Orientation in Venice
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Venice comprises 117 bodies of land distributed throughout the Venetian lagoon and is protected from the Adriatic by the Lido, an island which lies 2km farther out to sea. A 4km causeway links the urban center to the mainland.
The Santa Lucia train station lies on the northwestern edge of the city, while the garages, car rentals, and bus terminals are across the Grand Canal in nearby Piazzale Roma - the last stop for all land-bound transportation.
If you're in a rush to get to Piazza San Marco area, from the station or P. Roma, take vaporetto n. 82. For a splendid introduction to the palazzi along the Grand Canal, take n. 1. If you prefer to hoof it, the 40 min. walk to San Marco starts left of the station on Lista di Spagna and follows the signs.
Yellow signs placed around Venice guide you to Rialto (the bridge connecting San Marco and San Polo), Accademia (Dorsoduro), San Marco (at the border of San Marco and Castello), P. Roma (Santa Croce), and Ferrovia (train station in Cannaregio). They can help you navigate the labyrinth of Venice from one end to the other, yet in doing so they can actually take you on a longer route. Moreover, these signs are the leading cause of the "pedestrian freeway" phenomenon.
Liberate yourself with a real map. You will get lost in Venice, but with a good map in hand you may not feel so helpless. Wandering from the main pathways will reward you with cheaper prices, local hangouts, quiet campi, beautiful vistas, and friendly Venetians.
Orientation begins with a fundamental comprehension of the sestieri, the sections of the city. Within each area, there are no individual street numbers but merely one long and haphazard sequence of numbers (roughly 6000 per sestiere). Every building, however, is also located on some type of a "street" - fondamente, catti, campi, salizzade, canali, rii, ponti, and rii terra, (foundations, narrow streets, squares, paved roads, channels, small channels, bridges, and old channels that are now streets, respectively). To add to the confusion, it is often unclear which sestiere you are in at any given moment, as the boundaries are not clearly indicated.
The Grand Canal, the central artery of Venice, can be crossed on foot only at the ponti (bridges) of Scalzi, Rialto, and Accademia. Traghetti (gondola like ferry boats) may seem too picturesque for practical use, but in fact they are used fairly frequently for canal crossings where there is no bridge. North of the Canal, from the station to about the Rio del Santi Apostoli, lies the sestiere of Cannaregio. Continuing clockwise around the Canal, Castello is just south of the Rio di S. Giovanni Crisotomo, and San Marco extends from the Mercerie and P. San Marco to the Ponte Accademia. The easternmost extension of Venice is the sestiere of Santa Elena. Cross the Rialto bridge from P. San Bartolomeo, and you will find yourself in the San Polo district. West of San Polo and encompassing Piazzale Roma is the sestiere of Santa Croce. Now trace an imaginary line from Ca' Rezzonico on the Grand Canal to the church of Santa Maria Maggiore on the rio of the same name: the land south of this line and hooking around to the Punta della Dogana is Dorsoduro.
If you plan to drive to Venice, take the Ponte della Libertà causeway, which ends in P. Roma. Parking facilities can be found in P. Roma in the garages comunale and San Marco, with additional parking on the adjacent island of Tronchetto (follow the road signs). Motorists should consider leaving their cars in the parking lot at the Mestre train station on the mainland and taking a train into Venice (all trains into and out of Venice stop at Mestre).
High tides (usually November and April) cause acque alte, periodic floodings that swamp parts of the city under as much as three feet of water. Acque alte usually last two to three hours, during which time planks or platforms are laid out across most major thoroughfares.
