The Grand Canal

Three and a half kilometres of reversed S through the middle of the city, thirty to seventy metres wide, four metres deep, and lined with about a hundred and seventy palaces built over six centuries. It is not a canal in the dug sense — it is the old channel of a river, and the city was built along it rather than the other way round.

Only four bridges cross it. That is the single fact that shapes every walk you will take.

What it costs

Looking at it is free. Travelling it is one vaporetto fare, and the best value in Venice: line 1 runs the whole length, stops everywhere, and takes about forty minutes.

⛔ The boats moored beside the piers selling “Grand Canal tours” charge many times that for the same water. A day pass on the public boats costs less than one tour and lasts all day.

When to go

Late afternoon going north-west, so the light is behind you and on the palace fronts. Line 1 from San Zaccaria to the station is the run to take, standing at the back in the open.

Getting there

Every vaporetto stop on the canal is a way onto it. Board at either end — Piazzale Roma or San Zaccaria — and you will get a seat outside, which is the whole point.

⛔ There are only four bridges across it — the Scalzi at the station, the Costituzione beside it, the Rialto in the middle and the Accademia in the south. Between them are long stretches with no crossing at all, which is why the traghetti exist and why a five-minute walk on a map can be twenty-five in fact.

If you only have an hour

One end-to-end run on line 1, outside at the stern, and nothing else. Watch for the bricole: the striped oak posts driven into the mud mark the channel deep enough for a boat, and off them the lagoon is centimetres deep. They are the reason the city is where it is.

What people get wrong

Taking line 2 for the view. It is the express and it skips most of the canal.