Until 1854 it was the only way to cross the Grand Canal on foot: the Rialto Bridge, built between 1588 and 1591 by Antonio da Ponte — who won the competition against designs by Palladio and, it is said, Michelangelo — is the stone arch that has held Venice together for over four centuries. The prophets of collapse were confounded: the single twenty-eight-metre span has never moved.
What to see
The bridge itself, its two rows of shops making it a covered street; the view from the crest along the Grand Canal, palaces filing past like stage wings; and at its feet the Rialto market — greengrocers and fish hall — which has woken the city for a thousand years with voices and ice on the slabs. The little church of San Giacometo, its clock famously wrong forever, has watched the bustle since the year 1000.
Visiting
The bridge is a public street, always open: at midday you shoulder across. The market lives in the morning (the fish hall rests on Mondays): the hour when Rialto returns to what it always was, the commercial belly of the Serenissima.
Getting there
Vaporetto 1 or 2, "Rialto" stop. On foot from St Mark's it is ten signposted minutes: the Mercerie-Rialto walk is Europe's oldest shopping street.
Our editors' tip
The right photo is not FROM the bridge but OF it: from the Riva del Vin gondola-ferry jetty, lower left, the whole arch mirrors itself in the canal. And at seven in the morning, boats unloading crates at the market, you will see the only crowdless Rialto in existence.