The Rough Guide to Venice and the Veneto 7 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

488 Pages·2007·28.12 MB·English

by  Jonathan Buckley

R R
O O
U Rough Guides • Broaden your horizons U
G G
H H
G G
U U
I I
D Explore Venice and the Veneto in depth, using the D
E E
S clearest maps of any guide. S
Choose where to go and what to see, inspired by
dozens of photos. V
e
Read expert background on everything from San
n
Marco to the palazzi of the Canal Grande.
i
c
Rely on our selection of the best places to stay, eat
e
and drink, for every budget.

&
It’s like having a local friend help plan your trip.

t
“There is nothing rough about Rough Guides . . . well h
written, thoroughly researched.”
e
Mark Hodson, Sunday Times

V
THE ROUGH GUIDE to

e
n Venice
e
t
o
& the Veneto
OTHER ROUGH GUIDES www.roughguides.com
INCLUDE:
ISBN 978-1-84353-808-0 USA $18.99
S Can $25.99
E
EBOOK UDIO FIL 7,400 PRuoublgihsh Geudi dbeys UK £12.99
PHRASWITH A MAP 1: DTGhrisoetu rPpibeuntgeudi nb y 9 781843 538080

Venice_final_cover.indd 1 3/4/07 11:14:05 am
About the author
About this book
Rough Guides are designed to be
good to read and easy to use. The Jonathan Buckley is the co-author of the Rough Guides to Tuscany & Umbria
book is divided into the following and Florence & Siena, and has published five novels: The Biography of Thomas
sections and you should be able to find
Lang, Xerxes, Ghost MacIndoe, Invisible and So He Takes the Dog.
whatever you need in one of them.
The colour section is designed to
give you a feel for Venice and the
Veneto, suggesting when to go and
what not to miss, and includes a full
list of contents. Then comes basics,
for pre-departure information,
followed by Venice practicalities,
with all the information you’ll need
when you first set foot in the city.
The guide chapters cover each area of
Venice in depth, giving comprehensive
accounts of all the attractions, while the
listings section gives you the lowdown
on accommodation, eating, shopping,
and more. The Veneto chapters describe
places to head for outside Venice.
Contexts fills you in on history, painting
and architecture, and books, while
individual colour inserts introduce
festivals and Venetian palaces, and
language gives you an extensive menu
reader and enough Italian to get by.
Next comes the small print, including
details of how to send in updates and
Author Picks
corrections, and a comprehensive index.
Throughout this book, we’ve used the Rough Guides
Colour maps covering the city can
icon to highlight establishments our authors particu-
be found at the back of the book.
larly recommend – a perfectly sited hotel, an atmospheric café,
This seventh edition a special restaurant. Each has been sent a ‘Recommended by
Rough Guides’ display sticker. The same icon is also used to
published June 2007.
flag up book, film and music recommendations in the Contexts
section. Please send us your own nominations, which our
authors will be happy to check out for future editions.
9 IS U Accommodation price codes
78 BN K £ Each accommodation entry in this guide is classified into
1843 978-1-8 U12.99 ndthoiniunebg pl ecrl irocoseoe cm tao.t eItngh oehr imigehas x,s iiemnadusiomcan t iyinnodgui c tsahhteeo drua.ldn geex poef cptr ticoe psa fyo sr oam e-
53 435 S $ 1 under E100 4 E200–250 7 E350–400
80 3-8 18 2 E100–150 5 E250–300 8 E400–500
80 08-0 C.99 3 E150–200 6 E300–350 9 over E500
5 AN
18 $2 Tcuhrer penucbyli sohf earlls tahned i nafuotrhmorasti ohna vien dTohnee R tohuegirh b Geusitd teo teon Vseunriec eth aen adc tchuer aVceyn aentod, Right: Traghetto on the Grand Canal © James McConnachie
9 5.9 however, they can accept no responsibility for any loss, injury, or inconvenience Front cover image: Basilica di San Marco © Mark Thomas
9 9 sustained by any traveller as a result of information or advice contained in the guide. Back cover image: Grand Canal © Axiom
VENICE_inside_cover.indd 1 3/4/07 11:02:19
The Rough Guide to
Venice & the Veneto
written and researched by
Jonathan Buckley
with additional contributions by
Charles Hebbert and Richard Schofield
NEW YORK • LONDON • DELHI
www.roughguides.com
VeniceColourIntro.indd 1 3/4/07 10:51:13
VeniceColourIntro.indd 2 3/4/07 10:51:21
Contents
|
C
O
N
T
E
N
T
S
M Vicenza, Verona and around..322 |
Colour section 1–16
N The northern Veneto..........354
Introduction...............................5
Contexts 385–428
Where to go...............................7
When to go..............................10
A brief history of Venice.........387
Things not to miss...................12
Venetian painting and
sculpture................................400
Basics 17–32
An outline of Venetian
architecture............................407
Getting there............................19
Conservation and
The media................................24
restoration..............................414
Travelling with children.............25
Books....................................420
Travel essentials......................26
Language 429–442
Guide 33–384
A glossary of Italian words and
Venice: practicalities...........35
1 San Marco..........................43 acronyms...............................441
2 Dorsoduro...........................94 A glossary of artistic and
3 San Polo and Santa Croce..113 architectural terms.................442
4 Cannaregio.......................138
Travel store 443–450
5 Central Castello................158
6 Eastern Castello................177
7 The Canal Grande.............191 Small print & Index 451–464
8 The Northern Islands.........205
9 The Southern Islands........217 Colour maps 465–476
G Accommodation................233
H Eating and drinking...........249
I Nightlife and the arts.........269 Festivals colour section
following p.112
J Shopping..........................275
K Directory...........................283
The Veneto: practicalities..287
Venetian palaces colour
L Padua and the southern section following p.256
Veneto...............................293
3
(cid:2)(cid:2)Piazza San Marco (cid:2)The domes of Basilica di San Marco
| Introduction to
I
n
t
R
o Venice
D
U
c
t
I
o
n

|
W
H
e
R & the Veneto
e

t
o

G
o

|
W
H
e
n Nobody arriving in Venice for the first time is seeing the

t
o city for the first time. Depicted and described so often

G
o that its image has become part of the world’s collective

|
consciousness, Venice can initially create the slightly
anticlimactic feeling that everything looks exactly as it
should. The water-lapped palaces along the Canal Grande
are just as the brochure photographs made them out to
be, Piazza San Marco does indeed look as perfect as a film
set, and the panorama across the water from the Palazzo
Ducale is still more or less as Canaletto painted it. The
sense of familiarity quickly fades, however, as you start
to look at the city closely – and the longer you look, the
stranger and more intriguing Venice becomes.
Founded fifteen hundred years ago on a cluster of mudflats
in the centre of the lagoon, Venice rose to become Europe’s
main trading post between the West and the East, and at
its height controlled an empire that spread north to the
Dolomites and over the sea as far as Cyprus. As its wealth
increased and its population grew, the fabric of the city
grew ever more dense. Cohabiting with the ocean, Venice
has a closer relationship to nature than most cities, but at
the same time it’s one of the most artificial places on earth
– there’s hardly any undeveloped space on the hundred or so islets that com-
4 pose the historic centre. And very few of its closely knit streets and squares
bear no sign of the city’s long lineage. Even in the most insignificant alleyway
VeniceColourIntro.indd 4 3/4/07 10:51:40
olas Fact file
d
n
Go • The Veneto is mountainous in |
h In
the north, where the Dolomites t
extend towards the Austrian bor- R
o
der, and flat in the more extensive D
U
southern part of the region, where c
t
the Po river forms the boundary I
o
with Emilia-Romagna. This fertile n

plain is one of Italy’s major agricul- |
W
tural zones, with wine production H
being especially important: 20 per- eR
cent of all Italian DOC (Denomina- e
t
zione di origine controllata) wine is o

bottled in the Veneto. G
o

• A little under 4.5 million people |
W
live in the Veneto, which is divi- H
ded into seven regions, centred e
n
on the cities of Venice (capital t
you might find fragments of a medieval of the Veneto), Belluno, Padua o G
(Padova), Rovigo, Treviso, Verona o
building embedded in the wall of a house and Vicenza. The historic core of |
like fossil remains lodged in a cliff face. Venice, a major industrial centre
as recently as the start of the
The famously melancholic air of Ven-
twentieth century, is now home
ice is in part a product of the discrepancy
to around 60,000 people – more
between the grandeur of its history and than 100,000 fewer than in 1945.
what the city has become. In the heyday The neighbouring conurbation
of Mestre-Marghera today has a
of the Venetian Republic, some 200,000
population more than three times
people lived in Venice – more than three
that of Venice.
times its present population. Merchants
• Engineering is the most impor-
from Germany, Greece, Turkey and a
tant manufacturing sector of the
host of other countries maintained ware- Veneto economy, but there are
houses here; transactions in the banks numerous other large-scale indu-
stries here: the province of Vicen-
and bazaars of the Rialto dictated the
za is one of Europe’s largest lea-
value of commodities all over the conti- ther-processing areas, and is also
nent; in the dockyards of the Arsenale a major centre for goldsmithing;
the workforce was so vast that a warship 80 percent of Italian eyewear and
70 percent of Italian sports shoes
could be built and fitted out in a single
are made in the Veneto; and local
day; and the Piazza San Marco was firms such as Benetton, Diesel
perpetually thronged with people here and Stefanel are mainstays of
to set up business deals or report to the the Italian clothing industry. And
then, of course, there’s tourism.
Republic’s government. Nowadays it’s no
Attracting one in six of all visitors
longer a living metropolis but rather the to the country, the Veneto is the
embodiment of a fabulous past, depend- most popular of all Italy’s regions,
and Venice is its single most
ent for its survival largely on the people 5
popular city.
who come to marvel at its relics.

VeniceColourIntro.indd 5 3/4/07 10:51:42
Where to go
|
I
n
t
R The monuments which draw the largest crowds are the Basilica di San
o
D Marco – the mausoleum of the city’s patron saint – and the Palazzo
U
c Ducale – the home of the doge and all the governing councils. Certain-
t
I
o ly these are the most dramatic structures in the city: the first a mosaic-
n
| clad emblem of Venice’s Byzantine origins, the second perhaps the finest of all
W
H secular Gothic buildings. Every parish rewards exploration, though – a roll call
e
R of the churches worth visiting would feature over fifty names, and a list of the
e
t important paintings and sculptures they contain would be twice as long. Two
o
G of the distinctively Venetian institutions known as the Scuole retain some of the
o
outstanding examples of Italian Renaissance art – the Scuola di San Rocco,
|
W with its dozens of pictures by Tintoretto, and the Scuola di San Giorgio
H
en degli Schiavoni, decorated with a gorgeous sequence by Carpaccio.

t Although many of the city’s treasures
o
G remain in the buildings for which they
o
| were created, a sizeable number have
been removed to one or other of Venice’s
museums. The one that should not be
missed is the Accademia, an assembly
of Venetian painting that consists of
virtually nothing but masterpieces; other
prominent collections include the muse-
The cultural heritage
um of eighteenth-century art in the Ca’
preserved in the museums
Rezzonico and the Museo Correr, the
and churches is a source
civic museum of Venice – but again, a
of endless fascination,
comprehensive list would fill a page.
but you should discard
Then, of course, there’s the inexhaust-
your itineraries for a day
ible spectacle of the streets themselves,
and just wander – the
of the majestic and sometimes decrepit
anonymous parts of Venice
palaces, of the hemmed-in squares where
reveal as much of the city’s
much of the social life of the city is
essence as the highlighted
conducted, of the sunlit courtyards
attractions.
that suddenly open up at the end of an
unpromising passageway. The cultural heritage preserved in the museums and
churches is a source of endless fascination, but you should discard your itinerar-
ies for a day and just wander – the anonymous parts of Venice reveal as much of
the city’s essence as the highlighted attractions. Equally indispensable for a full
understanding of Venice’s way of life and development are expeditions to the
6 northern and southern islands of the lagoon, where the incursions of the
tourist industry are on the whole less obtrusive.
VeniceColourIntro.indd 6 3/4/07 10:51:45
the acqua alta
|
Floods – acque alte – have been an element of the Venetian winter for hundreds In
of years, but since the middle of the twentieth century there’s been a relentless tR
increase in the frequency with which the city’s streets become immersed. It’s oD
now very rare indeed, between October and late February, for a week to pass U
c
without flooding, and it’s not at all uncommon for flooding of some extent to t
I
occur on every day of the week – indeed, in the notoriously soggy winter of o
n
2000 there was an acqua alta on thirty consecutive days. An acqua alta begins |
with water seeping up through the pavement of the Piazza and other low-lying W
H
areas, such as Campo San Polo, forming puddles that quickly merge into a e
R
shallow little lake. Soon after, you’ll notice that wavelets are spilling over the e
quayside in front of the Palazzo Ducale. Sometimes it doesn’t progress much t
o
further than this, but often it gets much worse. If you hear sirens wailing over
G
the city it means that there’s about four hours to go before the peak of a serious o

acqua alta, which is defined as a flood that rises in excess of 90cm above the |
W
mean lagoon level at the Salute. (Instruments on the side of the Campanile H
di San Marco display a continuous measurement of the water level and a en
prediction of the day’s high tide – if the red light is on, a big flood is coming.) t
o
Having lived with acque alte for so long, the city is well geared to dealing with
G
the nuisance. Shopkeepers in the most badly affected areas insert steel shutters o

into their doorways to hold the water at bay, while teams of council workers |
construct walkways of duckboards (passerelle) along the major thoroughfares
and between the chief vaporetto stops and dry land. In extreme instances even
these measures are not sufficient, and the passerelle get washed away from the
Piazza, but usually the city keeps functioning through the inundation, and even
on severe days there are some sectors that remain above the waves – maps
at most ACTV stops show the routes of these walkways and where the high
ground lies. However, Venice’s pavements don’t drain very efficiently, so you will
find yourself splashing through water many hours after high tide. On a serious
acqua alta day almost every Venetian is kitted out with rubber boots, and you’d
be well advised to follow suit – there are plenty of shops selling them cheaply.
And one other tip: if the water is high and passerelle are in place, use them – if
you try to improvise a route down the back-alleys, the odds are that sooner or
later you’ll end up beating an ignominious retreat in the face of an unruly canal.
7
VeniceColourIntro.indd 7 3/4/07 10:51:48
h
Venetian names and Ce
n
I| dialect trale
n
t
R Venice has an array of idiosyncratic
o
D names for features of the cityscape.
U
c A canal is a rio, and an alleyway that
t
Io cuts through a building is a sotto-
n portico or sottoportego, to give its

W| dialect version. A street in Venice is
H generally a calle, but a parish’s major
e
R thoroughfare might be a ruga or a
e
t salizzada, a small street may be a
o ramo, a street alongside a body of
G
o water is a fondamenta (or a riva if

| it’s really big), and a street formed by
W
H filling in a canal is customarily a rio
en terrà (or terà). A square is usually a Taking its name – as does Venice
t campo (there’s only one Piazza), but itself – from the pre-Roman people
o
G it might be a campiello if it’s tiny, a known as the Veneti, the present-
o piscina if it was formed by filling in
| a place where boats used to turn, or day region of the Veneto essentially
a corte if it’s more a courtyard than covers the area that became the core
a square. of the Republic’s mainland empire.
All over the city you’ll encounter Vene- Everywhere in the Veneto you’ll find
tian dialect versions of Italian words and the imprint of Venetian rule. In Bel-
names. Among the chief characteristics
luno, right under the crags of the
of the Venetian vernacular are its
tendencies to slur consonants and Dolomites, the style of the buildings
truncate vowels. For example, the declares the town’s former allegiance.
Italian name Giuseppe here becomes A few kilometres away, the lion of
Isepo, Luigi becomes Alvise, Giuliano
Saint Mark looks over the central
becomes Zulian, Eustachio becomes
square of the hill town of Feltre,
Stae, Biagio becomes Biasio (or Bla-
sio), Agostino shrinks to Stin, and Gio- as it does over the market square of
vanni is Zuan or Zan – as in San Zan Verona, on the Veneto’s western
Degolà, for San Giovanni Decollato. edge. On the flatlands of the Po basin
You’ll see dose instead of doge, crose
(the southern border of the region)
instead of croce, do for due (two), nove
and on farming estates all over the
instead of nuove, fontego for fondaco
and sestier for sestiere. In Venetian Veneto, the elegant villas of the Vene-
dialect a shop isn’t aperto (open), it’s tian nobility are still standing.
verto. An ice cream is a geato, not Yet the Veneto is as diverse cul-
a gelato. You’ll also notice that the
turally as it is geographically. The
letter “x” occasionally replaces “z”
aspects of Verona’s urban landscape
(as in venexiana), and that the final
vowel is habitually lopped off Venetian that make the city so attractive were
surnames, as in Giustinian, Loredan, created long before the expansion
8 Vendramin and Corner, to cite just four of Venice’s terra firma empire, and
of the most conspicuous instances.
nearby Padua – for centuries a place
VeniceColourIntro.indd 8 3/4/07 10:51:51