10 places in Venice where to take photographs for Instagram

The Instagramers’ places to capture Venice

We asked a Venetian Instagrammer to suggest us 10 different locations in Venice where to take awesome pictures. He took us on a tour, the one he dedicates to his friends who come to visit him: a journey through monuments, palaces, hidden gems and classic places seen through the eyes of the photographer.

Lorenzo Cinotti is @Celestalis on Instagram. His photos of Venice are unmistakable and tell the daily life made of landscapes and sunsets, fog and silence, mornings in the busy canals, Sundays when the city is suspended in stillness and you can only hear the sound of paddling in the waves.

The real city, the one that the newspapers do not tell. Ours.

1. Dawn from the Accademia Bridge

The Accademia Bridge, built with a temporary project in 1932, has maintained the wooden structure that crosses the Grand Canal and connects two important Venetian institutions, the Gallerie dell’Accademia and the Institute of Sciences, Letters and Arts. At the first light of dawn, observing from the bridge the city that wakes up while the sunrise rises behind the Church of Health and Punta della Dogana, is a spectacle that is priceless.

2. The roofs of the Scala Contarini del Bovolo

Hidden in the Calli near Campo Manin, the Scala del Bovolo was commissioned by Pietro Contarini towards the end of the 1400s, as an addition to its palace. The staircase, called with the Venetian word bòvolo because of its spiral shape, is the result of different architectural styles: Gothic, Renaissance and Venetian-Byzantine. A hidden gem which leads to a dome-shaped belvedere, from which you can admire the roofs of the city and take fantastic pictures.

Rio del Gaffaro, Dorsoduro, photo by Lorenzo Cinotti aka @celestalis

3. The frantic mornings of Dorsoduro

Boats, students, transporters with carts, tourists, children going to school, water taxis and ‘tope’ of different sizes (the Venetian transport boats are called like this); the canals of the Dorsoduro district like the Rio del Gaffaro are crowded and frenetic in the morning, the Fondamente are animated by voices and colours, the cafes burst with people, and life flows fast.

4. Life on water in Erbaria

Narrated by Casanova as a place to walk at dawn, when it still hosted the fruit and vegetable market, Erbaria was already at his time a meeting place in the Rialto Market. The open courtyard on the Grand Canal under the Rialto Bridge is serene and sunny, the view extends to the imposing buildings, to the gondolas, the boats and the seagulls. The city rests, waiting for the evening ‘Spritz’, the local aperitivo.

5.  The horizon from the terrace of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi

Once a place of exchange for German traders in Venice, then a Post Office during the twentieth century, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi was restored by Rem Kolhaas’ OMA Studio and it became the first department DFS lifestyle store in Europe in 2016. From the top floor of the building you can access a panoramic terrace that offers a spectacular view of the Grand Canal and the whole city, up to the islands and the far away mountains.

6. The concentration at the Punta della Dogana

With its triangular shape Punta della Dogana overlooks the San Marco Basin and it is a watershed between the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal. Custom office for goods arriving in the Serenissima, after the modern restoration of the architect Tadao Ando it is now the contemporary art museum of the François Pinault collection Palazzo Grassi – Punta della Dogana.

7. The Ca’ d’Oro mosaic pavements

Baron Giorgio Franchetti was a collector fond of ancient marbles and musical harmonies and his Ca’ D’Oro, the most beautiful palace on the Grand Canal, was the work of his life. Purchased and restored to make it a public museum, the baron invested all his resources to restore the building to its original fifteenth-century look, and his masterpiece, his personal work, was the atrium floor mosaic, made in opus sectile, inspired by the Cosmateschi pavements and the Basilica of San Marco.

After the collection of artworks by Giorgio Franchetti was brought to the palace, on 18 January 1927 the museum was officially opened: the Galleria Giorgio Franchetti at the Ca ‘d’Oro.

8. Cannaregio’s hidden canals

The peace and silence of Venice become real in the canals of Cannaregio away from the touristic routes: Rio della Misericordia, Rio degli Ormesini, Rio della Sensa are the local places of relaxation and daily life, slow sports and wonderful photographs.

9. Graphical games on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore

The Island of San Giorgio is in front of San Marco and it is a gem of art and architecture. The church of San Giorgio Maggiore, designed by the architect Andrea Palladio, the high bell tower and the Giorgio Cini Foundation amaze the spectators with a succession of spectacular sceneries.

10. Sunset from the Campanile di San Giorgio

The bell tower built in 1791 is 75 meters high. Its position offers a unique view of Venice and the Giudecca Canal. In the hours of sunset, when the sun goes down and colours the sky, the height of the bell tower of San Giorgio creates a magical atmosphere to be photographed.

The photos are all by Lorenzo Cinotti