When they tell you that Venice has never been invaded, they mean by a foreign military. They’re forgetting to count the tourists. Even in an off-season month like November, the island city’s top sights can be choked with eager visitors.
No one would want to come all the way to Venice and overlook the “biggies”–St. Mark’s Basilica, the Doge’s Palace, the Bridge of Sighs, the Accademia, the Ca’ d’Oro and the Rialto Bridge. But the city and its lagoon have many other points of interest that would be a shame to miss. Here are a few of them.
Scala del Bovolo
The red-tile rooftops of Venice, and the sky above them, never had a better frame than the columns and arches of Scala del Bovolo. In the late 1600s, this spiral staircase of 111 marble slab steps was added to the exterior of the existing Palazzo Contarini to connect the porches on each of five floors.
The staircase, topped by a lead cupola, dominates its small courtyard, whose only other adornments are the patch of grass at its base and the laundry hanging from neighboring windows. But it’s no good just looking at it. Scala del Bovolo must be climbed to be appreciated. That’s the only way to see the remains of the 15th Century frescoes that once decorated the building and get the rooftop view.
Where: In the San Marco district, off Campo Manin. View it from the courtyard anytime; but depending on the season, entrance is limited to certain days of the week. Admission $3.
The Ghetto
Like other public squares, or campos, in Venice, this one could use a few more trees, the laughter of more children and the voices of more mothers calling them to order. But this campo and the homes that surround it on this tiny island-within-an-island are different. This, the Ghetto Nuovo, was the world’s first Jewish ghetto. In fact, the term “ghetto” originated here. It’s the Ashkenazi (Jews from mid-eastern Europe) pronunciation of the Venetian word for foundries, “geti.”
When the city’s Jewish population grew to a size and importance that worried the rest of the citizenry, Jews in 1516 were segregated to the site of the foundries, required to wear a sign identifying them as Jewish and were allowed to work only as pawnbrokers. The ghetto was closed at night and its surrounding canals patrolled for curfew violators. Still, its population grew to a point that the houses here are the tallest in the city–some are eight stories high, though the floors are sub-standard height.
A walking tour of the neighborhood starts in the Jewish Museum, which displays silver and gilt service vessels such as spice boxes, menorahs, chalices, prayer-book covers and finials for torah scrolls; and personal items such as megillahs, sheets, baby clothes and marriage contracts with exquisitely painted borders. Access to two of the synagogues on the tour is actually through the museum and up several flights of steep stairs to the 1528 Ashkenazic Scola Tedesca, whose faux marble walls were painted from a mix of lime and marble dust, and to the 1532 Ashkenazic Scola Canton with its small stained glass dome above the bema and wooden columns carved to look like braided tree trunks. De pending on the time of year, the 45-minute tour also visits either the Scola Spagnola or Scola Levantina synagogues before concluding in Campo Ghetto Nuovo.
Like other campos in Venice, there are gift shops and eateries nearby. But this campo also has the sounds of lively discussions coming from behind the closed door of Yeshiva Gedolah Lubavitch, kosher bakeries along Ghetto Vecchio and two Holocaust memorials to the 204 Venetian Jews who didn’t return from the death camps of World War II.
Where: The Ghetto is in the center of the Cannaregio district, not far from the train station. The walking tour includes admission to the Jewish Museum and costs $9.
Naval History Museum
Sometime while you’re in Venice, someone should tell you about the city’s wedding custom, that is, the marriage ceremony of Venice itself to the sea. Just in case no one else gives it you, here’s the story: In 1177, Pope Alexander III was well pleased with Venice for political reasons and in his gratitude gave a gold ring to the doge, the ruler of the Venetian Republic.
The ring was intended to be a symbol of, as the pope put it, “a sea submissive as a bride to her bridegroom.” The bridegroom took the compliment to heart and initiated a yearly wedding in which the doge, with great pomp, would be rowed out to a certain place in the lagoon and toss a ring valued at 6 ducats into the sea. “We marry you, oh sea,” the doge would vow, “in token of our true and perpetual domination.”
The custom apparently caught on to such a degree that every boat that was launched from the Arsenale shipyards had a wedding and a ring of its own. On the third floor of the Naval Museum, seven of these ship’s rings, big as salad plates, are on display. Each vessel’s bronze wedding ring, set with a proportionately sized “stone,” was tied to the stern by a long ribbon. As the ship was launched, the ring touched the water and the marriage was consummated.
If all this talk of love and marriage is too frilly for your style, the museum has plenty of rough stuff on display. There are firepots, actually antique grenades filled with glass and iron, like those the Venetians used during their siege of Candida (1644-1669). There are projectiles, made by connecting two cannon ball halves with 2 feet of chain, that during sea battles were catapulted toward the masts of enemy ships. There are arquebuses, muskets and swords from the 17th Century on and, from more modern times, a truly painful looking rubber scuba diving suit, with tanks on the front, used during World War II by the Royal Italian Navy in the waters off Gibraltar and Algeria.
Models of ships throughout history are displayed in all sizes, the largest being almost two stories tall with sails, a mock up of the keel-laid Cesare that was launched during the Napoleonic era.
Where: In the Castello district near the Arsenale, on the waterfront facing San Marco Basin. Admission $3.
San Giorgio Maggiore
It’s a good thing that the bell tower’s observation deck has a chest-high wall all the way around. Otherwise, when the bells ring, sightseers might very well be shaken from this perch with a bird’s eye view of San Marco Basin. The bells are huge and black with age, and their ringing is brought about by the mechanical pull of chains black with grease.
People come to the bell tower of San Giorgio Maggiore Church to see Venice from beyond the fray. The tower and its church are on an island directly across from the entrance to Piazza San Marco, but far enough away, and above, that you can see the whole city behind it. The low-slung skyline is set off with the exclamation points of other church bell towers and the booms of a surprising number of construction cranes.
San Giorgio’s bell tower also is a good place to watch the water traffic–everything from fishing boats to luxury cruise liners–in the lagoon. And the church at its base is home to several Tintorettos.
Where: San Giorgio Maggiore is on its own island, a 10-minute vaporetto ride across the San Marco Basin from Piazza San Marco. To get there, go to the San Zaccaria vaporetto stop and take the No. 82 vaporetto. Admission to the church is free. The bell tower is $4.
Murano
At the end of the 13th Century, Venice decreed that glass could no longer be made in the city. Its manufacture caused too many fires. The furnaces all moved to Murano, where some 70 glass factories still operate. In the larger shops, the ones that can make those fantastically fluted chandeliers, there may be four or five men to a glass-blowing team. To become a full-fledged member requires a 15-year apprenticeship.
In Venice’s high-traffic areas, and at many hotels, people are hawking free tours to Murano; or to be more honest, they are hawking a trip to a glass factory in hopes of making a sale. It’s enough to turn you off of going there. But it’s easy to get to Murano on your own, without your feeling obligated.
Murano is a less crowded Venice, slower paced and with wider canals. It feels freer, airier and is a good place for non-competitive strolling. Its Glass Museum, in Palazzo Giustiniani, is home to the largest collection of historical Murano glass anywhere.
The very same designs that seem so improbable and impractical in the shop windows of Venice make perfect sense here; they’ve been making goblets look like dolphins dripping with lace for hundreds of years. Glass artifacts from earlier cultures that date as early as the 1st Century include perfume bottles with colorful swirled patterns reminiscent of Italian marbled paper; and from more recent centuries, over-the-top hand-blown chandeliers that must be 12 to 15 feet tall.
Where: Murano is an island in the Venetian Lagoon, about a 10-minute vaporetto ride from Venice. To get there, go to the Fondamente Nove vaporetto stop in Venice and take the No. 12 vaporetto to Murano. Admission to the Glass Museum is $4.50, or included in the $17 Venice museum pass.
Burano
They call it punto in aria, stitches in the air. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s just lace. No, this is three-dimensional sculpture wrought with needle and thread. Or it’s like jewelry, worked so finely it could pass for silver filigree. What Murano is to glass, Burano is to lace, except that hardly anyone here makes it anymore, outside of the Lace Museum.
What sets Burano lace apart is that it truly is made by needle and thread, without a fabric base. The women who still demonstrate this art in the museum do their work supported by a cylindrical pillow covered with waxed paper on which a design has been drawn. When the lacework is complete, the waxed paper is simply peeled away.
It was a notable business on the island during those centuries when lace was a fashion necessity. In the 1960s, there was an attempt to revive the art, but even that fizzled. The interest is kept alive in the museum, which opened in 1981 and displays about 200 examples of lace types that date to the 16th Century, and in local gift shops, which unfortunately sell lace that comes mostly from somewhere else.
But you don’t have to shop on Burano. It’s too much fun to just wander around the island among the brightly painted row houses, the other thing Burano is noted for. True blue, Kelly green, Barney purple, fire-engine red and cab yellow they are, and all reflected in the calm waters of Burano’s canals.
Where: Burano is an island in the Venetian Lagoon, about a 45-minute vaporetto ride from Venice. To get there, go to the Fondamente Nove vaporetto stop in Venice and take the No. 12 vaporetto to Burano. Admission to the Lace Museum is $4.50, or included in the $17 Venice museum pass.
Torcello
In Italy, it’s easy to overdo it on church visits because so many of them house masterpieces of art. And Venice certainly has its share. So it doesn’t make much sense, at first, to send people almost an hour’s boat ride away to an island where there’s not much else to do but see yet another church. But Torcello’s Basilica di Santa Maria Dell’ Assunta is different.
Its Romanesque architecture dates to 1008, with vast glass mosaics in its apse and back wall. The view from its bell tower overlooks lagoon waters that are disturbed only by green islands of farm plots, rather than boat traffic.
The 15- to 20-minute walk from the vaporetto stop to the church follows a canal past a few homesteads where oranges and pomegranates hang from the trees. And although Torcello doesn’t receive anything like the press of visitors in Venice, this quiet, rural island does draw enough people in high season to keep three small restaurants going, one of which grows its own vegetables out back.
A visit to rural Torcello strikes a balance with crowded Venice. It’s what Venice would have looked like many centuries ago, before it was entirely built-over, before its days as an empire, before the tourist invasions.
Where: Torcello is an island in the Venetian Lagoon, a five-minute vaporetto ride from Burano. To get there, follow the directions to Burano, above, then stay on the boat until you arrive at Torcello. Admission to the basilica and bell tower is $4.50.
IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE
There are no non-stop flights between Chicago and Venice. You’ll have to change planes, perhaps in London, Paris or Milan.
Anything can happen with air fares, but you can expect them to run around the $800 mark for round-trip travel from Chicago in August and September.
From the Venice airport, you have three ways into the city: buses that cost $1-$3; a “speedboat” called the Alilaguna that costs $12; or private water taxis that cost $50-$90, depending on who you ask and where you are going; prices are one-way.
An alternative is to fly as far as Milan, where your connecting flight might land anyway, and continue by train to Venice. From the Milan airport, you’d take the $5 shuttle bus to Milan’s Central Station, an hour away. From there, it’s about a three-hour ride to Venice, with trains departing almost every hour; Second Class costs $12 and First Class costs $28 one-way.
STAYING THERE
There are multitudes of hotels in Venice. The trick is finding one that minimizes the number of bridges you’ll have to climb, with your luggage in tow, to get to it. If you are taking a private water taxi to a hotel that has a canal entrance, you’re all set. If not, here are some comfortable three-star hotels that will let you save your biceps curls for the gym.
Hotel Ala: Rooftop terrace, antiques in the public areas and a breakfast buffet that’s superior to the one that’ll cost you $43 at the Danieli. Elevator access to most floors, some canal-view rooms. Air conditioning, mini bars, hair dryers. Standard double rooms $152-$250 including tax and breakfast; superior doubles, suites and single rooms available. On Campo S. Maria de Giglio in the San Marco district, less than a block from the S. Maria de Giglio vaporetto stop. Also has canal access for water taxis and gondolas. A Best Western affiliate. (011-39-041-520-8333; or at www.hotelala.it)
Hotel Belle Arti: Large landscaped courtyard on a quiet street a block from the Accademia. Elevator, air conditioning, hair dryers. Standard doubles $158-$224 including tax and breakfast; triples and singles available. On Via Dorsoduro in the Dorsoduro district, a block from the Accademia vaporetto stop. (011-39-041-522-6230; or at www.hotelbellearti.com)
Hotel Locanda San Barnaba: Private garden and only 14 rooms, practically on the front step of the Ca’ Rezzonico. Air conditioning, hair dryers. Standard doubles $132-$185 including tax and breakfast; superior doubles, suites and singles available. On Calle de Traghetto in the Dorsoduro district, no more than one small bridge away from the Ca’ Rezzonico vaporetto stop. Also has canal access for water taxis and gondolas. (011-39-041-241-1233; or at www.locanda-sanbarnaba.com)
PORTERS
Of course, if you still don’t want to lug your luggage, you can find porter stands near the San Marco and San Zaccaria vaporetto stops. Rates are $17 for one bag, $23 for two, $28 for three or four.
DINING
Venice is noted for fresh seafood. Two strictly Venetian specialties are spaghetti al nero di seppia (squid ink pasta) and sardi in saor (fried sardines served in a sweet-and-sour relish made of onions, pine nuts and raisins).
Unless you eat at the fast-food chains or pizzerias, full-fledged meals with dessert and wine are expensive in Venice. Plan on spending $20 to $30 per person for lunch and $40 to $50 for dinner–or more.
Some suggestions:
La Colonna, in the Cannaregio district on Campiello del Pestrin, near the Fondamente Nove vaporetto stop. Excellent sardi in saor.
Le Cafe, in the San Marco district on Campo San Stefano. Good for light fare such as salads and crepes.
Gam-Gam, in the Cannaregio district at entrance to the Jewish Ghetto. Kosher menu. Wonderful grilled vegetables.
Caffe Quadri, in Piazza San Marco. Tea and sandwiches in a historic setting.
Caffe Lavena, in Piazza San Marco. Outdoor seating in the piazza while the bands play on. Cocktails run about $9, and you’ll pay another $5 for the music, even when this cafe’s band is taking a break.
Gelateria Ca’ d’Oro, in the Cannaregio on Strada Nuova. Sugar-free and fat-free gelato.
Harry’s Bar, in the San Marco district on Calle Vallaresso. Hemingway drank here, but then, where didn’t he?
MORE INFORMATION
Italian Government Travel Office: 500 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 2240; or 312-644-0990; or 312-644-0996; or www.italiantourism.com.
— Toni Stroud
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E-mail: ctc-travel@tribune.com
