Dorsoduro When the Galleries Exhale

Dorsoduro is the sestiere that Venetians claim when they want to argue that Venice is still a living city and not a museum. The neighborhood runs along the southern edge of the city facing the Giudecca Canal, and its Campo Santa Margherita is the piazza that tourists rarely find and students from the nearby university fill every evening with the energy of people who live here, not visit. The campo has bars, gelaterias, and the particular hum of a public square that serves as a living room.

The Gallerie dell'Accademia holds the definitive collection of Venetian painting — Bellini, Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese — in a sequence of galleries that traces the Venetian school from Byzantine gold to Renaissance glory. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection around the corner is the modern counterpoint — Picasso, Pollock, Ernst — in Peggy's unfinished palazzo on the Grand Canal.

Insider tip: Walk the Zattere promenade along the Giudecca Canal at sunset. The wide fondamenta faces south, catches the last light, and the gelato at Nico (famous for the gianduiotto — a block of gianduja ice cream drowned in whipped cream) is the walk's unofficial reward.