San Polo & Santa Croce: die Frari-Basilika, die Scuola Grande di San Rocco & Campo San Polo
Los sestieri gemelos de San Polo y Santa Croce contienen los dos edificios religiosos más importantes de Venecia después de San Marcos: la Basílica dei Frari (con la 'Asunción de la Virgen' de Tiziano) y la Scuola Grande di San Rocco (decorada por Tintoretto en un programa de cincuenta años).
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Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari — Titian's Masterpiece Church
The Frari (Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, San Polo, the Gothic brick Franciscan church begun 1340, the most important church interior in Venice after St Mark's, ¥5 adults, Monday–Saturday 9am–6pm, Sunday 1–6pm) contains: the Titian Assumption of the Virgin (1516–1518, the altarpiece over the high altar, 6.9m tall, the painting that established Titian's international reputation — the most important single painting in Venice), the Titian Madonna of Ca' Pesaro (the left nave altarpiece, the first time in Italian painting the Virgin was placed off-center), the Bellini triptych (the 1488 sacristy altarpiece, Giovanni Bellini, the most serene painting in Venice), and the Donatello St John the Baptist (the 1438 painted wooden statue, the only Donatello in Venice).
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Scuola Grande di San Rocco — Tintoretto's Entire Career in One Building
Scuola Grande di San Rocco (Campo San Rocco, San Polo, ¥12 adults, daily 9:30am–5:30pm) contains 60 paintings by Jacopo Tintoretto (1518–1594) — the cycle commissioned 1564–1588 covers the Sala dell'Albergo, the Great Upper Hall, and the Lower Hall; the Great Upper Hall ceiling (the Old Testament cycle, the most complex pictorial program in Venice, including the Gathering of Manna, Moses Striking Water from the Rock, and the ceiling-centrepiece Moses and the Bronze Serpent) requires standing mirror rentals (¥3, essential — the paintings are on the ceiling and readable without neck strain only via mirror); John Ruskin called Tintoretto at San Rocco 'beyond all analysis and above all praise'.
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Rialto Market — Venice's Daily Fish and Vegetable Market
The Rialto Market (Mercato di Rialto, the market complex on the San Polo bank of the Grand Canal, Tuesday–Saturday 7:30am–2pm, the fish market closed Sunday and Monday) has supplied Venice with fresh produce and seafood since 1097 — the Pescaria (the fish market in the 1907 Gothic revival covered hall) and the vegetable stalls (the outdoor stalls selling lagoon island produce: Sant'Erasmo castraure — baby artichokes, April–May, the most prized vegetable in Venice — and Venetian Treviso radicchio) are at peak activity 8–10am; the traditional Venetian cichetti lunch (bar snacks in the dozen bacari surrounding the market, ¥1.50–4 per piece, with prosecco at ¥2/glass) follows the market visit.
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Ca' Rezzonico — 18th-Century Venice Preserved
Ca' Rezzonico (Fondamenta Rezzonico, Dorsoduro, the Grand Canal palace on the vaporetto stop Ca' Rezzonico, the Museo del Settecento Veneziano, ¥10 adults, Wednesday–Monday 10am–5pm) is the most complete preserved example of Venetian 18th-century aristocratic interior in existence — the piano nobile (the main floor ballroom with the Giambattista Tiepolo ceiling fresco Allegory of Merit, 1758), the furniture (the lacquered Japanese-influenced commodes, the Murano glass chandeliers in their original settings), and the Giandomenico Tiepolo frescoes (transferred from Villa Zianigo, the New World Room with the Pulcinella series — the most subversive and original 18th-century paintings in Venice) make it the essential museum for 18th-century Venice.
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Dorsoduro — The Peggy Guggenheim and Gallerie dell'Accademia
Dorsoduro (the sestiere south of the Grand Canal, the home of the Gallerie dell'Accademia and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, the two most important art museums in Venice) combines: the Accademia (Campo della Carità, ¥12 adults, the comprehensive collection of Venetian painting from the 14th to 18th century — the Giorgione Tempest, the Titian Pietà, the Bellini polyptychs) and the Guggenheim (Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, directly on the Grand Canal, ¥18 adults, daily 10am–6pm, Peggy Guggenheim's private collection of 200+ works of 20th-century art — the most important Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist collection in Europe, with Brancusi, Ernst, Calder, Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko) within 300m of each other.
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San Polo Neighbourhood — The Local Heart of Venice
San Polo (the smallest of Venice's 6 sestieri, on the San Polo bank of the Grand Canal, centered on the Campo San Polo — the largest campo in Venice after Piazza San Marco) is the sestiere that feels most lived-in by Venetians — the Monday and Thursday morning fruit and vegetable market on the campo, the Toletta bookshop (Fondamenta Toletta, Dorsoduro, the finest independent bookshop in Venice, the Venice section unmatched), and the Campo San Polo winter ice rink (the outdoor ice rink on the campo December–February, the most distinctly Venetian winter experience) represent the neighbourhood's residential character; the sestiere's residential bacari (Bacaro Jazz, Osteria Mocenigo) serve the local Venetian population rather than tourists.