Pellestrina

Pellestrina is the long sandbar that closes the southern Venetian lagoon -- eleven kilometres from end to end and in places barely a hundred metres wide, with the Adriatic on one side and the lagoon on the other.

Four fishing villages sit along it. There are no hotels to speak of and almost no visitors, which on this lagoon is remarkable.

Its defining structure is the murazzi: enormous sea walls of Istrian stone that the Republic built along the seaward side between 1744 and 1782 to stop the Adriatic breaking through. They are the last great public work Venice completed before it fell.

These are working fishing villages with a small, ageing population and no tourism economy. Visit quietly, and do not photograph people at work without asking.

Eat and buy on the island. The few trattorias here serve fish landed a few hundred metres away, and they are what makes a visit worth anything to the place.

Do not climb on the murazzi in rough weather. Waves come over them, which is their job, and people have been killed doing exactly this.

The lagoon side is mussel farms and shallow water that people work. Keep clear of the beds and the quays.

Use the public boat rather than a private one. Line 11 is the island's own transport, and using it supports the service the residents depend on.

Reaching Pellestrina is part of the interest. Take vaporetto line 11 from the Lido di Venezia: it runs by bus along the Lido, crosses to the island by ferry, and continues down its length, ending with a boat to Chioggia.

The full run takes around ninety minutes from the Lido to Chioggia, and it is one of the best-value journeys in the lagoon on an ordinary transport ticket.

There is nothing ticketed on the island and very little tourist infrastructure -- a few trattorias, some bars, no hotels of consequence.

The island is flat and long; a bicycle is ideal, and the road along the murazzi is quiet.

Allow a full day if you continue to Chioggia, or half a day out and back.