Eastern districts Travel Guide

For all that most visitors see of Venice's eastern districts (the remotest section of the Castello sestiere), the city may as well peter out a few metres to the east of the Palazzo Ducale, and at first glance the map of the city would seem to justify this neglect. Certainly the sights are thinly spread, and a huge bite is taken out of the area by the pools of the Arsenale, for a long time the largest manufacturing site in Europe, but now little more than a decoratively framed blank space.

Yet the slab of the city immediately to the west of the Arsenale contains places that shouldn't be ignored - the Renaissance San Francesco della Vigna , for example, and the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni , with its endearing cycle of paintings by Carpaccio . And although the mainly residential area beyond the Arsenale has little to offer in the way of cultural monuments other than the ex-cathedral of San Pietro di Castello and the church of Sant'Elena , it would be a mistake to leave the easternmost zone unexplored. Except in the summer of odd-numbered years, when the Biennale sets up shop in the specially built pavilions behind the Giardini Pubblici and elsewhere in the neighbourhood, few visitors stray into this latter area - and there lies one of its principal attractions. And the whole length of the waterfront gives spectacular panoramas of the city, with the best coming last: from near the Sant'Elena landing stage you get a view that takes in the Palazzo Ducale, the back of San Giorgio Maggiore and La Giudecca, the tiny islands of La Grazia, San Clemente, Santo Spirito, San Servolo and San Lazzaro degli Armeni, and finally the Lido. A picnic here, having stocked up at the shops and stalls of Via Garibaldi, is guaranteed to recharge the batteries.