Although Venice is composed of islands and canals, the Grand Canal is the only really large one. It's shaped like a backwards letter S, and is approximately two miles long. At its widest point, at the Salute/San Marco (southern) end, it is roughly 350 feet wide; the normal width is about half that. The Grand Canal was traditionally the high-rent district in Venice; houses were larger, and decoration was on a much grander scale. This makes sense when you consider that the Canal offers much greater opportunities for everyone to see the buildings facing it. Further, the Grand Canal, affording easier transport and access to shipping, tended to favor the kind of residents who were large-scale merchants--the very ones likely to have more money.

1. Grand Canal
View up the eastern bank of the Grand Canal, showing balconies and mooring poles. There are few public fondamente, or canal-side sidewalks, on the Grand Canal, so opportunities for this kind of picture are relatively rare.

2. Salute Bridge and Ca' Grande
A view from the Salute up the Grand Canal, showing the temporary processional bridge (see "Salute Procession") and Sansovino's Ca' Grande.

3. Palazzo Dario
Just down from the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. The facade dates from 1488, and was added to an existing building.

4. Ca' Grimani
The Ca' Grimani was built by Sanmicheli in 1556. Although the Canal facade makes it appear to have three very tall floors, if you look carefully you can see, on the side, the division of each facade floor into two actual interior floors.

5. Ca' Barzizza
The Ca' Barzizza is twelfth-century Byzantine in style. It's one of the few houses dating from that period.

6. Rialto Bridge
Looking toward the Rialto Bridge from the fondamenta in front of the Ca' Corner-Martinengo, equidistant between the Ca' Grimani and the Ca' Loredan.

7. Rialto Bridge
When most people think of the Grand Canal, they immediately envision the Rialto Bridge. Built to link the two sides of the Canal at the oldest site of commercial activity in Venice, there has been some kind of bridge there since the thirteenth century. The present bridge project was begun in 1576, after several earlier wooden bridges had collapsed or burned down.

8. Ca' d'Oro
The Ca' d'Oro is perhaps the most famous Venetian palazzo of all, after the Doges' Palace. It was begun in 1422 by a member of the Contarini family, and it is a mark of the high demand for real estate development on the Grand Canal that the Ca' d'Oro was built on the site of a teardown. For an excellent examination of the house and its construction, see Richard Goy's The House of Gold.

9. Ca' Pesaro
The Ca' Pesaro, by Baroque architect Baldassare Longhena, is shown in a side facade view, looking toward the Grand Canal. This is a slightly unusual example of a Venetian palazzo whose facade wraps around; many palazzi on the Grand Canal present an extremely elegant face to the passing world on the Canal, while showing dull stucco or brick on the other sides. Also note how the Ca' Pesaro is irregularly curved to follow the canal bordering its side.