Category: Living in Venice
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Kayaking ban in Venice
The City of Venice has published a modification to the city traffic rules, which bans kayaks, canoes, dragon boats and others from navigating certain canals. The relevant text is this: Nei Rii principali interni di collegamento: Canal Grande, Cannaregio, Giardini, Greci – San Lorenzo, Santa Giustina – Sant’Antonin – Pietà, Noale, Novo, Ca’ Foscari, Santi…
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Venice about to ban kayaks in the city
Ever since the fatal accident in August 2013 there has been a lot of debates about what to do to make boat traffic safer in Venice. There has been little change in the year and a half since the accident. All changes have been blocked or sabotaged by the various vested interests in the city:…
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High tide in Venice
We’ve had several days with high water lately here in Venice. Not extreme high water, but enough to be a burden for the locals and an amusement for the tourists. The city canals are very quiet when the tide goes above a certain level, as most boats can no longer pass under the bridges, and…
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Photography classes II
I did a basic level photography course back in the spring, and in September and October I did the next level course. The teacher was Marc De Tollenaere. This course covered several themes which all build on the basics from the first course, requiring manual adjustments to ISO, aperture and shutter speed to get the…
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Photography classes
This year I have taken a couple of photography classes, for the first time ever, and I have learned a lot. Like so many others I have just relied on the automatic settings and shot without thinking too much. While it mostly works, it also only mostly works. Both classes were taught by Marc De…
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Contorted Venice
In the 1960s a deep canal was dug across the Venetian lagoon to give access to bigger ships to the commercial harbour at Marghera, and since then Venice has been flooded by ever more frequent and ever higher tides. To counter this threat to Venice’s existence a system of mobile flood gates was devised at…
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Killing Venice Slowly
The Italian government has decided to dig a new deep canal through the Venetian lagoon to give the next generation of cruise ships, even bigger then the current ones, a passage to Venice. Please consider signing the online petition against this next assault on Venice. This decision was taken in Rome without any kind of…
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The Redentore Feast
The Redentore Feast is probably the most important popular celebration in Venice. Dinner down in the calle, fondamenta or in barca, ended by huge fireworks in the bacino afterwards. We celebrated in Riva de l’Arsenal, and enjoyed the fireworks from the nearby Ponte della Marina Veneta.
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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…