Bridge Sixty-Nine - Ponte degli Scalzi

We now walked past Venice's busy Santa Lucia rail station with its broad steps and stark, grey facade. After braving the hordes milling around the Ferrovia vaporetto station, we crossed our third Grand Canal bridge, the Ponte degli Scalzi, or, more simply, the Scalzi Bridge.



'Scalzi' means 'barefoot', and refers to an order of barefoot monks who were based at the nearby Church of Santa Maria de Nazareth, sometimes referred to as the Chiesa degli Scalzi. However, the bridge was built when the monks were no longer around.
The Scalzi's architecture is quite unique, taking the form of a thin, stretched bow of white stone that was completed in 1934, making it one of the more recent bridge additions in Venice, although an iron structure did exist in the vicinity before then. It's a great bridge from which to watch the hustle and bustle of boat traffic on the Grand Canal.