Arsenale, Giardini and Via Garibaldi

Walk east along the waterfront from San Marco, past the Bridge of Sighs and the Riva degli Schiavoni, and the tourist crowds thin with every bridge. Beyond the church of the Pietà, where Vivaldi taught music, you reach the Venice that worked and built: the Arsenale. For centuries this vast walled complex of docks, slipways and warehouses was the industrial heart of the Republic, the largest shipyard in the world before the industrial age, where thousands of workers, the arsenalotti, built galleys on something close to a production line; Dante described its boiling pitch in the Inferno. Its main land entrance, the Porta Magna, built in the mid-fifteenth century, is one of the first Renaissance structures in Venice, and it is guarded by stone lions, including ancient ones brought back from Greece as war trophies in the seventeenth century. Next to it, the water gate between two crenellated towers is one of the most photographed views in Castello. Much of the Arsenale is still military or used by the Biennale, but you can walk round its walls, look through its gates, and in Biennale years visit its colossal rope factory, the Corderie, as an exhibition space. A little further east, Via Garibaldi, the widest street in Venice, created by filling in a canal in the Napoleonic period, is where Castello does its shopping, with a morning market stall, bakeries and bars where Venetians outnumber visitors. At its end, the Giardini Pubblici, laid out under Napoleon, are the largest park in the historic centre, with shady paths, a playground and lagoon views, and inside them the gated Biennale gardens with their national pavilions.

The Biennale connection: the Arsenale and the Giardini are the two main venues of the Venice Biennale, which alternates between art and architecture each year. The 2026 Biennale Arte closes on 22 November 2026, and the next event is the Biennale Architettura 2027, curated by Wang Shu and Lu Wenyu, running from 8 May to 21 November 2027 at the Giardini and the Arsenale, closed on Mondays, with tickets sold online. Outside the Biennale season, the pavilions and the Corderie are closed, but the public parts of the Giardini and the walk around the Arsenale are free and open year-round.

Walking route: from San Zaccaria, follow the Riva east to the Arsenale bridge, detour inland along the canal to the Porta Magna and the water gate, return to the Riva and continue to Via Garibaldi, then walk to the Giardini and, if you have energy, on through the park to the quiet residential island of Sant'Elena. The Naval History Museum, near the Arsenale on the Riva, covers Venice's maritime history and has been reopening in stages; check before you go. Vaporetto stops at Arsenale, Giardini and Sant'Elena make it easy to hop back.

Who it suits: families, who can let children loose in the Giardini playground and parks; anyone curious about how the Republic built its power; and travellers looking for authentic neighbourhood life and cheaper bars and trattorie than around San Marco. It is also the best area to see during the Biennale, of course, and in Biennale years the whole of eastern Castello fills with pop-up exhibitions in palaces and churches. Combine it with San Zanipolo on a Castello day, or with a boat to the Lido from the Giardini stop. In Biennale season, buy tickets online in advance, start at one venue in the morning and the other after lunch, and wear comfortable shoes: each venue alone can take three hours, and the Arsenale's long halls add up to a serious walk.