Campo Santi Apostoli in the Cannaregio district is a great place to get a feel for the spirit and bustle of everyday life in Venice. Here, kids yelp as they hurtle around weaving at breakneck speed between the square’s two large trees and the benches their mums share with elderly onlookers, while other Venetians rush to and fro, some heading for Rialto, others towards the train station.

This square marks the start of one of Venice’s main thoroughfares, the Strada Nova. Completed in 1871 and originally named in honour of Vittorio Emanuele, King of Italy, it was re-baptised by locals as Strada Nova, or New Street. At 10 metres wide and 400 metres long, it is certainly the city’s longest street and it forms a striking anomaly in Venice’s usually chaotic and congested urban panorama. A whole part of the city was cleared to build it. Houses and palaces were demolished to comply with an idea of modernity that scorned the apparent chaos dominating the urban landscape; a landscape made up of streets that were, and still are, little more than a gap between buildings in a city whose main thoroughfares are formed by water.

You will, then, find yourselves walking along a kind of boulevard, lined on either side by an endless row of shops, restaurants and bars, amid a constant coming and going of passers-by who you can jostle with or simply observe from the comfort of a pavement cafe. For those of a less idle disposition, Inside Venice recommends a visit to the nearby Franchetti Gallery, housed in the former patrician home of the Ca’Doro (The Golden House). This splendid Gothic palazzo earned its name from the fine gold leaf that once embellished its facade. The gallery contains works by Mantegna and Carpaccio and also a valuable collection of antique Venetian ceramics. Once you have nourished your soul, physical sustenance is near at hand, just down the road at one of Venice’s oldest osterias, The Vedova. Here you will be well looked after by Mirella and Renzo and you can either head for a table or do as the crowds of locals who stand up at the bar for a meatball and a glass of red.