Things to do for free in Venice
A city built on sandy islets in the middle of a lagoon has provided the city fathers and engineers with a few headaches over the years but the resourceful residents take the regular flooding in their stride. If you are unlucky (or lucky depending on your point of view) enough to be around when the waters pay a visit the locals lay down raised wooden platforms through the streets to keep your toes dry.
This is the main waterway artery running through the centre of Venice, constantly in motion with the many vaporetti, delivery boats, gondolas, water taxis and police boats. A great way to see much of the city and cheaper than a gondola, take the vaporetti in the direction of Piazzale Roma and you will even get to go beneath the Rialto bridge.
One of the three commercially inhabited bridges in the world, and the oldest. This was the first stone constructed bridge after all the wooden ones burnt down or were washed away in the floods, the design was the result of a competition to solve the problem. The Rialto was also the commercial centre of Mediaeval Europe with traders and money lenders brokering deals from the south to the rest of Europe as well as the staging post for a few invasions elsewhere. Today you can stand on the top of the bridge and watch the water traffic pass beneath or pick up a few souvenirs from the many shops operating on it.