Santi Giovanni e Paolo
The Basilica of Santi Giovanni e Paolo — known in Venetian as San Zanipolo — is the great civic church of the republic, the Pantheon of Venice. Twenty-seven doges are buried here. The funeral monuments lining the walls are a compressed history of Venetian political and artistic ambition across four centuries: Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque all in succession, each trying to outdo the last. Bartolomeo Colleoni's equestrian statue outside — by Verrocchio, with a plinth by Leopardi — is the finest Renaissance bronze in Venice, and one of the finest in Europe.
The Arsenale and the Biennale
The Arsenale was the largest industrial complex of the medieval world — a shipbuilding facility that, at its height in the 16th century, could produce a fully rigged warship every day. Much of it remains closed to the public most of the year; during La Biennale di Venezia, held in odd-numbered years from May to November, the Arsenale opens as one of the main exhibition spaces. The Corderie, the long rope-making hall at the centre, is among the most extraordinary architectural spaces in Venice to encounter filled with contemporary art. Even in non-Biennale years, the pavilions in the Giardini are worth seeing for their architecture alone.
The Far East of Castello
Via Garibaldi and the streets east of the Giardini represent the most local part of central Venice — a neighbourhood of fishermen and dockworkers that still has its morning market, its bars with plastic chairs, and its residents sitting outside in the evening. The Riva dei Sette Martiri along the lagoon edge offers an unobstructed view of San Giorgio Maggiore and the Lido. The further east you walk from San Marco, the less the city resembles itself as most visitors know it.
Practical Castello
Castello is a sensible base for visitors who want proximity to San Marco without being inside the tourist epicentre. The vaporetto stops at Arsenale and Giardini on the waterfront route, and San Zaccaria is a five-minute walk from most of the sestiere. The Campo Santa Maria Formosa, roughly at the centre of Castello, has a market, a handful of decent restaurants, and the Querini Stampalia museum — a private collection in a palazzo with a garden, one of the most pleasant small museums in the city.
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