walk in a day, with a second day opening up Lake Garda.
How well does Venice suit you?
→Six questions: a score for this place and others like it.
Front row for the next trip
Leave your email and we'll let you know when a new destination or story goes up.