Venice is full of hidden stuff, much of it in plain view 🙂
I wonder if this guy will ever know what’s under his feet, or even just suspect there might be something.
Tag: Venice
-
SUP in Venice
It’s the first time I’ve seen SUP boards on the Canal Grande. They seemed to do well when I saw them, but I’ve heard some of them ended on the water at the Rialto Bridge, which is often a busy spot. -
Camouflage, Burano style
On Burano orange, lime, lilac and pink are viable camouflage colours.
Burano is known for its brightly coloured houses, and its a fun pass time to search for houses matching people’s clothes.
You don’t need to stand out just because you’re wearing pink.
-
Redentore 2011
The Redentore Feast is one of the major annual celebrations in Venice, and one with a massive local participation. It takes place on the third Sunday of July, and on the evening before there is a huge display of fireworks just before midnight. It usually last around 45 minutes.
I went there with a bunch of friends in an old verigola belonging to the Arcobaleno association, and we got a place in front row, just in front of the Punta della Dogana, with only a few gondolas and sandolos in front of us, which proved a very nice spot for getting some photos of the fireworks.
More photos after the fold ..
(more…) -
Training in the lagoon
This guy just went up and down a short stretch of lagoon canal behind the Vignole, training in a little corner sheltered from the winds of the day. -
Working boats
Venetian boats at work. There’s a green grocer on a boat behind the gondola, and a topo to the right. Three different uses for boats in Venice. -
The Naviglio di Brenta
The Naviglio di Brenta is the old part of the river Brenta, which had its estuary in the Lagoon of Venice close to Fusina. After the demise of the city of Torcello in the 11th adn 12th century, the Venetian understood the cause. The river Sile had made a vast delta behind Torcello, causing the water to become more stagnant, more fresh and more mosquito friendly, hence malaria and the gradual depopulation of the once flourishing city of Torcello which is now all but gone, along with two other smaller cities of the northern lagoon.
The Brenta was making a similar delta just SW of Venice, so action was taken and in the 16th and 17th centuries the river was diverted several times, until it now runs directly into the Adriatic Sea near Chioggia. The original river bed was kept, controlled by several locks, so navigation on the route didn’t have to stop.
Last Sunday we took some kayaks to Mira, put them in close the the lock at Mira Porte, and paddled down the Naviglio to the next lock at Moranzani. It was a very quiet paddle, where we enjoyed the nature and the history along the canal.
(more…) -
Launching from a beach
For almost four years I’ve been doing my kayaking tours of Venice from a camp site on the Lido di Venezia. It has been, and is, in many ways a good launch spot close to Venice, but it is not without its drawbacks.
The shore there is a road which is 1-2m over the water level, depending on the tide, so we launch one at a time from an inflatable platform.
For many of our your guests it has been an almost intimidating experience. One of the busiest shipping lanes in the lagoon passes just in front of the place, and the waves from each passing boat rebounds from wall causing the platform to bounce up and down.
Even if the waves are at most 1-2ft, they rebound and intersect, making it look violent and dangerous for the inexperienced holiday paddlers that often come for our tours. I’ve seen many scared face there in the last four years.
It isn’t really dangerous, but it looks so, and often perception is just as important as reality.
What can at times pose a risk is the 2 knot tidal current in from of the place, which can easily cause people to drift away before we have the last of the group on the water.
Once everybody is in the boats it is necessary to cross the shipping lane immediately, heading for the calmer waters across the canal. This too can be intimidating for inexperienced paddlers.
For the last month or so I have done the tours from a beach on the island of Certosa, just on front of the old launch spot. We can easily see the 500m across, but it couldn’t be more different.
Its a shallow beach on those calmer waters we head immediately for from the other side.
Launching from a beach like that does have its advantages.
There is practically no fear factor. Little could be and feel safer than a beach without waves.
Launching is so much faster when you can line the boats up on the beach and send them off simultaneously or in very fast succession. Likewise, getting people in, out of the boats and the boats back in storage is way faster too.
The passage from the beach to the first stretch of open water is a canal following the shoreline of the island, separated from the shipping lane by sand banks where most waves break. The area in front of the beach is therefore very sheltered and safe, so there’s little problem in launching ten beginners before I myself get in the boat.
There are some disadvantages too.
When people feel safer they also act more by their own accord. It is not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes it a lot harder keeping a check on what is going on. It is, for example, more likely that somebody very eager will just set off, without lifejacket or spraydeck.
Also gear and persons tend to get quite a bit more dirty when launching from a beach full of sand, mud and algae.
The water is very shallow at times, and if people don’t land in the right spot they can run aground rather far from the beach, and if the land on the wrong part and step out, they’ll be in the mud to their knees.
In any case, the minuses are minor and nothing more that can be handled with a bit of well placed instructions.
I still don’t know where operations will be for the rest of the season. Nothing has been decided yet. -
UFO – Unidentified Floating Object
When paddling around Venice we often see slightly weird boats around — different shapes, odd names, alternative behaviour — but the other day I encountered something in a category of its own.
I tried to get a good photo of it, but waterproof point-and-shoot cameras aren’t always that great for taking photographs, so this was the best shot I got.
We have some of the usual mix of boats here. There’s the gondola, the taxi, the cargo boat and a building barge:
Then in the middle there’s this unidentified floating object
It appears to be the workmen from the barge in front of Palazzo Grassi, who got the sudden urge to cross the Canal Grande on a rather busy stretch, using some kind of steel box and shovels for paddles.
They did get across, but I’m not quite sure it qualifies as safe paddling 🙂
-
Reflections
At the end of the year we’re supposed to reflect on the year that passed. I have found that a bit hard this year, so I’ve decided to leave the reflections to the vaporetto (water bus) platforms of Venice. They do a good job at reflecting 🙂
Santa Maria della Salute
Santa Maria della Salute from the Giglio stop
Palaces on the lower Canal Grande from the Salute stop
San Giorgio Maggiore seen from the S.Marco stop
The Giudecca seen from S.Marco
The Lido seen from S.Zaccharia / S.Marco
San Giorgio Maggiore seen from S. Zaccharia / S. Marco
San Servolo seen from the Giardini stop
The Bacino San Marco seen from the Giardini stop
Santa Maria della Salute from the Giglio stop -
Lessico Veneto – Malamocco
I recently found some scanned books from Venice of times past. One of them is a kind of historical encyclopedia from the mid 19th century, and I must say it has its little oddities 🙂 The entry for Malamocco – a small hamlet on the Lido di Venezia with a glorious past – reads:Malamocco, Matemauco, Metemaucum. City which flourished in the first times of the Venetian society, located near the harbour, where the Madoacus, or Brenta (from where, perhaps, the name Matemauco) entered the sea. It was the capital on the Venetians, and seat of their doges (these had already abandoned Eraclea, or Eraclia) until the year 813 circa; it also had nine bishops, the last of whom were one Stefano Badoaro (see Bishops of Malamocco). By earthquake, or by horrible storm from the sea, it was destroyed between 1100 and 1102, and now nothing remains but well kept orchards and a poor hamlet. There, fleeing Austrian bullets (see san Giuliano del buon albergo), hunger, anarchy and the many other calamities that afflicted the illustrious and unfortunate Venice, in a few hours, by cholera, on the twentyfirst day of August of the year 1849, passed away serenely, because supremely pious, the woman of who writes. O reader, it will not hurt you to say a prayer for the peace of her soul.
Here’s the original:
“Lessico Veneto” by Fabio Mutinelli, published in Venice, 1849, p.238.
