Grand Canal Bridge about calcium. The Grand Canal in Venice is the central street of the city on the water. Grand Canal in the history of Venice

It just so happened that all my meetings with Venice began and ended with a walk along the Grand Canal. I sailed along it many times: from the station to San Marco and back. I often went out to various places on the Canal, wandering through the labyrinths of Venetian streets. It happened to me that I stood on the Rialto Bridge for a long time, observing the turbulent life of this unusual water street. You never get tired of looking at the Canal: you think that everything here has been familiar for a long time, and your gaze will definitely stop at some palace that you have not noticed before and freeze in admiration. I am sure that everyone will see something special here that will be remembered forever.

You can hardly meet a person who has visited Venice and never once sailed along the Grand Canal - the main street of the famous city on the water. The “Canal of Palaces” (as it is roughly called here – “Canalazzo”) is not only the main transport artery of the city, but also an open-air museum. Ancient palazzos, the facades of which - one more beautiful than the other - directly overlook the Canal, keep many secrets of the amazing Venetian history.

Grand Canal in the history of Venice

Strictly speaking, the Grand Canal is not a canal: this is what artificially created channels are called, and the Venetian Canalazzo was originally something like a small river winding between the islands of the lagoon. Some of the first settlements of the future city arose along the Canal, for example, in the area of present-day Rialto. Even then, the main function of the Canal was identified - transport, which has survived to this day. Even large ships can pass here, delivering necessary cargo to different points in Venice. A wide channel runs through the entire city, bending in the shape of an inverted letter “S”.

Venice is a city of great opportunities. Here you can have a good time, meet beautiful girls and guys, you can also meet the indigenous inhabitants of the city, and of course see many sights. One of these attractions is called the “Grand Canal”, and this article will be about it.

The Grand Canal is one of the main attractions of Venice

When you arrive in Venice, you will immediately see it, as it runs right through the entire city. This is a large canal starting from the city station and ending at the customs building.

It is generally accepted that this canal is the main street. True, it does not have embankments, and the role of banks is played by the facades of houses. After visiting the Grand Canal you will only be left with delight and pleasant memories, because the most beautiful buildings in Venice are located along it. A huge number of palaces (more than a hundred). Various old houses, beautiful churches, and when you see them you feel as if you have entered another reality.

You should move along the Grand Canal along, as there are not many bridges, only four. For transportation, water transport is used: public - vaporetto and traditional, which is also called “gondola”. The bridges are made in an excellent architectural style and also have historical significance. In general, Venice is a historical city with extensive history and culture.

People who are not only interested in architecture and ancient buildings, but also everyone else, should visit the Grand Canal, because the spectacle is simply gorgeous, and the photos are even more so.

Grand Canal this is one of the favorite attractions of both tourists and residents of Venice. In the morning and afternoon you can look at beautiful houses and churches, and in the evening you can take part in the city’s nightlife, which is full of walks and various festivals.

Well, there is also the opportunity to ride a gondola and have an even more enjoyable time (although the prices are steep, 80-100 €). If finances allow, do not miss this opportunity.

The length of the canal is more than three thousand eight hundred meters, and the width is up to seventy meters. It is also very deep, because the depth is more than five meters.

Here you can not only see ancient architectural monuments, but also meet hospitable Italians, who certainly love to talk with an unfamiliar tourist about the beauty of their city.

And Venice itself is a very beautiful city that anyone at any age would like to visit. The main thing is the desire and desire to travel, as well as the availability of financial resources, because now we live in a time when even a flight from one country to another is not cheap. But thanks to travel, you can see what you cannot see sitting at home.

Have a nice trip to Venice everyone!

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Address: Italy, Venice
Length: 3800 m
Depth: 5 m
Coordinates: 45°26"21.6"N 12°20"09.0"E

When they talk about the main transport artery of any city, in almost all cases they mean a wide road with high capacity, along which a large number of cars and public transport can move simultaneously.

Vaporetto (water bus) on the Grand Canal

This generally accepted definition is completely unsuitable for the unique Italian city of Venice, where the main transport artery is a water canal. It has several names: the Grand Canal, the Grand Canal and even the Canal of Palaces. No, it was not built by human hands, like the famous Panama Canal. The Canal Grande is the most common, naturally formed channel, along which you can easily reach almost anywhere in the city and the islands of the picturesque Venetian Lagoon. A distinctive feature of the Grand Canal is the huge number of magnificent buildings erected by famous architects on its “banks”.

Grand Canal in Venice: “dry” data

According to research conducted by sociological services, Venice is visited annually by at least more than 3,500,000 people. Almost all tourists and people who arrive in this city on a business visit, even with all their desire, cannot help but take a walk along its main transport artery. Speaking about the Grand Canal, it should be noted that many art historians also call it an open-air museum. There is nothing surprising about this: on both sides there is a huge number of attractions, historical and architectural monuments.

View of the Grand Canal from the Rialto Bridge

All the luxurious palaces and houses that can be seen while traveling along the Grand Canal of Venice, and built in various architectural styles, stretch over almost 4 kilometers (the length of the main transport artery of the city). The width of this, one might say, miracle of nature, decorated by human hands, in some places reaches up to 70 meters, and in the narrowest part of the strait it does not exceed 30 meters. The greatest depth of the Grand Canal, which seems to “cut” the city into two parts of different sizes, is 5 meters.

The main transport artery of Venice can be used to get to any of its districts, but we should not forget that it is divided into 45 (!) small canals (Rio). These small waterways are used by indigenous people to visit their places of work and shops and return home. By the way, despite the fact that it is impossible to get from one end of the city to the other without passing the Grand Canal, the builders built only four bridges across it. This is despite the fact that in total in Venice you can count over 400 (!) bridges connecting streets and alleys.

View of the Grand Canal from the Scalzi Bridge

The grandeur of the Canal Palaces in Venice

If this material were not about a Venetian landmark, but about some metropolis, then the “dry” statistical data could be given for an infinitely long time. They don’t say that about Venice, not only admiring tourists and guides, but even scientists don’t say that: this city is amazing and unique, every building and canal in it is unique and has its own history, legend. One has only to imagine that on both sides of the Grand Canal there are just over a hundred palaces, each of which is a real architectural masterpiece, and an irresistible desire immediately arises to board one of the luxurious gondolas and go on a leisurely excursion.

You can arrange a walk along the canal and its many branches with a gondolier at the gondola pier. It is located right behind the station square, where most tourists buy colorful souvenirs and gifts for family and close friends. By the way, prices at this largest and noisiest bazaar in Venice are unusually expensive. Don’t forget that Bezbetyazhnaya is considered one of the most expensive cities in the world, so if your budget is limited, it’s best to buy refrigerator magnets, down scarves and jumpers elsewhere.

Grand Canal overlooking the Basilica of Santa Maria della Salute

After arriving at the pier, almost all tourists sit in the amazingly beautiful gondolas, at the stern of which there is a gondolier. From this moment on, for the lucky guests of the city, a real journey into a fairy tale begins: many light special lanterns and leisurely go to their hotels or on excursions to numerous attractions. It would not be an exaggeration to say that a gondola ride along the Grand Canal to the most popular Doge's Palace (if you do not take into account the Golden Palace) is already a close acquaintance with Venice, because during it you can see a lot of attractions and get a certain idea about architectural styles , characteristic of “Serenity”.

Many guides conducting excursions around the city on the water call the city’s largest canal a huge museum hall, in which the entire exhibition consists of beautiful palaces and other equally magnificent buildings. Surprisingly, all the buildings on both parts of the main transport artery of Venice were built no later than the middle of the 17th century.

Gondola parking on the Grand Canal

Since those distant times, palaces and houses have not been rebuilt; moreover, it was forbidden to even change the decoration of their facades. For people arriving in the city by water on a business visit and not planning excursions, it will be useful information that you can cross the canal not only on a slow gondola, but also on a special ferry and a high-speed motor boat called a vaporetto. By the way, these are the boats that most Venetians use: traveling on them is prohibited only in particularly narrow canals, where waves from the side of the ship can flood the first floor of the building.

On both sides of the Canal of Palaces, at each building you can see brightly colored striped pillars, to which gondoliers tie their luxurious ships, decorated with golden figures. There are especially many of these pillars at the most significant landmarks of the Grand Canal and at the hotel called Splendid Suize. The entrance to this expensive and comfortable hotel and many palaces is a balcony, which tourists enter directly from the boat.

Gondolas on the Grand Canal

Do not be surprised if one of the historical buildings located on the Grand Canal offers its services to a spa, a restaurant or an ultra-modern casino: despite the fact that all monuments are property

The Grand Canal in Venice forms one of the largest waterway corridors in the city. This is the main transport artery, where water trams (vaporetti), private water taxis and gondolas, so popular with tourists, operate.

At the end the canal flows into a lagoon near the Santa Lucia train station, and the other end leads to Piazza San Marco, taking an S-shape in the very center of Venice. 3,800 meters long, 30-90 meters wide and an average depth of five meters, the Grand Canal is one of the most famous in the world.

The banks of the Grand Canal are lined with more than 170 buildings, most of which were built from the 13th to 18th centuries, and demonstrate the wealth and chic art of Venice. Noble Venetian families went to great expense to show off their wealth in their respective homes. This architectural competition shows the citizens' pride and deep connection to the lagoon. There are many churches along the canal. For example, Santa Maria della Salute. Competitions with age-old traditions, such as the Historic Regatta, take place annually along the Canal.

Since most of the city's traffic comes from the Grand Canal, only one bridge crossed it until the 19th century - the Rialto Bridge. There are currently three more bridges, one of which, designed by Santiago Calatrava, was recently installed, connecting the station with Piazzale Roma, which is open to traffic. Just like centuries ago, people can travel by ferry, or even by gondola.

Interestingly, there is no embankment of the Grand Canal as such; it is replaced by the facades of medieval buildings, built right next to the water on stilts. Each of them has access to both water and land. It is also surprising that there are more than a hundred palaces along the banks.

On the first Sunday in September, the Historical Regatta ("Regata Storica") takes place, a competition between Venetian boats, which are watched by thousands of people from the shore, or from special floating stands. Gondoliers in suits sail along the Grand Canal in typical 16th century boats.

Every inhabitant of the planet knows that Venice is a city on the water.

On previous trips, I walked around Venice, and now I can say with complete authority that it is impossible to see the real Venice on foot. The city on the water must be viewed from the side of a boat or, better yet, a gondola.

Having arrived in Venice (more precisely, on the outskirts of Venice) by bus or train, you can then go on a boat trip.

The main transport arteries of Venice are the Grand Canal (Canal Grande) and the La Giudecca Canal, which begin near Saint Mark Basin.

The length of the La Giudecca canal is about 3 kilometers, the width is from 150 to 200 meters. The channel is deep enough for large cruise ships to pass through.

Along the banks of the Giudecca Canal there are numerous palaces and cathedrals built from the 15th to 17th centuries.

The Grand Canal is not actually a canal, it is a natural channel between the islands of the Lagoon. The canal runs through the whole of Venice. The length of the Grand Canal is 3800 meters, width from 30 to 70 meters, depth no more than 5 meters.

The Grand Canal is surrounded by majestic buildings and more than 100 palaces. The houses are built on stilts and have 2 exits - to land and to water. There are no embankments; the facades of the houses perform its functions. Sometimes the Venetians call it the “Canal Palace”. A trip along the Grand Canal turns into a real excursion.

Vaporetto water buses run along the Grand Canal, connecting you to all the surrounding islands and to Marco Polo International Airport.

By the way, traffic rules apply in Venice. The speed on the Grand Canal should not exceed 7 km/h for private vessels and 11 km/h for public transport. In the Venice Lagoon you cannot drive at a speed of over 20 km/h, and in narrow small canals - over 5. There are traffic lights in Venice that have only 2 signals - yellow and green.

One of the most famous landmarks in Venice is the Church of Santa Maria della Salute. The snow-white temple was built in 1631 at the mouth of the Grand Canal in honor of the Virgin Mary, who saved the city from the plague.

There are 446 bridges in Venice, but only 3 span the Grand Canal. The most famous of them is the Rialto Bridge.

You can cross the Grand Canal from one bank to the other on traghetto gondolas.

All routes in Venice, on foot or by boat, lead to the main Piazza San Marco. There are always a lot of people, pigeons and seagulls here. Pigeons are not supposed to be fed; there are corresponding orders from the Venice City Hall, issued several years ago. In this way they try to prevent birds from breeding too much in the city. However, the ban applies only to special bird food. Pigeons eat pieces of sweet bun with no less pleasure.