So Much To See and other Venice, Italy Off The Beaten Path Tips

Hahaha - this section is headlined 'what most people miss when visiting Venice'. The answer to that is probably 'most of Venice'. We covered every inch of Venice and its Islands and there are some wonderful things to see. I'll take you through some here, but more detail will be in the travelogues.
Pic: Campo Santa Maria Nuova and the church of Santa Maria Miricoli. This is in Castello (or Cannaregio, it's pretty borderline), and was one of our favourite places. There is a little bookshop there selling some wonderful books (we bought one about Venice and its cuisine), some other shops and an ice cream cafe. The feeling is more of locals than tourists. This is one of the most beautiful (and lesser known) churches in Venice, and is a favourite place to get married, so look out for weddings at the weekend.

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Tintoretto's house, Cannaregio - the home of the famous Venetian artist. A beautifully picturesque old house - look for the moors head on the corner of the building.

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All over 'urban' Venice you will find bhottegas
We loved these shops. They sell incredibly good and yet inrcedibly cheap local wine. You get it straight from the vat into plastic bottles (either your own or ones they provide). The price ranged from 1 to 2 euro per litre. We bough a litre of their most expensive (at 2 euro) not knowing anything about it, not even if it was red or white (it turned out to be white). And it was soooo good! We went back for more, but they (and every other one we tried) had sold out :-S When they eventually got more, we bought about 6 litres, enough for a couple of nights :-)
(It was Ramondolo, which I now know is one of the region's finest desert wines).
We used to buy bottles of water and empty the water out so we could fill the bottles with wine. A new slant on "water into wine".

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Watch the locals enjoying their surroundings.
Here a boy practices his fishing in the canal near Sata Maria Formosa.

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This is the church of Saints Giovanni e Paolo (also known as San Zanipolo). It's in Castello (or Cannaregio?), near the main hospital of Venice. It's immense! In the campo around it are some nice cafe bars and a good pasticceria/ice cream shop (Rosa Salva)

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So many of the church towers in Venice are leaning to one degree or another. This one is the church of San Giorgio degli Greci, but other 'leaners' include San Stefano, San Trevaso and the main church on Burano, whose lean is quite alarming!

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This is in the Castello district. You can't actually go INTO the Arsenale because it's still a military zone, but you can wander around outside of it and the streets and squares close to it are quite different from the rest of Venice - a much quieter and more 'local' feel about them. One of the vaparettos is supposed to go through the Arsenale, so this is the way to get a better look inside, but this service was suspended due to works on the canal while we were there.

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Venice are a bit of a 'yoyo' club, bouncing between Serie A and B. Their stadium must be one of the worst in any of the top two divisions, and certainly the worst in Serie A. It resembles a very poor English 3rd division ground, though many of these are better now then Venice's stadium. The stands at each end are simply scaffolding poles with a decking on them for seating, and the rest of the stadium is old and delapidated.
It's on the St Elena island at the far eastern end of Venice.

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This runs the length of the southern part of Dorsoduro, from the Stazione Maratima (where some of the smaller cruise ships tie up) to Santa Maria della Salute. There are some fine buildings along here, and some good bars and cafes with fine views across to Guidecca opposite. One of the nicest ice cream places in Venice is Nico, near the Gesuati vaparetto stop. Also on Zattere (nearer the San Basilio stop) is Billa, Venice's largest supermarket.
Right along the other end, Santa Maria della Salute is one of Venice's greatest landmarks, and you can get a fine view back across to St Marks from there, on the Punta della Dogna. Unfortunately last time we were there that whole end of the Zattere and the Fondamenta Dogna was closed for works (erosion). You can cut in from the end of the Zattere though to get to the Peggy Guggenhein Collection (turn in by the Incurables Hospital).

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This is San Trevaso in Dorsoduro, just behind the Squero, mentioned in another section of this page.

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