Discover Isola della Pescheria

There is very little architecture here, and that is the point. The island carries simple open stalls under a roof, reached by short bridges from both banks, with the canal running either side.

The engineering logic is the interesting part: an island in a flowing channel gives a market continuous clean water on both sides and continuous removal of waste, with no pumping and no drains. It is a nineteenth-century sanitary solution using nothing but the river.

Willows and the backs of houses close the space in, and the water is shallow and clear enough to see the bottom.