Author: René Seindal
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Repairing the s-ciopon
Our s-ciopon (a traditional Venetian wooden boat) is currently under repair. It started to take in a bit of water back in February, and as I was leaving for a short holiday, I had to take it out of the water. It’s been on land now for three months which is not good for a…
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Poor Poveglia
The challenge of the association Poveglia per tutti of collecting enough money to beat the other bid for the island, failed. The association arrived at €420,000 but that was not enough, as the unknown other bidder had offered €513,000 for the island. Second battle lost, then. The war is not necessarily lost, though. The next…
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Gondola on gondola
Most gondolas in Venice sport a little figure on the front. Normally its a human figure, or an angel, or even a Buddha or a Ganesh. You see a bit of everything. It is, however, a first to see a gondola on a gondola. For whatever reason, the gondola also had a plush giraffe hanging…
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Save Poveglia
Help the Venetianskeep the island Poveglia! Venice is slowly being taken over by tourism. Ever more property is being bought and converted to offers for tourists, leaving less and less space for the residents of the city, who often feel that they’re being expelled from they own city. Now the lagoon island of Poveglia is…
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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…