Arsenale

Lonely Planet review

For centuries the crenellated walls of the Arsenale hid from view the feverish, infernal activity of the city's shipwrights, busy churning out galleys, merchant ships and other vessels at a pace unmatched anywhere in Europe. Thousands of arsenaloti (Arsenale workers), each specialising in certain trades, beavered away in assembly-line fashion hundreds of years before the industrial era.

The dockyards are said to have been founded in 1104 but it may have been later. What became known as the Arsenale Vecchio (Old Arsenal) is the core. Within it was a storage area for the bucintoro, the doge's ceremonial galley.

At its peak, the Arsenale covered 46 hectares, was home to 300 shipping companies and employed up to 16,000 people.

Over the past few years, large (and for a long time largely neglected) parts of the Arsenale have been taken over and partly restored by the city's Biennale organisation for conversion into exhibition space. These areas include the former Corderia (where ships' cables were made), the Artiglierie (guns) and various wharfs as well. Exhibitions therefore provide ample opportunity to get inside the Arsenale.