Campo San Salvador

Campo San Salvador sits on the direct route between the Rialto and St. Mark's Square, a square most visitors cross without stopping -- but it holds a real slice of Venetian history, from a medieval decree about horses to the facade of a church whose foundations reach back to the early Middle Ages.

San Salvador is an active parish that charges nothing to enter while holding two Titians, a royal tomb and three doges. It is kept open by donation, and the box by the door is doing real work.

The square is a bottleneck on the most congested walking route in the city. A group stopping in the middle of it obstructs a genuine flow -- the church steps and the edges are where to stand.

The cannonball embedded in a facade column is from the Austrian bombardment of 1849 that ended Manin's republic. It was deliberately left in place, and it is a memorial rather than a curiosity.

Using this church as the place to rest, rather than a café table on the Mercerie, costs nothing and takes a body out of one of the worst pinch points in Venice for twenty minutes.

Campo San Salvador sits directly on the walking route between the Rialto Bridge and St. Mark's Square, making it an easy stop rather than a detour. The church of San Salvador is generally open to visitors free of charge during regular hours; the adjoining Scuola Grande di San Teodoro is a separate building on the same square.

The church is free and keeps reasonably reliable daytime hours with a midday closure, which makes it one of the easiest major interiors in Venice to fit into a walk. No ticket, no queue, no booking.

Its value rises exactly as the surrounding crush does. Between about eleven and five the Mercerie outside is close to gridlocked, and the church is the nearest place to stand still -- often almost empty at the very hours the street is worst.

The three domes are lit from above through their own lanterns, so the interior holds usable light through the middle of the day, unlike the many Venetian churches that depend on low side windows.

Early morning is the only time the campo itself is quiet. The shops open around ten, and after that the square belongs to the through traffic until evening.