Italy · Self-guided walk
Venice in one walk 8 sights, 40 minutes
A self-guided walking tour of the Venice Old Town: 8 sights on one 2.8 km loop, about 40 minutes on foot, back where you started.
No two days to spare? Here is the short version: the big sights in one loop. I would take longer. I always take longer.
At a glance
The walk in numbers.
- Distance
- 2.8 km, a loop
- Time
- about 40 minutes of walking at 4 km/h, plus however long you stop
- Sights
- 8
- Start and finish
- Basilica di San Marco
- Steps
- on Piazza San Marco, Fondamenta de la Canonica, Ponte di Rialto, Calle de la Fenice
- Cost
- free: no guide, no booking, no tip
The route
Map of the Venice walk: 8 stops, one loop.
The gold line is the walk. The numbers are the stops, in the order you reach them. The pale lines are every other street in the Old Town.
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
The stops
8 sights in Venice, in walking order.
Each stop says how far the next one is and which streets take you there.
1. Basilica di San Marco
the start
It closes the east end of this walk, and I would not hurry the last stretch. The face of it is a wall of columns and coloured stone fetched in from elsewhere, a piece at a time, and almost none of it matches. Go in and look down rather than up. The floor is not flat.
Next: Palazzo Ducale, 270 m, about 4 min, along Piazzetta San Marco, Piazza San Marco, Piazzetta dei Leoncini, Calle de la Canonica.
2. Palazzo Ducale
about 4 minutes of walking from the start
You can go under one whole side of it without paying anybody, which is my favourite sort of architecture. Stop at the seaward corner and look hard at the facing: pink and white slabs set in a diamond pattern that makes masonry look woven. Then find the capitals on the two outer corners and count what is carved into them.
Next: Ponte di Rialto, 620 m, about 9 min, along Calle Larga San Marco, Calle dei Spechieri, Calle de Mezo, Calle dei Stagneri.
3. Ponte di Rialto
about 13 minutes of walking from the start
It is not one path, it is three. Two run along the outer edges and a third climbs up the middle, between two rows of little shops that stand right on the arch. Take an outer one going over and the middle one coming back, and you have had the same bridge two ways.
Next: Ca' Farsetti, 320 m, about 5 min, along Riva del Carbon.
Lunch break
Enoteca Al Volto, Calle Cavalli 4081, about 0 m off the route, open Mon–Sun 10:00–16:00, 18:00–22:00.
A quiet lane, Calle Cavalli, three hundred metres from the Rialto bridge, and the regulars are mostly Venetians. More on what to eat in Venice.
4. Ca' Farsetti
about 18 minutes of walking from the start
From the lane you get its back and not much else. Go round to Riva del Carbon and look at it from the water side, where the arches are, because that is the side it was made to be seen from. Almost everything on that bank is like this. The good face points at a street I cannot walk.
Next: Campo Santo Stefano, 660 m, about 10 min, along Calle Corner Piscopia, Campo Daniele Manin, Calle de la Cortesia, Calle de la Mandola, Campo Sant' Anzolo, Calle dei Frati, Campo Santo Stefano.
5. Campo Santo Stefano
about 28 minutes of walking from the start
This is the one open ground on the walk where nothing is pressing in on you: long, wide, trees, and children playing ball, which almost nowhere else here allows. Find the stone well-head out on the paving. Every campo had one, and the ground was laid to run rain into the cistern beneath it. A floor with two jobs, and I have never met a better one.
Next: Teatro La Fenice, 360 m, about 5 min, along Calle del Spezier, Campiello dei Calegheri, Calle de la Fenice.
6. Teatro La Fenice
about 33 minutes of walking from the start
Finding it is half the job. It hides on a small campo off the shopping lanes, with no space in front of it to step back and admire anything, and the lane that gets you there is called after it. Look for the water door on the canal side instead: people still turn up at it by boat.
Next: Museo Correr, 320 m, about 5 min, along Calle drio la Chiesa, Piscina de Frezzeria, Calle de Piscina de Frezzaria, Frezzaria.
7. Museo Correr
about 38 minutes of walking from the start
The door is at the far end of the big piazza, the end furthest from the church, and the stair behind it is grander than most palaces manage. Go for the windows rather than the cases. They run the whole length of the square and look straight down onto the paving you just crossed. This is the one address in this city where I can study a floor from a seated position.
Next: Campanile di San Marco, 160 m, about 2 min, along Piazza San Marco.
8. Campanile di San Marco
about 41 minutes of walking from the start
The thing worth knowing before you get there is that it is not attached to anything. You can make a complete circle of its foot, which you cannot do with anything else on this piazza. At the base, facing the water, sits a small marble porch that has nothing to do with bells. There is also a lift, and I have no opinion about that whatsoever.
Back to the start: Basilica di San Marco, 80 m, about 1 min, along Piazzetta San Marco.
Every stop counts from the street; the hours are for going inside. Opening hours from OpenStreetMap, © OpenStreetMap contributors. Check before you go.
After the walk
The rest of Venice.
This loop is 8 sights. The Old Town is 217 streets, and I have opinions about all of them. Every street of the Venice Old Town, with what to eat and where.
Cobble Gobble is a walking game for iPhone: every street is a line of dots you collect by walking it, and the phone stays in your pocket. Your first city is free.