Campanile di San Giorgio Maggiore
While tourists queue 45 minutes for the Campanile in Piazza San Marco, savvy visitors hop a short vaporetto to the island of San Giorgio Maggiore and ride its elevator to a bell tower with an arguably better panorama — looking back across the entire Venice skyline with St Mark's Basilica perfectly framed in the distance.
The View from the Top
At 75 metres, the campanile on San Giorgio Maggiore delivers a 360-degree sweep: the Giudecca canal directly below, the terracotta rooftops of Dorsoduro, the Lido's thin strip of land, and on clear days the snow-capped Dolomites as a backdrop. It is one of the most complete views in the Mediterranean.
The elevator runs almost to the top, making this accessible for most visitors. The platform is less crowded than San Marco's tower and you can linger without being jostled.
Palladio's Church Below
The church itself — designed by Andrea Palladio and completed in 1610 — is worth 20 minutes of your time before or after the climb. The interior holds two large Tintoretto canvases: The Last Supper and The Gathering of the Manna, both painted in the 1590s.
The island also hosts the Giorgio Cini Foundation, a cultural complex set in a former Benedictine monastery with beautiful cloisters that occasionally open for guided visits and art exhibitions.
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