Addresses in Venice

Addresses

Venice addresses aren't much help when it comes to finding your way around. Instead of naming a street, an address gives the name of one of the city's six sestieri, or neighborhoods (San Marco, Cannaregio, Castello, Dorsoduro, Santa Croce, and San Polo) followed by a number. The hitch is that the numbers don't necessarily run in sequential order, so San Marco 3672 and 3673 might well be several streets away from each other. With that peculiarity in mind, Venetian addresses in this book include the nearest campo (square), bridge, vaporetto stop, calle, riva or a fondamenta (all terms for a street) when helpful. An invaluable Web resource is www.venicexplorer.net, which has a mapping function that will pinpoint any address in the city.

Yellow signs posted on many corners point toward the major landmarks -- San Marco, Rialto, Accademia, etc. -- but don't count on finding these once you're deep into residential neighborhoods. Even buying a good map at a newsstand -- the kind showing all street names and vaporetto routes -- won't insure you don't get lost. However, getting lost in Venice may mean you've also lost most of the other tourists; patience with yourself and the Venetians you ask for help can go a long way in making the experience part of the adventure.

Italian addresses outside of Venice are fairly straightforward: the street is followed by the street number. However, you might see an address with a number plus "bis" or "A" (e.g., Via Verdi 3/bis or Via Mazzini 8/A). This indicates that 3/bis or 8/A is the next entrance or door down from Via Verdi 3 and Via Mazzini 8, respectively.

In rural areas, some addresses give only the route name or the distance in kilometers along a major road (e.g. Via Fabbri, km 4.3), or sometimes only the name of the small village in which the site is located.