Photo Gallery: | RIALTO, a Day in the Life of Venice |

Rialto, a day in life of Venice Photographic theme (one day of teaching)

Street Photography, People & Portraits, Architecture & Statuary, Using Light and Shadow, Reactivity to situations, Creativity and Learning to see

• Rialto – the oldest part of Venice - has been hosting the Market for nearly one thousand years. It is an urban area rich in monumental buildings, houses, craftsmen’s workshops, osterie, tourist flows, inhabited mainly by Venetian residents, just like one thousand years ago, when Rialto was the operative centre of La Serenissima’s vast commercial empire, with offices, banks, shops and inns welcoming thousands of people of different nationalities every day. Here people’s faces, habits and ways of speaking have remained unchanged, making Rialto another best place to get to know the real Venice.

• San Polo contains some busy tourist spots but much of the district consists of quieter lanes and pleasant campi, Venetian squares. Campo San Polo, the area's hub, is the largest open space in Venice after Piazza San Marco; a wide, irregular, dusty sort of square where local children and pet dogs run and play while adults chat. In the summer there's an open-air cinema here.

• The liveliest part of San Polo is the section including the Rialto Bridge, which is always thronged with tourists. Here there are souvenir stalls and, by the Grand Canal, the famous Rialto markets where you can admire the food stalls or stock up for a summer picnic.

• There is also some rare open space alongside the Grand Canal, where you can sit at an outdoors table among a mixture of tourists, students, and locals, and enjoy a scenic aperitivo.

• A busy route leads from the Rialto to Campo San Polo and onwards to the Frari church; a sequence of narrow lanes which have some interesting shops on either side, though you'll have to squeeze yourself out the way of pedestrian traffic if you want to gaze in the windows.

  We like the Shops here; although the thoroughfare is busy, there is not the same tourist-trap atmosphere that you find on the other side of the Grand Canal towards St. Mark's.

• Along the way are some decent small shops selling jewellery, art, stationery, gloves and various souvenirs and oddments, from Beatles memorabilia to Venetian cotton bags made by convicts. The district of Santa Croce, extending from Piazzale Roma to the Railway Station and facing onto the Grand Canal, is not much visited by tourists. Without forgetting the fhort new bridge over the Grand Canal: the bridge of the Constitution, or rather the Calatrava Bridge, as they call the Venetians, from the name of the architect who design it. It is a quiet part of the city with many hidden squares where Venetian couples wander.

• The square of San Giacomo dell’ Orio- the name "dell'Orio" may derive from a laurel tree (alloro) that once stood near the church of the same name. This church probably dates as far back as the 9th century although it was rebuilt in 1225. The clock face dates from 1410 but has sadly been a poor timekeeper over the years.