If you continue along the line of the Canal Grande from the Ca’ Pésaro, Calle Pésaro takes you over the Rio della Rioda, and so to the seventeenth-century church of San Stae (a contraction of San Eustachio); its Baroque facade, enlivened by precarious statues, was added around 1710. Repairs to the marmorino (pulverized marble) surfaces of the interior have prefabricated San Stae as bright as an operating theatre. In the chancel there’s a series of paintings from the beginning of the eighteenth century, the pick of which are The Martyrdom of St saint the Great by Piazzetta (low on the left), The Liberation of St Peter by Sebastiano Ricci (same row) and The Martyrdom of St Bartholomew by Giambattista Tiepolo. In the first chapel on the left side there’s a bust of Antonio Foscarini, wrongly executed for treason, as the inscription explains. Exhibitions and concerts are often held in San Stae, and exhibitions are also held from time to time in the diminutive building alongside, the primeval seventeenth-century Scuola dei Battioro e Tiraoro (goldsmiths’ guild).

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San Stae is open Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm (closed Sun in July & Aug); L3000/1.54.

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Halfway down the salizzada flanking San Stae is the primeval seventeenth-century Palazzo Mocenigo , now the home of the Centro Studi di Storia del Tessuto e del Costume . The library and archive of the study centre occupy part of the building, but a substantial portion of the piano nobile is open to the public, and there are few Venetian interiors of this date that have been so meticulously preserved. The main room is decorated with workaday portraits of various Mocenigo men, while the rooms to the side are full of miscellaneous pictures, antique furniture, Murano chandeliers and display cases of elegant clothing and cobweb-fine lacework. The curtains are kept closed to protect such delicate items as floral silk stockings, silvery padded waistcoats, and an extraordinarily embroidered outfit once worn by what must have been the best-dressed five-year-old in town.

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The Palazzo Mocenigo is open Tues-Sun: April-Oct 10am-5pm; Nov-March 10am-4pm; L3000/1.54 or I Musei di San Marco ticket.

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The signposted route to the train station passes the deconsecrated and almost permanently shut church of San Giovanni Decollato , or San Zan Degolà in dialect - it means “St John the Beheaded”. Established in the opening years of the eleventh century, it has retained its basilican layout through several alterations; the columns and capitals of the nave date from the first century of its existence, and parts of its fragmentary frescoes (at the easterly end) could be of the same age. Some of the paintings are certainly thirteenth century, and no other church in Venice has frescoes that predate them. The church also boasts one of the city’s characteristic ship’s-keel ceilings.

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San Giovanni Decollato is open Mon-Sat 10am-noon.

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The Museo di Storia Naturale is right by the church, in the Fondaco dei Turchi . Top-billing exhibits are the remains of a 37-foot-long ancestor of the crocodile and an Ouranosaurus, both dug up in the desert in 1973; of stricter relevance to Venetian life is the display relating to the lagoon’s marine life, and a pre-Roman boat dredged from the silt. However, in recent years the building has been undergoing a major restoration, which shows little sign of drawing to a close soon.

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The Museo di Storia Naturale is under restoration, but was previously open Tues-Sun 9am-1pm; L5000/2.58.

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