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

488 Pages·2007·28.12 MB·English

by  Rough Guides, Jonathan Buckley

Rough Guides • Broaden your horizons
Explore Venice and the Veneto in depth, using the
clearest maps of any guide.
Choose where to go and what to see, inspired by
dozens of photos.
Read expert background on everything from San
Marco to the palazzi of the Canal Grande.
Rely on our selection of the best places to stay, eat
and drink, for every budget.
It’s like having a local friend help plan your trip.
“There is nothing rough about Rough Guides . . . well
written, thoroughly researched.”
Mark Hodson, Sunday Times
THE ROUGH GUIDE to
Venice
& the Veneto
OTHER ROUGH GUIDES www.roughguides.com
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ROUGHGUIDES
Venice & the Veneto
ROUGHGUIDES
PHRASEBOOK
WITH AUDIO FILES
MAP 1:7,400
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 fve novels: The Biography of Thomas
sections and you should be able to fnd
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 frst 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 flls 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
corrections, and a comprehensive index. Author Picks
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
p ublished June 2007. fag up book, flm 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.
Accommodation price codes
Each accommodation entry in this guide is classifed into
nine price categories, indicating the range of prices for a
double room. In high season you should expect to pay some-
thing close to the maximum indicated.
1 under E100 4 E200–250 7 E350–400
2 E100–150 5 E250–300 8 E400–500
3 E150–200 6 E300–350 9 over E500
The publishers and authors have done their best to ensure the accuracy and
currency of all the information in The Rough Guide to Venice and the Veneto, Right: Traghetto on the Grand Canal © James McConnachie
however, they can accept no responsibility for any loss, injury, or inconvenience Front cover image: Basilica di San Marco © Mark Thomas
sustained by any traveller as a result of information or advice contained in the guide. Back cover image: Grand Canal © Axiom
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UK £12.99 US $18.99 CAN $25.99
I S B N 978-1-84353-808-0
5 1 8 9 9
9 7 8 1 8 4 3 5 3 8 0 8 0
The Rough Guide to
Venice & the Veneto
written and researched by
Jonathan Buckley
with additional contributions by
Charles Hebbert and Richard Schofeld
NEW YORK • LONDON • DELHI
www.roughguides.com
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Contents
M Vicenza, Verona and around .. 322
Colour section 1–16 N The northern Veneto.......... 354
Introduction ............................... 5
Where to go ............................... 7 Contexts 385–428
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
Getting there............................ 19 architecture............................ 407
The media ................................ 24 Conservation and
Travelling with children............. 25 restoration .............................. 414
Travel essentials ...................... 26 Books .................................... 420
Guide 33–384 Language 429–442
Venice: practicalities ........... 35 A glossary of Italian words and
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
5 Central Castello ................ 158 Travel store 443–450
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
J Shopping .......................... 275 following p.112
K Directory ........................... 283
The Veneto: practicalities .. 287 Venetian palaces colour
L Padua and the southern section following p.256
Veneto............................... 293
3
컅컅 Piazza San Marco 컅 The domes of Basilica di San Marco
| CONTENTS |
Introduction to
Venice
& the Veneto
Nobody arriving in Venice for the frst time is seeing the
city for the frst time. Depicted and described so often
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 flm
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 ffteen hundred years ago on a cluster of mudfats
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 artifcial 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 insignifcant alleyway
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Fact fle
• The Veneto is mountainous in
the north, where the Dolomites
extend towards the Austrian bor-
der, and fat in the more extensive
southern part of the region, where
the Po river forms the boundary
with Emilia-Romagna. This fertile
plain is one of Italy’s major agricul-
tural zones, with wine production
being especially important: 20 per-
cent of all Italian DOC (Denomina-
zione di origine controllata) wine is
bottled in the Veneto.
• A little under 4.5 million people
live in the Veneto, which is divi-
ded into seven regions, centred
on the cities of Venice (capital
of the Veneto), Belluno, Padua
you might fnd fragments of a medieval
(Padova), Rovigo, Treviso, Verona
building embedded in the wall of a house and Vicenza. The historic core of
like fossil remains lodged in a clif 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.
The neighbouring conurbation
what the city has become. In the heyday
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
numerous other large-scale indu-
houses here; transactions in the banks
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;
80 percent of Italian eyewear and
the workforce was so vast that a warship
70 percent of Italian sports shoes
could be built and ftted out in a single
are made in the Veneto; and local
day; and the Piazza San Marco was frms such as Benetton, Diesel
perpetually thronged with people here and Stefanel are mainstays of
the Italian clothing industry. And
to set up business deals or report to the
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.

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h Gondolas
Where to go
he monuments which draw the largest crowds are the Basilica di San
Marco – the mausoleum of the city’s patron saint – and the Palazzo
Ducale – the home of the doge and all the governing councils. Certain-
Tly these are the most dramatic structures in the city: the frst a mosaic-
clad emblem of Venice’s Byzantine origins, the second perhaps the fnest of all
secular Gothic buildings. Every parish rewards exploration, though – a roll call
of the churches worth visiting would feature over ffty names, and a list of the
important paintings and sculptures they contain would be twice as long. Two
of the distinctively Venetian institutions known as the Scuole retain some of the
outstanding examples of Italian Renaissance art – the Scuola di San Rocco,
with its dozens of pictures by Tintoretto, and the Scuola di San Giorgio
degli Schiavoni, decorated with a gorgeous sequence by Carpaccio.
Although many of the city’s treasures
remain in the buildings for which they
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 fll 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
c onducted, 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.
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the acqua alta
Floods – acque alte – have been an element of the Venetian winter for hundreds
of years, but since the middle of the twentieth century there’s been a relentless
increase in the frequency with which the city’s streets become immersed. It’s
now very rare indeed, between October and late February, for a week to pass
without fooding, and it’s not at all uncommon for fooding of some extent to
occur on every day of the week – indeed, in the notoriously soggy winter of
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
areas, such as Campo San Polo, forming puddles that quickly merge into a
shallow little lake. Soon after, you’ll notice that wavelets are spilling over the
quayside in front of the Palazzo Ducale. Sometimes it doesn’t progress much
further than this, but often it gets much worse. If you hear sirens wailing over
the city it means that there’s about four hours to go before the peak of a serious
acqua alta, which is defned as a food that rises in excess of 90cm above the
mean lagoon level at the Salute. (Instruments on the side of the Campanile
di San Marco display a continuous measurement of the water level and a
prediction of the day’s high tide – if the red light is on, a big food is coming.)
Having lived with acque alte for so long, the city is well geared to dealing with
the nuisance. Shopkeepers in the most badly affected areas insert steel shutters
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 suffcient, 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 effciently, so you will
fnd 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
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Venetian names and
dialect
Venice has an array of idiosyncratic
names for features of the cityscape.
A canal is a rio, and an alleyway that
cuts through a building is a sotto-
portico or sottoportego, to give its
dialect version. A street in Venice is
generally a calle, but a parish’s major
thoroughfare might be a ruga or a
salizzada, a small street may be a
ramo, a street alongside a body of
water is a fondamenta (or a riva if
it’s really big), and a street formed by
flling in a canal is customarily a rio
terrà (or terà). A square is usually a Taking its name – as does Venice
campo (there’s only one Piazza), but itself – from the pre-Roman people
it might be a campiello if it’s tiny, a
known as the Veneti, the present-
piscina if it was formed by flling in
day region of the Veneto essentially
a place where boats used to turn, or
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 fnd
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 fatlands 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 fnal
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 frma empire, and
of the most conspicuous instances.
nearby Padua – for centuries a place
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h Centrale
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