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Mare Nostrum Project
A couple of French kayakers are on a journey along the northern side of the Mediterranean, a 10.000km trip from Gibraltar to Istanbul. We hope to host them when they arrive here in Venice in a few weeks time. They’re currently half way up the Italian east coast. Mare Nostrum Project.
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The Burano Colour Game
Burano is famous for its many coloured houses. One of the fun things to do there is to find houses that matches people’s clothes.
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Bits of Rusty History
The Certosa island was home to an armaments factory, the Pirotecnica della Certosa, for the first half of the 20th century. It was shut down definitively in 1958. I found this on the ground a few days ago.
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Gondoliere practise
Waiting for the Carnival procession on the Canal Grande at the traghetto San Samuele we enjoyed the view of two gondolieri practising the manoeuvres they need to do the operate the traghetto. They needed to turn the boat repeatedly and fast, to navigate the current and waves the other traffic caused and to enter the…
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La Festa dei Veneziani
The Venetian carnival has just started, and one of the first events is the Festa dei Veneziani, which more or less implies that the rest of the carnival is not for or of the Venetians, which is also entirely true. The first part of this feast is a procession of Venetian rowing boats through most…
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Venetian rowing in the 18th century
Antonio Vivaldi, the composer from the 18th century who wrote The Four Seasons, also wrote operas to be performed in Venetian theatres. They were rather modern for their time, and one of Vivaldi’s critics published a pamphlet against him, called “Il teatro alla moda“, which has an interesting incision on the cover. It shows a…
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Videos on Facebook
Post a video on Facebook with some music in it, and they’ll remove it due to “Intellectual Property” concerns. I’ve found some classical music that’s free to use in videos, actively put in the Public Domain by the artists, and Facebook will complain anyway. There’s even a not so subtle threat in there: Hello,We have…
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Martina rowing Venetian style
which is fair enough, as she’s Venetian. Video by René Seindal, music by Beethoven, Sonata no.8 performed by Daniel Veesey.
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Voga alla Valesana
There’s another type of Venetian rowing using two oars. It is probably less well know than the one oar type used in the gondolas of Venice. Voga alla valesana involves using two oars simultaneously, crossed. It can be quite tricky.
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Rowing in the Arsenale
We went rowing inside the area of the ancient navy docks of the Venetian Republic and took some videos. Here’s one of me rowing Venetian style, voga alla veneta, in our small sandolo.
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Foggy evening
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A day a-rowing
Last year we bought a small Venetian rowing boat, a s-ciopon, which is one of the smallest traditional Venetian boats. Usually I just fool around in the lagoon near the Certosa island, but yesterday I took it to Venice. I rowed over to the bus terminal at Piazzale Roma to pick up Martina at 19.30…