Venice punishes the unprepared wallet, but the city's best hours are free: Byzantine mosaics in empty churches, a €2 gondola crossing locals use as a bus, and cicchetti bars where €1.50 buys lunch. Sleep in Mestre, eat standing up, walk everywhere.
Baldassare Longhena's octagonal plague church (1631-1687), built on 1,156,627 timber piles after the 1630 epidemic killed a third of Venice. The nave, dome and Titian ceiling panels are free; only the sacristy costs €6. Open 09:00-12:00 and 15:00-17:30 daily.
Public gondolas ferry locals across the Grand Canal at seven surviving stations. The Santa Sofia crossing to the Rialto fish market costs €2 for tourists (€0.70 with a residents' card) and lasts two minutes. Venetians stand; sit if the water is choppy.
A spiral external staircase of 80 steps in white Istrian stone, built around 1499 behind Campo Manin and hidden down a dead-end alley. The Belvedere loggia at the top gives a rooftop panorama over San Marco's domes without the €10 campanile queue.
The world's first ghetto, established 1516, where 5,000 people were once confined to a single campo — which is why Venice's only high-rise tenements, up to nine storeys, stand here. The square, wellheads and Holocaust memorial reliefs cost nothing.
Venice's fish market has traded on this spot since 1097, under the neo-Gothic Pescaria loggia of 1907. Open Tuesday to Saturday 07:30-12:00, closed Sunday and Monday. Moeche (soft-shell crabs) and castraure artichokes from Sant'Erasmo are the local buys.
Open since 1462 and reputedly Casanova's local, this windowless bacaro has copper pots hanging from the ceiling and no seats. Francobolli (postage-stamp sandwiches) run €1.50-2, ombre of house wine €1-1.50. Closed Sundays; shuts 20:00.
A canal-side strip in Cannaregio where students drink standing outside. Al Timon, Vino Vero and Paradiso Perduto sell spritz at €3-3.50 against €9 in San Marco, and cicchetti from €1.50. Al Timon serves from a moored boat in summer.
The Dorsoduro student square, ringed by Ca' Foscari university buildings and open-air tables. Bar rounds cost half San Marco prices, the fish stall sells fried moleche, and Suso-style gelato nearby runs €2. Loud until 02:00 on term-time weekends.
Line 12 from Fondamente Nove reaches Burano in 45 minutes. The painted fishermen's houses — colours assigned by government permit — the leaning Campanile of San Martino, and the walk over the wooden bridge to Mazzorbo's vineyard all cost nothing.
Five minutes from Burano on Line 9 lies the lagoon's first settlement, once 20,000 people, now around ten residents. The cathedral of 639 AD holds a 12th-century Last Judgement mosaic covering the entire west wall. Entry €5, campanile €5.
The 1228 German merchants' warehouse beside the Rialto is now a department store whose fourth-floor terrace gives the best free view of the Grand Canal's bend. Free 15-minute slots, booked online or at the ground-floor desk; last entry 18:45.
A kilometre of unbroken south-facing quayside built in 1519 as the salt and timber unloading dock, now the only stretch in Venice with open horizon. Sunset falls behind the Giudecca and the Molino Stucky mill; benches and steps are free all night.