15 min
20 min
55 min
Vap 1 · Vap 2 · Vap 4.1 · Vap 4.2 · Vap 5.1 · Vap 5.2
14.4 / km²
14
0
1,589
City average
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Staying in Castello
Castello covers the whole eastern third of the islands, and where you book inside it changes the holiday completely. The western strip, behind San Zaccaria and Santa Maria Formosa, is two minutes from Piazza San Marco and is as busy and nearly as expensive. Walk east past the Arsenale and it turns into a working neighbourhood: Via Garibaldi with its market stalls, laundry across the calli, and sit-down meals at prices that do not exist anywhere else inside Venice.
That eastern end is also the Biennale. From May to November the Giardini and the Arsenale pavilions are a walk from your door rather than a boat ride, which is worth real money if art is why you came.
The trade is distance. From Via Garibaldi or Sant'Elena you are a genuine 25 to 30 minutes on foot from San Marco, and the vaporetto along the Riva is not much faster once you have waited for it. Out of Biennale season the far end is quiet to the point of being shut: two restaurants open on a Monday in February, and nothing after 21:00.
What works
- Via Garibaldi is a real shopping street with the best-value sit-down food inside Venice.
- Seven vaporetto stops, including a direct boat to Marco Polo airport.
- The western edge is five minutes from Piazza San Marco at a fraction of San Marco's rates.
- The Biennale gardens and the Arsenale are here, so from May to November you walk to the art.
- Wide, quiet calli and a couple of actual parks, which is as family-friendly as Venice gets.
What does not
- From the eastern end it is a genuine 25 to 30 minute walk to San Marco and the boat barely helps.
- Outside Biennale season the far end shuts early; expect nothing open after 21:00 in winter.
- The streets nearest San Marco are just as crowded and almost as expensive as San Marco itself.
- Little to look at between the Arsenale and Sant'Elena, so the walk home is a long one.
To avoid the worst of the crowds, unless it is winter, try to visit the San Marco and Rialto bridge areas during early morning and late evening. During the late morning and afternoon, stay away as far as possible from this area, for instance walking around west Santa Croce, north Cannaregio, eastern Castello and Giudecca.