For a thousand years you could only reach Venice by boat; then, on the eleventh of January 1846, the Austrians opened the great lagoon bridge, almost four kilometres of brick on two hundred and twenty-two arches, driven into seventy-five thousand piles, with the train entering the city where before there was only water. It took four and a half years of work, and along with the tracks came the aqueduct that solved the drinking water problem for good. In 1933 a road bridge was built beside the railway one, then called Ponte Littorio, and in 1946 renamed Ponte della Libertà: the date chosen, the twenty-fifth of April, had been a holiday in Venice for centuries anyway, because it is Saint Mark's day.
What to see
The crossing, which is the only thing to see and is worth the journey: by train or by bus you cross the lagoon with water on both sides, the wooden mooring posts, the small boats, the low islands on the horizon, and ahead Venice growing until it becomes bell towers. On the train the left-hand window looks towards Murano and the northern lagoon, the right-hand one towards the Giudecca and the port. It is the moment when you realise you are going to a city that stands in the middle of the sea.
On the railway bridge, towards the mainland, the monument with two cannon of 1849, in memory of those who fell at the Sant'Antonio battery, when the Venetians who had risen against the Austrians defended themselves right here. At the end, Piazzale Roma, where the cars stop for good and the city on foot begins; and beside it Santiago Calatrava's Ponte della Costituzione, of 2008, the fourth over the Grand Canal, much argued about and slippery, leading to the station.
Visiting
The bridge is crossed by train arriving at Santa Lucia station, by bus or by car as far as Piazzale Roma and the Tronchetto, where the car parks are; walking and cycling are not allowed. Ten minutes' crossing. Drivers should know that beyond Piazzale Roma you cannot go: from there on Venice is only on foot or by vaporetto.
Our editors' tip
If you arrive by train, take a window seat and do not look at your phone for those ten minutes: the first time you see Venice rise from the water is an image that does not repeat itself. And if you come by car, leave it at the Tronchetto and take the vaporetto instead of the people mover: it costs a little more and brings you into the city from the water, which is how the city was built to be entered.