Venice > Sightseeing > Canals > Giudecca Canal

Giudecca Canal

Page 3 of 6
From: Canals of Venice

ABOVE: A car ferry cruises up the Giudecca Canal on its way from the Lido di Venezia to Venice's parking island of Tronchetto. At Tronchetto, motorists will disembark from the ferry and drive 4 km or 2.5 to the Venetian mainland via the Ponte della Libertà causeway.

The Canale della Giudecca is a broad stretch of water that separates the island of La Giudecca (often abbreviated to "Giudecca") from central Venice. It has a depth of 12 to 17 meters, or 39 to 56 feet.

The canal is a major shipping channel with reinforced seawalls to prevent erosion from ships' wakes.

Although it doesn't carry as much traffic as the Grand Canal does, the Giudecca Canal is usually busy (especially during the day) with ACTV and Alilaguna water buses, tourist boats, water taxis, delivery barges, ferries, ambulances, police boats, private speedboats, and the occasional cruise ship, Financial Police vessel, or Coast Guard cutter.

BELOW: The Giudecca Canal starts (or ends, depending on your point of view) near the Marittima cruise basin, which was used by cruise ships of all sizes until large ships were banned from central Venice in 2021.

This photo was taken from the deck of La Bella Vita, a 20-passenger hotel barge that cruises in the Venetian Lagoon and Po River delta.

BELOW: Passengers enjoy the view from MSC Poesia's sun deck. The ship has just moved from the Marittima cruise basin into the Canale di Fusina, which is at the foot of the Giudecca Canal. (This photo was taken before the Italian government's ban on large cruise ships.)

BELOW: A few minutes later, the ship steams past  the Santa Marta and San Basilio cruise piers, which are used by small cruise ships (including river vessels, such as the Uniworld ship in the lower photo).

BELOW: This night photo of the canal's opposite bank shows the Molino Stucky, or Stucky Mill, on the island of La Giudecca.

The 19th Century flour mill closed in 1955 and sat vacant for nearly 40 years until it was redeveloped as the Hilton Molino Stucky hotel and a luxury apartment complex.

BELOW: A tugboat deadheads toward the Marittima basin, where it will be attached to a departing cruise ship. (As large vessels cruise along the Giudecca Canal, they have tugs at one or both ends to keep them centered in the channel during extreme winds, in the event of rudder failure, etc.)

The smaller boat in the background is an ACTV motoscafo or enclosed water bus.

• Note: The perspective of this photo, which was taken from the deck of a ship, distorts the relative size of the boats.

BELOW: The Gesuati Church is about halfway up the Zattere, which is Venice's south-facing pedestrian promenade along the Giudecca Canal.

BELOW: The Zattere ACTV waterbus station and a floating pier for Alilaguna airport boats (lower photo) are close to the Gesuati Church.

BELOW: In July, the city installs a temporary pontoon bridge across the Giudecca Canal for the Festa del Redentore, or Festival of the Redeemer. The bridge was being assembled when we took this photo from a passing ship.

BELOW: The Port of Venice welcomes several hundred cruise ships a year, which averages out to fewer than 10 ships a week year-round. Most cruises take place between April and October, with the majority of arrivals and departures on weekends.

In the two photos below, Celebrity Solstice passes a waterside restaurant and Norwegian Jade approaches St. Mark's Basin from the Giudecca Canal.

(Note: In August of 2021, after these photos were taken, the Italian government moved midsize and large cruise ships from the Giudecca Canal to the "Canal of Oils," a cargo-shipping channel that leads to industrial piers in Venice's mainland district of Marghera.

The only cruise ships that continue to cruise through the Giudecca Canal and St. Mark's Basin are river vessels and small oceangoing ships of less than 25,000 GRT.)

Next page: Cannaregio Canal

About the author:

Durant Imboden has written about Venice, Italy since 1996. He covered Venice and European travel at About.com for 4-1/2 years before launching Europe for Visitors (including Venice for Visitors) with Cheryl Imboden in 2001.

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