The Ponte delle Guglie, the Venetians’ ’Ponte di Cannaregio’, spans the Cannaregio Canal - the widest of the canals joining the Grand Canal to the lagoon, once an expanse of reed beds that gave the whole sestiere (district) its name - and is the first historic bridge met by those coming from the station towards Strada Nova and Rialto. For centuries, before the railway, this was Venice’s real gateway from the mainland.