Rio Tera Lista di Spagna

Rio Tera Lista di Spagna is the busy street connecting Venice's Santa Lucia train station to the rest of the city, its unusual name a leftover from the Republic's diplomatic customs rather than anything Spanish still standing here today. Like many Venetian streets with "Rio Tera" in the name, it was once a canal, filled in during the 19th century to handle the foot traffic the new railroad was about to bring.

This is the most concentrated tourist-facing strip in Venice, and prices along it reflect a captive audience with luggage and no bearings. Walking five more minutes in almost any direction gets better food for less money.

Restaurants with photographed menus, aggressive touting and "tourist menu" boards cluster here for a reason. Eating on this street is the single easiest way to have a bad and expensive first meal in a city full of good ones.

People live above these shops. Wheeled luggage on stone at midnight is the specific complaint residents of this street raise, and it is worth remembering that the noise goes straight up into bedrooms.

The street's whole character -- shops selling nothing a resident needs -- is what the rest of Venice is afraid of becoming. Spending here rather than in the sestieri is what accelerates that, and spending elsewhere is a genuine choice available to anyone who walks a little further.

Rio Tera Lista di Spagna runs directly from Santa Lucia train station into Cannaregio, making it the first street most visitors arriving by rail will walk. It's a functional, commercial thoroughfare rather than a quiet historic corner -- useful for a first orientation to the city, but not usually a destination in its own right.

This street runs on train times rather than opening hours. It is at its most crowded when the arrivals stack up -- mid-morning and again in the late afternoon -- and a large group leaving the station fills it wall to wall.

Early morning and after about nine at night it empties and briefly becomes an ordinary Cannaregio street, which is the only time its actual shape is visible.

If you are arriving with luggage there is no choice about it -- this is the way in. If you are not, there is a parallel route along the Fondamenta di Cannaregio beside a real canal that is quieter, prettier and no longer.

It is a corridor rather than a destination, and ten minutes walking through it is a complete visit.