Torcello

The oldest inhabited part of the lagoon and now nearly empty. In the tenth century Torcello had perhaps ten thousand people and was more important than Venice; the canals silted, the water turned to malarial marsh, and everyone left. Fewer than a dozen people live here now.

What survives is a cathedral of 639, rebuilt in 1008, with a mosaic of the Last Judgement across its west wall and a Madonna in the apse on a plain gold ground that is among the greatest things in Italy.

What it costs

The island is free to walk. The basilica and the campanile are ticketed, cheaply, and are the reason to come.

When to go

Any time, and the quieter the better. This is the one island where being alone is the point.

⚠️ Almost nothing is open here. There is no shop worth the name and the restaurants are few and not cheap, so bring water in summer — the walk from the landing has no shade.

Getting there

Line 12 to Torcello, then a ten-minute walk along the canal from the landing. Easiest as the far end of a Murano–Burano–Torcello loop; from Burano it is a five-minute hop on line 9.

If you only have an hour

Go straight to the basilica, stand at the west end, and look at the Last Judgement — then turn and look down the length of the church at the Madonna. The building is arranged so you do exactly that, and it still works after a thousand years.

Climb the campanile for the lagoon from above: mudflats, channels and bricole all the way back to the city.

Look for the two stone slabs called Attila’s Throne in the grass outside — nothing to do with Attila, probably the seat of the island’s magistrate, and the last surviving piece of its civil government.

What people get wrong

Expecting a village. There is a cathedral, a bridge, a couple of restaurants and grass. That is the whole island, and it is the point.