A vaporetto route with 184 stops, from The Capitaneria di Porto (former Magistrato della Farina) to Ca' d'Oro and the Giorgio Franchetti Gallery.
The stops
- The Capitaneria di Porto (former Magistrato della Farina)
At the mouth of the Grand Canal, just beyond the Giardini Reali, stands a pale palace with an arched portico that seems made to be seen from the water.
- Punta della Dogana and the Dogana da Mar
At the tip of Dorsoduro, where the Grand Canal meets St Mark’s Basin, juts out the Punta della Dogana: for centuries Venice’s customs gate, the point where every ship was checked and taxed before entering the heart of the city.
- Hotel Monaco (Palazzo Vallaresso Erizzo)
Just a stone’s throw from St Mark’s Square, where the Grand Canal is about to open into the basin, Hotel Monaco occupies a plain-looking palazzo with an imposing neighbour.
- Ca' Giustinian
Just beyond the basin of San Marco, looking onto the Grand Canal, rises one of the last Gothic facades built in Venice: Ca’ Giustinian, erected around 1471 for the powerful family that had also given the city its first patriarch, Lorenzo Giustiniani.
- Bauer Palazzo (former Bauer Grunwald)
It looks like a 15th-century Gothic palace overlooking the Grand Canal, and yet it is one of Venice’s most successful disguises: this legendary hotel, opened in 1880 as the Grand Hotel Bauer-Grünwald, was rebuilt between 1900 and 1902 by the architect Giovanni Sardi in a neo-Gothic style so convincing that it blends in with the ancient palaces beside it. Even fragments of the 15th-century Arab-Byzantine palace that stood here, demolished in the mid-19th century, ended up in its masonry.
- Palazzo Treves de' Bonfili
Opposite Punta della Dogana, where the Grand Canal meets the rio di San Moisè (a Venetian canal), stands a pink palace hiding a paradox: its finest façade is not the one you see. When Bartolomeo Manopola rebuilt it in the 17th century he decided the main front would be the one on the narrow rio, not on the canal of palaces.
- The Seminario Patriarcale and the Pinacoteca Manfrediniana
Beside the Basilica della Salute, where Dorsoduro looks onto the Grand Canal, stretches the white, severe façade of the Seminario Patriarcale: the palace that Baldassare Longhena built between 1669 and 1671 for the Somaschi fathers, on the site of the ancient monastery of the Trinità.
- Hotel Europa & Regina (Palazzo Badoer Tiepolo)
At the mouth of the rio di San Moisè, where the canal opens onto the Grand Canal facing Punta della Dogana and the Salute, stretches the white front of the St. Regis: the grand hotel born in 1976 from the merger of the Europa and the Regina, five palazzi sewn together.
- The Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute
On 22 October 1630 the Venetian Senate made a solemn vow: if the Virgin freed the city from the plague that in eighteen months had killed almost half of its inhabitants, Venice would erect in her honour the most beautiful church ever built.
- Palazzo Gaggia (formerly Alvisi-Giustinian)
A small pinkish palazzo stands between Palazzo Giustinian Michiel Alvisi and the houses by the traghetto, almost opposite the Salute.
- Palazzo Contarini (next to the Fasan)
On the Grand Canal, between Palazzo Gaggia and the small Palazzetto Contarini Fasan, stands a mid-15th-century Gothic palazzo, which old guidebooks simply call Palazzo Contarini, with pointed arches typical of the 15th century.
- Ca' Contarini-Fasan (Desdemona's House)
Stop on the quay in front of the Salute and look for a narrow little palace, wedged between much larger buildings: it is Ca’ Contarini-Fasan, perhaps the most refined jewel of Venetian flamboyant Gothic.
- The Church and Abbey of San Gregorio
On the last strip of Dorsoduro, close to Punta della Dogana, the San Gregorio complex is made of two halves: the Gothic brick church that gives onto the campo (a Venetian square) of the same name and, closer to the Grand Canal, what remains of the old Benedictine abbey, with its 14th-century portal and the little cloister of 1342.
- Palazzo Manolesso-Ferro
On the Grand Canal at San Moisè, almost opposite the Salute, Palazzo Manolesso-Ferro is the older half of the present-day Veneto Regional Council headquarters.
- Palazzo Flangini-Fini
On the Grand Canal, just beyond Palazzo Pisani Gritti and facing the Salute, the pale mass of Palazzo Flangini-Fini marks the final stretch of the canal towards San Marco.
- Palazzo Genovese
A few metres from the Salute, where the Grand Canal widens towards the Basin, Palazzo Genovese looks like a five-hundred-year-old Gothic palazzo: instead it dates from 1892, the last great neo-Gothic facade built on the canal.
- Palazzo Gritti
Opposite the Salute basilica, at the entrance to the Campiello del Traghetto di Santa Maria del Giglio, Palazzo Pisani Gritti is one of the most illustrious houses on the Grand Canal: an early 15th-century building, it once had a façade entirely covered in frescoes — a work that the old guidebooks even attributed to Giorgione.
- Palazzo Venier
At the end of Campo Santa Maria del Giglio (a Venetian square), where the square opens onto the Grand Canal at the Campiello del Traghetto, stands a palazzo known by two names: Palazzo Venier, after the family who built it, and Palazzo Venier Contarini, also called Marin Contarini, after later owners.
- Palazzo Semitecolo (formerly Orio)
On the Grand Canal, between Casa Santomaso and Casa Salviati on the stretch of Dorsoduro facing the Salute, this palace carries three surnames — Orio, Semitecolo and Benzon — and three centuries stitched into a single façade.
- Palazzetto Salviati
Between Palazzo Barbaro Wolkoff and Palazzo Orio Semitecolo Benzon, on the Grand Canal in Dorsoduro, this palazzetto has an obvious anomaly: it is young.
- Palazzo Barbaro (Wolkoff)
Between Ca’ Dario and Casa Salviati, on the Grand Canal in Dorsoduro, this 15th-century palace is easy to recognise: its façade is almost entirely red brick, with a pointed-arch water doorway and an elegant six-light window on the piano nobile, framed by a row of dentils.
- Palazzo Barbarigo (Campo S. Maria del Giglio)
On the Grand Canal, level with the Giglio stop and the gondola ferry that shuttles to Dorsoduro, stands this 17th-century palace, once owned by Alvise Giustiniani.
- Palazzo Dario and Campiello Barbaro
Between Palazzo Barbaro Wolkoff and the rio delle Torreselle (a small Venetian canal), Ca’ Dario is the most many-faceted jewel on the Grand Canal: a Renaissance façade studded with roundels and discs of polychrome marbles, porphyry and serpentine — nearly eighty medallions glittering like gems — and behind it, looking onto the quiet Campiello Barbaro (small square), a still-Gothic soul of three-lobed arches, loggias and inverted-cone chimneys.
- Palazzo Minotto-Barbarigo
Palazzo Minotto-Barbarigo stands on the left bank of the Grand Canal, beside Palazzo Corner and a short walk from Accademia Bridge.
- Site of Palazzo Venier dalle Torreselle (US Consulate)
Between Ca’ Dario and Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, at the mouth of the rio delle Torreselle, a low white house looks onto the Grand Canal: it is Casa Artom, and beneath it sleeps a vanished palace.
- Palazzo Corner della Ca' Grande
On the right bank of the Grand Canal, between the Casina delle Rose and the rio di San Maurizio (a small canal), Palazzo Corner della Ca’ Grande interrupts the rhythm of the Gothic houses with a mass of Roman stone: rusticated stonework on the ground floor, Ionic and Corinthian orders on the piani nobili, wide terrace-loggias where voids prevail over solids.
- Palazzo Venier dei Leoni
Amid the line-up of palaces on the Grand Canal, between the Accademia and the Salute, one stands out unlike all the others: low, white, a single floor - Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, the ’palazzo nonfinito’ (the unfinished palace).
- La Casetta Rossa e lo Studio di Canova
On the bank of the Grand Canal, between the Accademia and Santa Maria del Giglio, you immediately notice a small low house all in red, with a little garden that reaches down to the water — an absolute rarity on the big canal.
- Casa Biondetti
From the Grand Canal you recognise it at once: Ca’ Biondetti is that discreet pink palace wedged between the Gothic Palazzo Da Mula Morosini and the white Palazzo Venier dei Leoni — the future home of Peggy Guggenheim.
- Palazzo Da Mula Morosini
In Dorsoduro, between Palazzo Barbarigo and Ca’ Biondetti, this palace is actually two buildings sewn together by the Morosini: the 15th-century Da Mula, in flamboyant Gothic, and the more sedate Centani, in early Baroque forms.
- Palazzetto Pisani (De Lazara)
On the Grand Canal this narrow, traditional palazzetto looks like the little brother of the enormous Palazzo Pisani behind it — and it truly became one: in 1751 Andrea Pisani bought it from the marquis Giovanni Poleni for eight thousand ducats, simply to give the great house that view over the canal the Republic had always denied it. Once the shared wall was pierced, the two buildings became one. The palazzetto has a story worthy of a book: a scientist owner who studied the dome of St Peter’s, a duke of Genoa among the owners, a literary salon frequented by artists and presidents — and today it is a boutique hotel where a film about Casanova was shot.
- Palazzo Barbarigo
Palazzo Barbarigo is the palazzo that, from the vaporetto (water bus) on the Grand Canal, never goes unnoticed: its façade is a glittering mantle of glass mosaics that catches the sun and gives it back to the water.
- Palazzo Benzon-Foscolo (Serego-Alighieri)
Wedged between the famous Palazzo Barbaro and the tiny Palazzetto Pisani, this 17th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal bears a double literary surname: Benzon, an old Venetian patrician family, and Foscolo, who found hospitality and inspiration in the Benzon home.
- Palazzo Loredan (now Cini)
At the corner between the Grand Canal and the rio (Venetian canal) di San Vio, Palazzo Loredan Cini is actually the union of two Renaissance buildings of the second half of the 16th century: you can still read it in the house numbers, because the two bodies answer to 732 and 864, and in the little private bridge linking the water portal to the campo.
- The Barbaro Palaces
Just after the Accademia Bridge, on the right bank of the Grand Canal, lines up one of the most beautiful stage sets in Europe: the flamboyant Gothic of Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti and then the Barbaro Palaces, two blocks of buildings enclosing five centuries of history.
- Palazzo Molin Balbi-Valier
On the Grand Canal, between Palazzo Loredan Cini and Palazzo Contarini Polignac, this palace goes by different names in different guidebooks: Molin Balbi-Valier, Balbi-Valier Sammartini or, as Venetians called it, ‘della Trezza’, after the braided band on the family coat of arms.
- Garden of Palazzo Sammartini (site of Palazzo Paradiso)
Between Palazzo Balbi Valier and Palazzo Contarini Polignac, level with Sant’Agnese, the Grand Canal opens onto a precious break in the palazzi: a private garden that slopes down to the water and ends in a semicircular balustrade.
- Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti
At the foot of the Accademia Bridge, on the St Mark’s side, Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti flaunts one of the most showy Gothic façades on the Grand Canal — but it is a largely reinvented Middle Ages.
- Palazzo Contarini dal Zaffo (Polignac)
Between the Accademia Bridge and Palazzo Barbarigo, this facade entirely clad in polychrome marble is one of the first Renaissance buildings in Venice: late 15th century, the architect uncertain between Giovanni Buora, Mauro Codussi and Pietro Lombardo, with discs of coloured marble that recall Byzantium.
- Palazzo Brandolin-Rota
In the final stretch of the Grand Canal in Dorsoduro, between the Gallerie dell’Accademia and Palazzo Contarini Polignac, the sober façade of Palazzo Brandolin Rota hides a story dense with illustrious guests.
- The Accademia Bridge
The Accademia Bridge is one of the four bridges over the Grand Canal and perhaps Venice’s most famous belvedere: from its summit the gaze runs on one side as far as the Bacino di San Marco and the mass of the Salute, on the other to the ’volta de Canal’.
- The Carità Complex and the Gallerie dell'Accademia
Between the Accademia Bridge and the bank of the Grand Canal stretches the Carita complex: church, convent and seat of the oldest of the six Scuole Grandi (the great lay confraternities of Venice).
- Casa Civran-Badoer (now Barozzi)
Just beyond the Accademia Bridge, on the San Marco side, stands a small palazzo that breaks the golden rule of the Grand Canal: instead of rising from the water, it withdraws behind a walled garden — one of the very few patches of green that face onto the most monumental canal in Europe.
- Palazzo Giustinian Lolin
On the Grand Canal, a stone’s throw from the Accademia, this imposing rusticated façade is one of Baldassare Longhena’s first independent works.
- Palazzo Querini Vianello
Between Palazzo Mocenigo Gambara and the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Palazzo Querini Vianello, also known as Palazzo alla Carità, is the most understated Neoclassical palace on this stretch of the Grand Canal.
- Palazzetto Falier (di Canossa)
On the Grand Canal, tucked between Ca’ del Duca and Palazzo Giustinian Lolin, this 15th-century Gothic palazzetto breaks with convention.
- Palazzo Mocenigo Gambara
On the Grand Canal, between the palazzi Contarini degli Scrigni and Querini alla Carità, opposite Palazzo Giustinian Lolin, Palazzo Mocenigo Gambara is recognisable by its austere and deliberately asymmetrical front: built around the mid-17th century in place of a 16th-century building — perhaps designed by Mauro Codussi and documented in the engravings — it was the home of the Mocenigo and here the admiral Lazzaro was born, hero of the war of Candia.
- Ca' del Duca
On the Grand Canal, next to the rio del Duca (a small canal), the base of a palace that was never finished tells the story of the most ambitious dream of the Venetian 15th century.
- Casa Mainella
Between Palazzo Loredan dell’Ambasciatore and Palazzo Contarini Corfù, right at the mouth of the Rio di San Trovaso, there is a small palazzo that looks like an animated drawing on the Grand Canal: terracotta and white stone, three-light and single-light windows, and a picturesque terrace covered in greenery that makes it stand out among its severe Gothic and Baroque neighbours.
- Palazzo Loredan dell'Ambasciatore
On the left bank of the Grand Canal, before the Rio di San Trovaso, Palazzo Loredan dell’Ambasciatore is a masterpiece of 15th-century Gothic famous for the perfect balance of its masses and for the two shield-bearing pages sculpted in niches beside the façade — noble Lombard sculptures of the early Renaissance.
- Palazzo Moro (now Barbini)
On the corner of the Grand Canal and the rio Malpaga, squeezed between Palazzo Loredan dell’Ambasciatore and Palazzetto Stern, this palace has almost the opposite effect from its neighbours: a pale, restrained façade, almost minimalist for its time, with no decorative flourish.
- Palazzetto Stern
A stone’s throw from Ca’ Rezzonico, opposite Palazzo Grassi and between it and Palazzo degli Ambasciatori, this Neo-Gothic façade plays tricks with its age. It looks like an early 20th-century whim — and it is: built between 1910 and 1912 on the ruins of the Malpaga palace, destroyed by fire.
- Palazzi Contarini-Michiel
Between Ca’ Rezzonico and Palazzetto Stern, at the mouth of the rio di San Barnaba, two low 16th-century palazzetti lean against each other like brothers of different heights.
- Palazzo Malipiero
They called it ’la Ca’ Granda de’ San Samuel’, the Big House, for its unusual size: Palazzo Malipiero is one of the oldest palaces on the Grand Canal, a palimpsest of almost a thousand years.
- Ca' Rezzonico
Ca’ Rezzonico looks like a palace conceived in a single breath, but it is the result of a century of Venetian ambition.
- Palazzo Grassi
Between Campo San Samuele (a Venetian square) and the Grand Canal stands the last great patrician palace built before the fall of the Serenissima (the Republic of Venice): Palazzo Grassi, the massive Neoclassical pile that the extremely rich Bolognese Grassi family - who had come by way of Chioggia, where they lived from 1230, and were enrolled in the patriciate in 1718 after donating sixty thousand ducats for the Morea war - had Giorgio Massari erect in the mid-18th century: a monument to Venetian wealth in the Republic’s very sunset, built between 1748 and 1772 on the last great empty lot left on the waterway.
- Palazzo Moro-Lin (of the 13 windows)
At the bend of the Grand Canal towards San Samuele rises a white, composed palazzo, long and low, which Venetians call ’palasso de le tredese fenestre’: thirteen identical windows per floor, one next to the other, on all three upper floors.
- Palazzo Bernardo Nani
Between Ca’ Rezzonico and Palazzo Giustinian Bernardo, opposite Palazzo Grassi, this 16th-century palazzo is attributed to Alessandro Vittoria — the sculptor-pupil of Sansovino here engaged as architect for the Bernardo family.
- Palazzi Giustinian
Stuck to Ca’ Foscari, where the Grand Canal makes its great curve, the Palazzi Giustinian look like a single building and instead are two twin houses: Ca’ Giustinian dei Vescovi, today of the University, and Ca’ Giustinian dalle Zogie, still of the Brandolini d’Adda counts.
- Ca' Foscari
Ca’ Foscari seems made to be seen from the water.
- Palazzo Balbi
At the level of the most spectacular elbow of the Grand Canal, the celebrated ’Volta de Canal’, where the water bends and every façade becomes a stage, the massive bulk of Palazzo Balbi stands beside the Gothic tracery of Ca’ Foscari.
- Palazzo Da Lezze (San Samuele)
Next to Palazzo Grassi, this mid-15th-century Gothic palazzo was the Grand Canal house of the Da Lezze, a very ancient family whom tradition has arriving from Lecce in 973. The façade has kept its archaic character: elongated windows with trefoil ogee arches and, at the centre, two superimposed four-light windows with balconies now in iron; only the ground floor was remodelled in the 18th century.
- Palazzetto Caotorta-Angaran
On the Grand Canal, tucked between Palazzo Balbi and Palazzo Civran Grimani, this little palazzo looks like one of the many grand 17th-century façades along the bank.
- Palazzo Erizzo Nani Mocenigo
Right on the ‘curva de canal’, wedged between Palazzo Da Lezze and Palazzo Contarini delle Figure, this brick palace is one of the finest examples of Venetian Flamboyant Gothic.
- Palazzo Contarini dalle Figure
On the San Marco bank, between Palazzo Mocenigo Ca’ Vecchia and Palazzo Erizzo Nani Mocenigo, opposite Ca’ Foscari, Palazzo Contarini dalle Figure is one of the most elegant Renaissance facades on the Grand Canal.
- Palazzo Civran-Grimani
At the mouth of the rio della Frescada (a small Venetian canal), between Palazzo Dandolo Paolucci and Palazzo Caotorta Angaran, this classical-looking façade in San Tomà playfully evokes antiquity.
- Palazzo Dandolo-Paolucci
On the Grand Canal at San Polo, between Palazzo Dolfin and Palazzo Civran Grimani, Palazzo Dandolo Paolucci hides beneath its 17th-century skin a 14th-century Gothic body.
- The Mocenigo Houses
It is the most aristocratic stretch of the Grand Canal: on the right bank, four palazzi joined in a single body of building, the Casa Vecchia and the Casa Nuova, tell eight centuries of the Mocenigo, the family that gave the Serenissima seven doges, twenty-seven procurators and a host of sea captains.
- Palazzo Dolfin (alla Volta de Canal)
On the great bend Venetians call the Volta del Canal, between Palazzo Marcello dei Leoni and Palazzo Dandolo Paolucci, this palazzo of the Dolfin family, in the sestiere (district) of San Polo, has survived the centuries.
- Palazzo Marcello dei Leoni
Palazzo Marcello stands on the right bank of the Grand Canal, between the rio di San Tomà and Palazzo Dolfin.
- Palazzo Giustinian Persico
At the corner with the Rio di San Tomà, where the gondola traghetto (ferry) still crosses the Grand Canal as it did six hundred years ago, the intense red of Palazzo Giustinian Persico marks one of the first appearances of the Renaissance in Venice.
- Palazzo Tiepolo, known as Tiepoletto (now Passi)
Between Palazzo Tiepolo and the grand Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, the Tiepoletto, also known as Palazzo Soranzo Pisani, is the lowest of the palaces between the Rio di San Polo (a Venetian canal) and the Rio di San Tomà.
- Palazzo Corner-Gheltof (now Alverà)
Next to the long block of the Palazzi Mocenigo, at San Samuele, this palace has two faces from very distant eras: the front on the Grand Canal is late 16th-century, ordered around a water portal, Serlian window and four-light window; but the rear opens onto a broad courtyard where an almost thousand-year-old Venice survives — a vera da pozzo (wellhead) of the 10th-11th centuries, parapets with pointed-arch balconies and an open staircase.
- Palazzo Tiepolo (now Passi)
Between the low, red Tiepoletto and the Gothic Palazzo Pisani Moretta, Palazzo Tiepolo — now Tiepolo Passi — is the grand Renaissance palace on this stretch of the Grand Canal.
- Palazzo Pisani Moretta
Between Palazzo Tiepolo and Palazzo Barbarigo della Terrazza, Palazzo Pisani Moretta boasts one of the finest façades of flamboyant Gothic on the Grand Canal: two orders of esafore (six-light windows) with quatrefoils that imitate the loggia of the Doge’s Palace.
- Palazzo Barbarigo della Terrazza
At the corner between the Grand Canal and the rio (a Venetian canal) di San Polo, wedged between the Gothic Palazzo Pisani Moretta and Ca’ Cappello, stands a palazzo that owes its name to a unique anomaly: Palazzo Barbarigo della Terrazza.
- Palazzo Garzoni
On the left-hand side of the Grand Canal, between the Rio di Ca’ Garzoni and the Fondaco Marcello and opposite Palazzo Pisani Moretta, Palazzo Garzoni is a 15th-century Gothic building much remodelled over the centuries.
- Palazzo Tito
On the Grand Canal, just beyond the mouth of the Rio di Sant’Angelo (a Venetian canal), stands the building that old guidebooks treated more harshly than any other: a palazzo designed by architect Angelo Scattolin and built in 1954.
- Palazzo Cappello-Layard (now Carnelutti)
At the mouth of the rio (a small canal) di San Polo, between Palazzo Barbarigo della Terrazza and Palazzo Grimani Marcello, this palace of Gothic origin has three façades on the water and a small central courtyard.
- Palazzo Barocci / ACNIL headquarters (former Teatro Sant'Angelo)
On the Grand Canal, a stone’s throw from Rialto, a pink palazzo and a modern office building share a secret: beneath their foundations sleeps the Teatro Sant’Angelo, one of the seven opera stages of the Serenissima (the Republic of Venice), where Antonio Vivaldi premiered twelve of his operas and Carlo Goldoni made Venice laugh with the Medebach company.
- Palazzo Grimani Marcello Giustinian
On the Grand Canal at San Polo, between Palazzo Querini Dubois and Ca’ Cappello Layard, the façade entirely clad in Istrian stone of Palazzo Grimani Marcello — formerly Vendramin, then Grimani dell’Albero d’Oro — is one of the noblest examples of Lombardesque Renaissance architecture in Venice.
- Palazzo Corner-Spinelli
Halfway between Rialto and Sant’Angelo, on the San Marco bank, Palazzo Corner Spinelli is the palazzo where Venice changed century without noticing: built between 1480 and 1490 for the Lando, it is considered the emblem of the passage from Gothic to Renaissance — the Istrian-stone façade, symmetrical and rhythmed by classical two-light windows, nevertheless preserves two trefoil balconies of Gothicising taste that are unique in the city.
- Palazzo Querini-Dubois
On the Grand Canal in San Polo, tucked between the Gothic Palazzo Bernardo and Palazzo Grimani Marcello, opposite Palazzo Corner Spinelli, this building tells the story of a typical transformation in Venetian architecture.
- Palazzo Curti Valmarana
On the San Marco side of the Grand Canal, squeezed between the severe rustication of Palazzo Corner Spinelli and the bulk of Ca’ Michiel, Palazzo Curti Valmarana is an exercise in balance: a plastered, harmonious 17th-18th-century façade that seeks no special effects but finds its elegance in measure.
- Palazzo Bernardo and its Gothic staircase
At the junction of the rii (Venetian canals) of San Polo, Sant’Agostin and delle Do Torre, the great pointed-arch bulk of Ca’ Bernardo towers over the bridge that bears its name, between the Calle del Scaleter and the Sant’Agostino area.
- Palazzo Benzon
Between the rio (a Venetian canal) Michiel and the rio di San Luca, on the bank of the Grand Canal that looks towards Rialto, Palazzo Querini Benzon looks like a façade like many others: sober, almost without ornaments, rebuilt in the 18th century over a Gothic predecessor and lengthened in 1897 by one floor too many.
- Palazzo Donà della Madonnetta
On the Grand Canal, in the sestiere (district; Venice has six) of San Polo, between Casa Sicher and Palazzo Dona dalle Trezze, Palazzo Dona della Madonnetta is one of the oldest palazzi in Venice: a Veneto-Byzantine house of the 12th-13th centuries, built by the Signolo family, which vies with Ca’ Da Mosto for the title of oldest building on the Grand Canal.
- Palazzo Donà a Sant'Aponal
Between Palazzo Papadopoli and Palazzo Donà della Madoneta stands one of the oldest palaces on the Grand Canal.
- Palazzo d'Anna-Viaro-Martinengo
On the Grand Canal, between Palazzo Tron and Casa Marinoni and opposite Palazzo Donà della Trezza, this austere Renaissance facade guards a secret: it was entirely painted.
- Palazzo Coccina-Tiepolo (Papadopoli)
Between Palazzo Giustinian Businello and Palazzo Donà, opposite Palazzo Grimani, Palazzo Coccina Tiepolo Papadopoli has one of the Grand Canal’s most majestic and well-balanced façades.
- Palazzo Tron a San Beneto
Between Palazzo Corner Contarini dei Cavalli and Palazzo D’Anna, facing Palazzo Fortuny, the white facade of Palazzo Tron a San Beneto is one of the oldest palazzi on the Grand Canal: ground floor and first floor perhaps date to the 13th century, rebuilt in the 15th under doge Nicolo Tron and raised again in the 16th — a palazzo that grew floor by floor, where each level tells a different century.
- Palazzo Businello (former Giustiniani)
Between Palazzo Papadopoli and the Rio dei Meloni (a Venetian canal), on the San Polo bank of the Grand Canal, Palazzo Giustinian Businello is one of the oldest witnesses of Rialto, the area where Venice was born as a city of merchants.
- Palazzo Corner Contarini dei Cavalli
Between the Rio di San Luca and Palazzo Tron, on the left side of the Grand Canal, this small palazzo in flamboyant Gothic was erected around 1445 for Jacopo Corner dal Banco — on the site of a palazzo that in 1310 had been branded with the ’mark of infamy’ for the conspiracy of Baiamonte Tiepolo.
- Palazzo Barzizza
On the Grand Canal, in the district of San Silvestro and opposite Ca’ Farsetti, this palazzo is one of the oldest house-warehouses (case-fondaco) on the bank: the Contarini built it in the 13th century and, according to the studies of Wladimiro Dorigo, a slave depot was held here.
- Palazzo Grimani di San Luca
On the Grand Canal, not far from Rialto and at the corner of the rio di San Luca, rises the colossal bulk of Palazzo Grimani, a Renaissance masterpiece by the Veronese Michele Sanmicheli and today the seat of the Venice Court of Appeal.
- Casa Ravà a San Silvestro
On the San Polo bank of the Grand Canal, a stone’s throw from the church of San Silvestro and the stop of the same name, an ochre-red palazzetto mimics the Venetian Gothic: crenellated turret, trefoil openings, finials on the cusps, a little garden enclosed by a balustrade.
- Palazzo Corner Valmarana
On the left bank of the Grand Canal, in the San Marco district near Calle Cavalli (a calle is a narrow lane) and just before the grandiose Palazzo Grimani di San Luca, Palazzo Corner Valmarana presents itself today as one of the liveliest and most colourful facades on the canal.
- Palazzo Cavalli (Casa Corner-Martinengo, former Ravà)
A short walk from Rialto, on the right-hand side of the Grand Canal between Palazzo Corner Valmarana and Ca’ Farsetti, stands the 16th-century Palazzo Cavalli, also known as Casa Corner Martinengo.
- Palazzo Farsetti and Loredan (City Hall)
On the Riva del Carbon — so called from the coal vessels that used to moor here — two 13th-century Veneto-Byzantine palaces have housed Venice’s City Hall for a century and a half.
- Fondamenta del Vin
The Fondamenta del Vin, a canalside walkway, is the Grand Canal’s most ‘drunken’ waterfront: here, at San Silvestro on the San Polo bank, wine boats had a stazio (a designated mooring) — and still did in Tassini’s day. Wine gave the place its name because the Uffizio del Dazio del Vin (Wine Duty Office) also stood here; it was demolished in 1842 to make way for the Lottery Directorate.
- Palazzetto dei Dandolo
Squeezed between Palazzo Bembo and the great buildings of the Municipio, on Riva del Carbon, this small 14th-century Gothic palazzo goes almost unnoticed from the vaporetto (water bus).
- Palazzo Bembo
On the Riva del Carbon, a breath away from the Rialto Bridge, Palazzo Bembo is one of the red giants of the Grand Canal: a massive 15th-century building in Venetian Gothic style, with ogival windows arranged over three orders and two pentafore (five-light windows) chasing each other like a stone diptych.
- Palazzo dei Dieci Savi
Just beyond the Rialto Bridge, on the San Polo side, the long porticoed building overlooking the Grand Canal and the Ruga degli Oresi is the Palazzo dei Dieci Savi: built from 1521 to a design by Antonio Abbondi, known as Scarpagnino, the great rebuilder of Rialto after the fire of 1514, it was for the whole duration of the Republic the seat of the Dieci Savi alle Decime — the Ten Sages of the Tithes — that is, as we would say today, the tax offices of the Serenissima.
- Palazzo Dolfin Manin (Banca d'Italia)
Just before the Rialto, on the Grand Canal, the white portico of Palazzo Dolfin Manin is one of the most severe and admired facades in Venice: Jacopo Sansovino designed it between 1538 and 1547 for the Dolfin, who wanted to replace two medieval houses with a palace ’in the Roman manner’ that cost thirty thousand ducats.
- Rialto Bridge
The Rialto Bridge is the geometric and symbolic heart of Venice: for centuries the only stable link between the two banks of the Grand Canal, ’citra et ultra canalem’, at the point where the city was born and traded.
- Palazzo dei Camerlenghi
At the foot of the Rialto Bridge, San Polo side, this pentagonal palace follows the curve of the Grand Canal like a strongbox wedged into the vault: it was built by Guglielmo dei Grigi, called il Bergamasco, between 1525 and 1528, to a design by Codussi and Lombardo, at the wish of Doge Andrea Gritti — within the great building site that raised Rialto again after the fire of 1514.
- Fontego dei Tedeschi
Beside the Rialto Bridge, on the Grand Canal, the massive bulk of the Fontego dei Tedeschi guards eight centuries of trade: here, since the 13th century, Germanic merchants — who brought metals, silver and cloth and left laden with spices and goods from the Orient — had warehouses, lodgings and even a chapel, under the watchful eye of the Serenissima.
- Casa Ruzzini (site of the Fondaco dei Persiani)
Palazzo Ruzzini is the last palace on the Cannaregio side before the Fondaco dei Tedeschi: five neo-Renaissance storeys of brick and Istrian stone, built at the end of the 19th century.
- Casa Perducci
On the Cannaregio side of the Grand Canal, tucked between Palazzo Civran and Palazzo Ruzzini, a short distance from the Fontego dei Tedeschi (the former German merchants’ trading house), Casa Perducci is one of those 15th-century façades a vaporetto (water bus) reveals for a moment before carrying you on. A Gothic building remodelled over the centuries, it faces the more theatrical scene across the water: the Fabbriche di Rialto, the Erberia and the bridge.
- Palazzo Civran
On the left bank of the Grand Canal, between the Campiello del Remer (small square) and Palazzo Perducci and just before the Fontego dei Tedeschi, this classical-looking palace hides a much older core.
- Palazzo Sernagiotto (Benvenuti)
A stone’s throw from Rialto, in a stretch of the Grand Canal where almost every façade is at least three centuries old, Palazzo Sernagiotto is the exception: a mid-19th-century building, one of the very few 19th-century palaces on the canal.
- Campiello del Remer and the remains of Palazzo Lion-Morosini
The remains in the Campiello del Remer, a little square on the water just a stone’s throw from Rialto, are all that is left of a 13th-century Veneto-Byzantine house: the palace of the Lion, merchants who returned from the Levant with great fortunes.
- Palazzo Bollani-Erizzo
At the corner of the Grand Canal and the Rio di San Giovanni Crisostomo, a stone’s throw from Ca’ da Mosto and the Palazzetto Dolfin, this tall, narrow palazzo has had residents worthy of a chapter in literary history.
- Fabbriche Vecchie di Rialto
The long porticoed building that closes off Campo di Rialto towards the Erberia is the headquarters the Serenissima rebuilt after the fire of 1514: the Fabbriche Vecchie, designed by Antonio Abbondi, known as lo Scarpagnino, between 1520 and 1522.
- Casa dei Dolfin (Santi Apostoli)
As you travel towards Rialto, just before Ca’ d’Oro, a bright, unpretentious house stands between the 13th-century Byzantine Ca’ da Mosto and the ornate Palazzo Bollani Erizzo.
- Ca' da Mosto
Among the oldest palaces on the Grand Canal, Ca’ da Mosto has kept almost all its 13th-century appearance: a row of raised Byzantine arches runs above a portico with three arches, where merchant boats once unloaded their goods straight into the house.
- Palazzo Mangilli-Valmarana
Where the rio dei Santi Apostoli (a rio is a Venetian canal) flows into the Grand Canal, Palazzo Smith Mangilli Valmarana is a unique case in Venice: the only palazzo on the canal with a facade of pure neoclassical stamp, designed by the painter and engraver Antonio Visentini between 1743 and 1751.
- Fabbriche Nuove di Rialto
Meekly following the great bend of the Grand Canal, between the Erberia (fruit and vegetable market) and the Pescheria (fish market), stretches the long façade of the Fabbriche Nuove di Rialto: the last piece in the reconstruction of the city’s commercial heart, designed by Jacopo Sansovino between 1552 and 1555 — beside Scarpagnino’s Fabbriche Vecchie, just thirty years older.
- Palazzo Michiel del Brusà
This Gothic façade on the Grand Canal has a secret written across it in large Latin letters: the palazzo you see dates almost entirely from 1777.
- Palazzo Michiel dalle Colonne
On the Grand Canal, facing the Rialto Pescheria (the fish market), Palazzo Michiel dalle Colonne guards eight centuries of Venetian history: born in the 13th century as a Veneto-Byzantine residence of the Grimani, it preserves the 14th-century portico that gave it its name, while the Baroque façade with serliane (three-part windows) and stone busts is the work of Antonio Gaspari, finished in 1697 for the Zen. It hosted the last Duke of Mantua in exile and passing sovereigns; in its rooms a celebrated picture gallery was admired — from Bonifazio to Parmigianino, from Gherardo delle Notti to Schiavone — a magnificent Florentine mosaic table inlaid with hardstones and mother-of-pearl, and even the wardrobe with the vestments of the blessed Gregorio Barbarigo.
- Pescheria Nuova
At the tip of the island of Rialto, where the Grand Canal makes its great bend, stands the Pescheria Nuova: the porticoed loggia where fish has been sold for more than a century, in a building that looks Gothic but dates from 1907, the work of the architect Domenico Rupolo and the painter-sculptor Cesare Laurenti, in that ’cold inspiration’ of the Venetian 15th century that the guidebooks condemned but which has entered the Venetians’ eyes as if it had always been there — solemnly inaugurated on 28 April 1907, for the seventh Biennale.
- Palazzo Foscari del Pra'
Small and asymmetric, Palazzo Foscari del Prà overlooks the Grand Canal in Cannaregio, near the church of Santa Sofia and next to Palazzo Morosini Sagredo.
- Palazzo Sagredo
Facing Ca’ d’Oro, opposite Campo Santa Sofia, Palazzo Sagredo — today Ca’ Sagredo, formerly of the Morosini family and bought by the Sagredo in the early 16th century, the dynasty that also gave the Republic a doge, Nicolò — preserves on the Grand Canal one of the richest surviving Gothic facades: late 14th century, with a broad central fenestration and traces of an even older Veneto-Byzantine building of the 13th century.
- Palazzo Giustinian Pesaro
On the Grand Canal, at 3935 Cannaregio in Calle della Ca’ d’Oro (street), between Ca’ d’Oro and Palazzo Morosini Sagredo, Palazzo Giustinian Pesaro is one of the oldest Gothic palaces on this stretch of the Cannaregio bank.
- Palazzetto Giusti (formerly Miani-Coletti)
Beside the Ca’ d’Oro, on the Cannaregio side of the Grand Canal, a clean-lined greenish façade offers an 18th-century counterpoint to its famous neighbour’s Gothic forms.
- Palazzo Fontana Rezzonico
This large palace, with its pink plaster façade, stands at the mouth of the rio (a Venetian canal) di San Felice, just before the Ca’ d’Oro.
- Palazzo Morosini Brandolin
On the right bank of the Grand Canal, opposite Ca’ d’Oro and between the small Foroni and Iona palaces, Palazzo Morosini Brandolin is a jewel of Venetian flamboyant Gothic.
- Palazzo Contarini Pisani
On the left bank of the Grand Canal in Cannaregio, between Palazzo Boldù and Casa Levi Morenos, just beyond the Rio di San Felice (a Venetian canal) and the old landing for its traghetto (a gondola ferry across the Grand Canal), this 16th- and 17th-century Contarini palazzo has the modest air of a project left unfinished.
- Palazzo Boldu'
On the left bank of the Grand Canal, in the Cannaregio stretch once served by the San Felice gondola ferry, Palazzo Boldù is squeezed between the Palazzetto Da Lezze and Palazzo Contarini Pisani.
- Casa Favretto (formerly Bragadin)
Casa Favretto is a small Gothic palazzo on the right bank of the Grand Canal, tucked between the Pescheria and the rio di San Cassiano (a Venetian canal).
- Palazzo Gussoni Grimani della Vida
On the Cannaregio bank, opposite Ca’ Pesaro, Palazzo Gussoni Grimani della Vida looks like an elegant sixteenth-century palace like many: two superimposed four-light windows with balcony at the centre, cornices and curved pediments.
- Palazzo Corner della Regina
On the Santa Croce bank, a step before Ca’ Pesaro, Palazzo Corner della Regina is a white, theatrical mass that imposes itself on the Grand Canal like a stage backdrop.
- Palazzo Correggio
Between Palazzo Donà and Ca’ Corner della Regina, a stone’s throw from Ca’ Pesaro, this sober and elegant 18th-century façade was designed by a pupil of Andrea Tirali over a 16th-century house of the Correggio — a family of Bergamo merchants in belts and leather goods who in 1646 bought Venetian nobility for a hundred thousand ducats.
- Palazzetto Dona'-Sangiantoffetti
On the right-hand side of the Grand Canal, wedged between Palazzo Correggio and the masses of Ca’ Pesaro and Ca’ Corner della Regina, this 18th-century palazzetto built on older structures is one of the most modest fronts on the waterfront — and that is exactly why it stands out. The double surname tells two stories: the ancient, dogal one of the Donà, and the more recent one of the Sangiantoffetti, nobles of Vicenza who entered the patriciate by paying for the war of Candia.
- Palazzo Ruoda (Boldù)
On the Grand Canal, in Cannaregio between the Rio della Maddalena (a Venetian canal) and the Rio di Noale, Palazzo Ruoda — also known as Ruoda-Boldù, after the two family names of its former residents — stands at number 2256 in Corte Bragadin (a Venetian courtyard).
- Palazzo Zulian Priuli
On the Grand Canal in Cannaregio, beside the Palazzetto Barbarigo with its famous terrace, stands Palazzo Zulian Priuli, a 17th-century building whose double name comes from two families and a will.
- Palazzo Pesaro (Gallery of Modern Art)
On the Grand Canal, opposite San Stae, Palazzo Pesaro — Ca’ Pesaro — is the last and most powerful creature of Baldassare Longhena: a colossal mass commissioned by the procurator Leonardo Pesaro, who had received the charge in the will of his uncle Doge Giovanni, with the injunction to ’increase its beauty and grandeur’.
- Palazzo Barbarigo (alla Maddalena)
Just before the rio della Maddalena (a Venetian canal) flows into the Grand Canal, beside the Maddalena gondola ferry, this palazzo, dating from the second half of the 16th century, still wears its original appearance.
- Palazzo Molin Querini (Gaspari)
Where the Grand Canal meets the rio della Maddalena (a Venetian canal), facing San Stae, Palazzo Molin Querini — now also known as Gaspari, or Palazzo Molin alla Maddalena — stands beside Palazzo Emo, its lively façade cut by a sharp corner.
- Palazzo Giovanelli (formerly Foscarini)
Beside the church of San Stae, on the right bank of the Grand Canal, Palazzo Foscarini Giovanelli is one of the most inhabited houses in the history of Venice: jewel merchants, Florentine printers, a doge, a king of Denmark and even Mozart lived or celebrated here.
- Church of San Stae
Facing scenically onto the Grand Canal, on one of the few campi (squares) in Venice that slope right down to touch the water, the church of San Stae — Sant’Eustachio for the Venetians — is the manifesto of the Baroque looking to the canal.
- Palazzo Emo (alla Maddalena)
Between Palazzo Molin Querini and Palazzo Soranzo Piovene, near the Maddalena and beside the disused ferry crossing that once linked this bank to San Stae, this 17th-century palace is easy to recognise.
- Palazzo Priuli-Bon (later Dandolo)
Beside Campo San Stae, on the right bank of the Grand Canal, Palazzo Priuli-Bon is a lesson in Venetian architectural history.
- Palazzo Soranzo Piovene
Between Palazzo Molin Erizzo and Palazzo Emo alla Maddalena, Palazzo Soranzo Piovene is an elegant example of early 16th-century Lombardesque architecture, attributed to Sante Lombardo, Pietro’s nephew.
- Garden on the Site of Palazzo Contarini
Between Palazzo Priuli-Bon and Palazzo Duodo, almost opposite the San Stae stop, the unbroken line of palazzi gives way to a patch of green on the Grand Canal.
- Palazzo Erizzo alla Maddalena
On the Grand Canal, in Cannaregio, between Palazzo Marcello and Palazzo Soranzo Piovene and a few steps from the church of the Maddalena, this late-Gothic 15th-century palazzo was raised by the Molin and passed in 1650 to the Erizzo through a marriage that joined two great patrician houses.
- Palazzo Duodo (Santa Croce)
Small and proud between the bulk of Ca’ Tron and the palaces of San Stae, Palazzo Duodo is a patrician residence of very ancient foundation, built in a transitional phase of Venetian Gothic architecture between the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century, and remodelled in the following centuries without losing its proportions.
- Palazzo Marcello (alla Maddalena)
Between the Gothic of Palazzo Erizzo and the marble of Ca’ Vendramin Calergi, this 18th-century front seems almost shy: five arches over two orders, a double landing shore, a side that lets you glimpse the old verziere (orchard-garden).
- Palazzo Loredan-Vendramin-Calergi
On the right bank of the Grand Canal, Palazzo Loredan-Vendramin-Calergi is the triumphal epilogue of the Venetian Renaissance: commissioned by Andrea Loredan from Mauro Codussi and completed in 1509 by the Lombardo workshop, with a façade entirely faced in stone and two-light windows divided by columns.
- Palazzo Tron (Ca' Tron)
Between Palazzo Duodo and Palazzo Belloni Battagia — the one with the two sharp obelisks on the crown — here is the light, composed facade of Ca’ Tron, home of a very ancient lineage that gave Venice a doge and a string of procurators.
- Palazzo Belloni-Battagia
Between the Fontego del Megio and Ca’ Tron, just downstream of San Stae, the Grand Canal opens onto one of the richest and most celebrated façades of Venetian Baroque: Palazzo Belloni Battagia, which arose around the middle of the 17th century on the structures of a pre-existing Gothic house.
- Fondaco del Megio
Beside the solemn arches of the Fondaco dei Turchi, this parallelepiped of bare brick is the plainest façade on the Grand Canal — and deliberately so: here wealth was not flaunted, bread was stockpiled.
- Casa Gatti-Casazza
On the bend of the Grand Canal, opposite the Fondaco dei Turchi and hard by the Rio di San Marcuola, rises a ’tower house’ that resembles nothing else in Venice: a Gothic structure, trefoil windows, and then centuries of retouching — mostly 19th- and 20th-century — that have made it an eclectic riddle where authentic and reproduced blur together.
- The Fondaco dei Turchi (Natural History Museum)
From the vaporetto (water bus), on the left bank of the Grand Canal, appears the most ’eastern’ image of Venice: the Fondaco dei Turchi, with its ground-level portico, upper loggias and battlements between two tower wings — the most complete type of Veneto-Byzantine house, although the façade we see is a 19th-century reconstruction on the ancient model.
- Chiesa di San Marcuola
Opposite the Fondaco dei Turchi, San Marcuola overlooks the Grand Canal with a bare-brick facade that has been awaiting its marble for three centuries: Giorgio Massari rebuilt the church from 1728 and finished the interior, but the cladding never arrived.
- Casa Correr
On the salizada (one of the first paved streets) that flanks the Fondaco dei Turchi, this house on the Grand Canal forever changed the way Venice tells its own story.
- Palazzo Giovanelli (San Zan Degolà)
At the mouth of the rio (a small canal) of San Zan Degolà, facing the garden corner where the Bembo house once stood, a Gothic palazzo of the mid-15th century is mirrored in the Grand Canal: Palazzo Giovanelli.
- Palazzo Memmo Martinengo-Mandelli (Donà dalle Rose)
On the Grand Canal, next to the unfinished church of San Marcuola, stands a palace with a severe and slightly lopsided air: its Neoclassical façade has all the main openings shifted to the left side, as if the building were always looking one way. Here the Memmo — one of the oldest families of Venice, among those that elected the first doge — had their home since the 10th century.
- Palazzo Gritti Dandolo
On the right bank of the Grand Canal in Cannaregio, between Palazzo Memmo Martinengo Mandelli and Palazzo Correr Contarini Zorzi, Palazzo Gritti Dandolo looks like a seventeenth-century palace — but it is not: beneath the classical cladding beats a medieval Gothic heart, which a radical 17th-century remodelling masked by changing the windows without touching the dimensions.
- Corner Garden (site of Casa Bembo)
From the Grand Canal, at the mouth of the rio (a Venetian canal) di San Zan Degolà, you can see a corner of garden and a modern building.
- Palazzo Correr Contarini Zorzi (Ca' dei Cuori)
On the Grand Canal, in the Cannaregio sestiere (district — Venice has six) between Palazzo Querini Papozze and Palazzo Gritti, the majestic 17th-century facade of Palazzo Correr Contarini Zorzi is known to all of Venice as Ca’ dei Cuori, the ’House of Hearts’: the nickname comes from the heart-shaped wrought-iron coats of arms adorning the two water portals and the courtyard.
- Palazzo Querini (Cannaregio)
At the mouth of the Cannaregio Canal, between Palazzo Correr Contarini Zorzi and Palazzo Emo at San Leonardo, and just steps from the Ponte delle Guglie, Palazzo Querini Papozze has a white, repetitive façade unlike any other on the Grand Canal.
- Palazzo Marcello-Priuli-Toderini
On Riva di Biasio, where the Cannaregio Canal opens into the Grand Canal, Palazzo Marcello Toderini is a small 17th-century palace with an unusual design: a single piano nobile, with a central serliana flanked by round-arched single windows set within a trabeated frame.
- Palazzo Zen (Riva di Biasio)
On the Riva di Biasio, between the vaporetto (water bus) stop and the neighbouring palaces, a building looks onto the Grand Canal that paid for Venice’s history first-hand: Palazzo Zen, once home of the very ancient Zen family, was set on fire during the Austrian bombardment of 1849 — when the Republic of San Marco of Daniele Manin was resisting the last siege in its history — and was rebuilt, keeping the sober appearance it still shows beside the richer Palazzo Marcello Toderini.
- Church of San Geremia
At the confluence of the Cannaregio canal and the Grand Canal, San Geremia is today the Sanctuary of Santa Lucia: in the apse chapel — dismantled piece by piece from the Palladian church demolished in 1861 to make room for the station — rests the martyr of Syracuse, who arrived in Venice with the spoils of the Fourth Crusade.
- Palazzo Donà
On the Riva di Biasio, in the stretch of Grand Canal in the Santa Croce district opposite Palazzo Flangini and the church of San Geremia, stretches the 17th-century façade of Palazzo Donà Balbi.
- Riva di Biasio
It is the only vaporetto stop on the Grand Canal that bears the name not of a church or a monument, but of a butcher — and no ordinary butcher.
- Palazzo Flangini
Beside the church of San Geremia, on the stretch of Grand Canal a stone’s throw from Palazzo Labia, the Baroque facade of Palazzo Flangini shows an evident anomaly: the entire right wing is missing.
- Palazzo Gritti (Santa Croce)
On the left bank of the Grand Canal, beside Campo di San Simeone Profeta (a Venetian square), Palazzo Gritti is a restrained late-Renaissance building, erected towards the end of the 16th century.
- Portale di Palazzo Morosini dalla Tressa
On the Lista di Spagna, at number 233, a 15th-century Gothic portal outlives the palace it guarded: it was the secondary entrance of the famous Palazzo Morosini ’dalla Tressa’, whose real façade — entirely frescoed by Pordenone — faced the Grand Canal, behind a courtyard enclosed by a wall that Martinioni counted among the most notable palaces in the city.
- Site of the demolished Palazzo Correr
Look at the frontage running between Palazzo Gritti and the campo (square) of San Simeone: low warehouse buildings, nothing that recalls a palace.
- Palazzetto Nigra
On the Grand Canal, at the corner with the mouth of the Rio Marin, there is a palace that looks six hundred years old and is barely a hundred and twenty: the Palazzetto Nigra was built in 1904 to a design by the architect Giovanni Sardi for Count Costantino Nigra, the Piedmontese diplomat who was Cavour’s secretary and Italy’s ambassador to the great courts of Europe.
- Palazzo Calbo Crotta
At the mouth of the Lista di Spagna, hard by the Ponte degli Scalzi, stretches one of the longest palaces on the Grand Canal: built by the Soranzo in the 14th-15th centuries, enlarged and remodelled up to the 17th century, it bears a façade divided into two souls — Gothic on the left, Renaissance on the right.
- Palazzo formerly Foscari (rebuilt by Meo, 1956)
From the Ponte degli Scalzi, looking towards the mouth of the Rio Marin (a rio is a Venetian canal), you see a palazzo that looks like it came out of the 15th century — and instead it dates from 1956.
- Palazzo Foscari-Contarini
At the foot of the Ponte degli Scalzi, opposite the church of Santa Maria di Nazareth, Palazzo Foscari Contarini opens onto the Grand Canal with its singular U-shaped plan: two building bodies joined by a boundary wall that closes the inner courtyard towards the canal.
- Casa Adoldo (or Adoaldo)
Opposite the station, on the bank of the Grand Canal, almost everyone looks at the green dome of San Simeone Piccolo and few notice the house beside it. Yet Casa Adoldo is one of the most legible palazzi in Venice: rebuilt in 1520, it bears on its doors marble panels with Latin inscriptions — which for centuries no guidebook bothered to explain — supported by little figures of the apostles Simeon and Jude, which tell of Lucia Adoldo’s donation to the parish — a ’humble and tottering’ house, says the marble, bequeathed in 1345 — and the reconstruction commissioned by Vittore Spiera.
- Church of the Scalzi
Next to the station and the bridge over the Grand Canal rises one of the most opulent Baroque churches in Venice: Santa Maria di Nazareth, known as degli Scalzi, from the Discalced (’barefoot’) Carmelite friars who commissioned it. Having arrived in the city in 1633 and owners of this vast area since 1646, the friars began the temple around 1660 to a design by Baldassare Longhena, the great architect of Santa Maria della Salute, with funds from Count Gerolamo Cavazza; the church was completed in 1689 and consecrated in 1705.
- Ponte degli Scalzi
The Ponte degli Scalzi is Venice’s first bridge for almost everyone who arrives by train: you come out of Santa Lucia station, go down the steps, and this single white Istrian stone arch is the gateway onto the Grand Canal towards the ’lower’ half of the city.
- The Church of San Simeone Piccolo
For anyone arriving by train, this is Venice’s first landmark: the church of Saints Simon and Jude, known as San Simeon Piccolo, stands out on the Grand Canal opposite the station, with its Corinthian portico and great copper dome.
- Palazzo Diedo-Emo
On the Fondamenta (canalside walkway) di San Simeone Piccolo, a step before the Ponte della Croce and opposite the station (not to be confused with the other Palazzo Diedo in Santa Fosca), Palazzo Emo Diedo is for many travellers the first palace Venice shows them: a measured, neoclassical 18th-century façade, with the great three-light window crowned by a triangular pediment peeping out among Corinthian columns of colossal order.
- Giardino Papadopoli
Between Piazzale Roma and the Grand Canal lies Venice’s best-known public garden: 7,500 square metres of holm oaks, cypresses and cedars, all that remains of a 12,000-square-metre romantic park commissioned in 1834 by Teresa Mosconi — wife of Count Spiridione Papadopoli, owner of the city’s largest private bank — and designed by the theatre designer Francesco Bagnara.
- Venice Santa Lucia railway station
It is the only station in the world you leave to find yourself facing the Grand Canal: Venezia Santa Lucia, a terminus overlooking the water, is the gateway to the city for the roughly thirty million travellers who each year arrive by train crossing the lagoon on the railway bridge.
- Palazzo Contarini Corfù
On the Grand Canal between Ca’ Rezzonico and the Accademia bridge, at the mouth of the Rio di San Trovaso, Palazzo Contarini Corfù is the Gothic half of one of the most famous pairs of palaces in Venice.
- Ca' d'Oro and the Giorgio Franchetti Gallery
On the Grand Canal, the Ca’ d’Oro looks like lace carved in stone.