The Rough Guide to Venice and the Veneto

7
The Canal Grande
Known to the locals as the Canalazzo, the Canal Grande is Venice’s high
street, and divides the city in half, with three sestieri to the west and
three to the east. The three bridges which cross the waterway – at the
train station, Rialto and Accademia – could one day be complemented
by a fourth, designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava to provide
a direct link between the train station and Piazzale Roma; due for completion
in August 2004, the Ponte Calatrava has become bogged down in legal
arguments, and may or may not ever be built. A number of gondola traghetti
provide additional crossing points at regular intervals, as does the #1 vaporetto,
which slaloms from one bank to the other along its entire length. The
Canal Grande is almost 4km long and varies in width between 30 and 70m;
it is, however, surprisingly shallow, at no point much exceeding 5m. In the
fourteenth century an earthquake pulled the plug out and the entire contents
drained away – for the best part of a fortnight Venice’s finest waterway was
an avenue of slime.
The section that follows is principally a guide to the Canal Grande palaces –
the churches and other public buildings that you can see from the vaporetto
are covered in the appropriate geographical sections. You’d need an amazing
reading speed and a rubber neck to do justice to the Canal Grande in one run,
though; even these edited highlights cover around fifty buildings (less than a
third of the total). Try to allow for several trips, and don’t miss the experience
of a nocturnal boat ride.
the canal grande
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The Left Bank
The Left Bank
If you come into Venice by train, your first sight of the Canal Grande will be from
the upper stretch of its left bank, with the vaporetto landing stages directly in
front. To the left is the Ponte degli Scalzi, successor of an iron structure put up
by the Austrians in 1858–60; like the one at the Accademia, it was replaced in the
early 1930s to give the new steamboats sufficient clearance.
The boat passes two churches, the Scalzi and San Geremia, before the first
of the major palaces comes into view – the Palazzo Labia, completed c.1750
and now occupied by RAI, the state TV and radio company. The main facade
of the building stretches along the Cannaregio canal, but from the Canal
Grande you can see how the side wing wraps itself round the campanile of the
neighbouring church – such interlocking is common in Venice, where maximum
use has to be made of available space. Its ballroom contains wonderful
frescoes by Tiepolo (see p.139).
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