Riva degli Schiavoni

The waterside walkway west from Rio Ca’ di Dio to the Palazzo Ducale in San Marco is Venice’s stone boardwalk, the Riva degli Schiavoni. Schiavoni (literally, ‘Slavs’) refers to the fishermen from Dalmatia in the region of the former Yugoslavia who arrived in Venice in medieval times, and found this a handy spot for casting their nets. For centuries, vessels would dock and disembark here right into the heart of Venice – if they could find a parking space between galleons and gondolas. A Rosetta Stone’s worth of languages were spoken here, as traders, dignitaries, sailors and servants arrived from ports around the Mediterranean and beyond. Paolo Veronese’s Feast in the House of Levi, in the Gallerie dell’Accademia, gives you some idea of how the crowd might have looked and dressed, with Turkish, German, North African and Greek merchants wheeling and dealing along the banks from the moment they stepped off ship. The great poet Petrarch found lodgings and inspiration at No 4175, east of Rio della Pietà. Today the scene is as busy as ever, with some adjustments. The gondolas are still here, but vaporetti have mostly replaced galleons – though you might spot the Italian navy’s tall ship Amerigo Vespucci docked down by the Arsenale. Tourists hail from even further afield than the merchants of yesteryear, and their main challenge is negotiating tourist menus in San Marco (hint: skip them all and order à la carte). Some of the grand old mansions now function as pricey hotels, so you too can bunk in here, and wait for the sonnets to come to you.