Hotels near Santa Maria della Salute

Santa Maria della Salute is the great octagonal Baroque church that anchors the south side of the Grand Canal entrance - the white-domed silhouette in every postcard sunset over Venice. The Venetian Senate commissioned it in 1631 as a votive offering for deliverance from the plague that killed roughly a third of the city's population. Architect Baldassare Longhena, just 32 at the time, won the design competition; construction took 56 years and required driving over a million wooden piles into the lagoon mud as foundations. The church was consecrated in 1687.

Entry to the main church is free. The interior is a vast circular space under the great dome with eight chapels around the perimeter - lighter and airier than most Venetian churches because Longhena designed it specifically to be experienced as a single grand circular procession. The sacristy (EUR 6) holds Titian's early works including St Mark Enthroned, and Tintoretto's Wedding at Cana with portraits of his contemporaries as the wedding guests. On 21 November each year - Festa della Salute - a temporary pontoon bridge is built across the Grand Canal so Venetians can walk to the church to give thanks.

Pro Tip: Walk to the Punta della Dogana sea-wall behind the church at sunset - one of the last truly free, uncrowded views in Venice, looking back across the basin to San Giorgio Maggiore and the Doge's Palace.