Things to do in Venice

Neighborhood · North of the Grand Canal

The most residential sestiere, running from the station along broad fondamente to the world's first Ghetto, established in 1516.

Local tip: The Fondamenta della Misericordia and Fondamenta degli Ormesini are where Venetians actually drink in the evening, and the bacari along them are priced for residents. The Ghetto's tall buildings exist because it could only grow upward.

Food · San Polo, at the foot of the bridge

The fish and produce market that has traded on the same spot for around a thousand years.

Local tip: The Pescaria is closed Sundays and Mondays and is finished by lunchtime. Go before nine to see it working. The bacari in the lanes immediately behind — around Calle dei Do Mori — are the oldest in the city and serve cicchetti from opening.

Neighborhood · The island south of Dorsoduro, and the quay facing it

A long working island of former factories and social housing, across the water from the sunniest walk in Venice.

Local tip: Giudecca is where a lot of remaining Venetians live and where rents in the centre are lowest — a five-minute vaporetto from the Zattere. The Redentore church by Palladio is worth the crossing on its own, and in July the Redentore festival fills the water with boats.

Nature · The barrier island east of the city

Twelve kilometres of sandbar with beaches, roads, cars and the film festival — a completely different Venice.

Local tip: It is the only part of the city where you can cycle, and residents do. The free public beaches are at the northern and southern ends; the middle is concession-run. In winter it is empty and the sea walls are the best walk in the lagoon.

Nature · Forty minutes by vaporetto from Fondamente Nove

The island where Venice began, now home to a handful of residents and a seventh-century cathedral with Byzantine mosaics.

Local tip: Go on a weekday and stay after the day boats leave. The mosaic of the Last Judgement in Santa Maria Assunta is older and better than almost anything in Venice proper, and the campanile gives the best view of the lagoon's structure.

Culture · A small island between the Lido and San Marco

An Armenian monastery founded in 1717, with a printing house, a library of thousands of manuscripts and an Egyptian mummy.

Local tip: Open by guided visit only, at a set afternoon time, reached on the vaporetto toward the Lido. Byron came here in 1816 to learn Armenian and the monks will show you the room. Almost no visitor to Venice has heard of it and it is twenty minutes from San Marco.