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Venice is known for its countless canals, bridges, palaces and churches. And this is what you should see in Venice.
Church doors are open for everyone, anyone can cross bridges and canals. Some of the palaces are converted into hotels where you can stay a night often for surprisingly low cost.
Campo Santa Maria Formosa is typically Venetian
We are standing on the Campo Santa Maria Formosa in the Castello district of Venice.
The city’s most famous bridge Rialto is less than a ten-minute walk away from this square.
Leaving Rialto behind we cross one of the smaller bridges to get to the square.
On the bank of the canal that flows under it, boatmen load cargo onto the quayside. They speak to each other in a language that we don’t quite understand – Venetian language!
The Venetians spoke and partly still speak their own language, which is significantly different from modern Italian. It can be heard where there is still a local Venetian population, such as in the area of Santa Maria Formosa.
Quarantine is probably the most famous word whose origin is in the Venetian language. Trending word again during last few years.
Of course Venetians also have their own dialect of the Italian language.
In the middle of the square, a round stone structure about a meter high stands out from the pavement. It’s a well of which you can find at least one in every square in Venice.
On our right is the church that gave the square its name. Story tells that the Virgin Mary appeared to the bishop at the time as a cloud and urged to build a church at the place where the cloud ends. The original name was solemnly the Church of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin.
However, the people quickly turned it into the church of Buxom St. Mary according to the shape of the cloud, and it’s still known as such.
Stay in a former palace hotel
In front of us stands our hotel for the next few nights.
The foundations of our hotel are from the Byzantine period and the church of Santa Maria Formosa was founded at the same time as the city, at the end of the 7th century.
The current appearance is of course newer.
*Hotel Scandinavia was converted from a medieval palace into a hotel.
And it cost less than hundred euros per night to stay in Christmas 2019!
Wait, Scandinavia? Where does this name originate from – read further!
How it all began, the birth of Venice
A few tribes of the Italian peninsula fled foreign conquerors in the 6th century. After the fall of the Roman Empire, to a lagoon formed by numerous islands on the coast of northern Italy.
Later, a bishopric under Constantinople, or Eastern Rome, was also established there.
Gradually the community gained more and more power and independence.
Its ruler began to be called a doge, which is a variation of the Latin word dux meaning ruler. (Which also formed the expression meaning duke in several European languages).
According to tradition, the first Doge was elected in 697, which is considered the birth year of Venice, La Serenissima.
However, the first Doge mentioned in documents was named Ursus thirty years later.
The eighth (or tenth) Doge, Agnello, was elected in 811. He ordered a construction of canal network to begin on the islands formed by sandbars. This included building numerous bridges over canals.
The canals are the street network of Venice
Canals, bridges, wells, churches and palaces are historical structures that everyone who travels to Venice will notice, and it’s the canals that make the city world famous.
What is the history of these land and water marks? What is worth seeing in Venice?
Let’s start with the easiest, that would be canals.
The largest and most famous canal in Venice is the Canal Grande. Everyone who has been to the city has seen it, and many others have also seen it in pictures. It’s 3.8 kilometers long and winds in the shape of the letter S through the city from the the railway station embankment to St. Mark’s square.
Numerous other canals join the Grand Canal. The widest ones are called rio, which is a very Venetian term.
Those are joined by smaller canals, which are joined by other canals and the result is a veritable labyrinth of waterways.
To a casual visitor the canal network looks like a confusing maze, but it is the street network of Venice.
Of course, pedestrians have their own alleys, streets and squares. Motorized ground vehicles and bicycles are left in the parking garage near the train station in the old town of Venice.
Venetians know their canals well and there are professional groups that are forced to practically know their network by heart. These include ambulance drivers, fire department rescuers, police officers, taxi drivers (yes, they all use boats) – and of course gondoliers.
The gondoliers keep the age-old tradition alive
A couple of hundred years ago there were four thousand gondolas plying the canals of Venice, and at their peak in the 16th century up to 10,000.
Back at time these flat-bottomed boats were the most important form of transport and they were first mentioned as early as 1094. Today, there are only four hundred gondolas and they are exclusively for riding tourists.
Both the gondola and its driver, the gondolier, are under strict regulation. The metal bow of the gondola, for example, is shaped like the letter S, like the Grand Canal and its six prongs are said to symbolize the six districts of Venice, sestieri.
A gondolier goes through a six-month training and at the end of it has to pass several tests in, for example knowledge of the city and of foreign languages. And, of course, in rodding the gondola, which is an art form of its own.
In the old days, the gondola was owned by three men, two of whom were gondoliers and one who handled the office work. Today there is only one such combine left.
The first female gondolier passed the tests in 2010.
Vaporetto is the Venetian way of getting around
Today’s water transport is serviced by motorboats instead of gondolas. They carry cargo and passengers and operate emergency traffic.
A gondola ride is certainly a romantic, exciting and unforgettable experience with a well-trained gondolier guide, but also quite expensive. A cheaper and nowadays more authentic canal experience can be had by hopping on board a water bus – vaporetto.
The regular vaporettos transport passengers along the Grand Canal, around the center of Venice. They also will take you to other islands of the city such as Lido, Murano and Burano.
The clattering of the sides of the water buses against the platforms of the stops is a very authentic Venetian soundscape.
Both one-time tickets and multi-day cards are available for vaporettos, which can be bought from vending machines and kiosks.
The amount of luggage on vaporettos is limited, so tourists should think about the number of bags they will be traveling to the city with.
Venice has also banned the pulling of bags with wheels on the streets due to noise nuisance, so things will be all together easier for people traveling light.
Rialto and other bridges
In total 397 bridges cross the canals. Some lead to a cul-de-sac, i.e. an alley that usually ends in a canal, while others only lead to the front door of an apartment. Most are small and narrow, but the bridges on the biggest canals and main waterways can be quite wide.
Originally only one bridge led over the Grand Canal, the Ponte di Rialto. There wasn’t supposed to have need for more.
Bridges worth mentioning are, for example, the Ponte dell’Accademia near San Marco Square and the Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs), Ponte de le Tette (Bridge of Breasts), Ponte dei Pugni (Bridge of Fists) and Ponte della Paglia (Bridge of Hay).
Read more about the bridges of Venice and their background in our article 397 Venetian bridges.
Palazzos tell about the majesty of Venice
Since the Canal Grande is the “main street” of the city, the nobility built handsome palaces along it. They stand there proud and maybe a little sad even today.
The first palazzos were built along the main canal already in the 12th century. Building materials and decorations were produced in Byzantium, which reflected in their appearance. There are also clear influences from Arabia, another region which Venice traded the most with.
The Venetian-Byzantine style is also represented by St. Mark’s Basilica, which also has Romanesque and obvious Arabic influences.
This trend continued for a couple of hundred years, until Venetian Gothic entered the designs.
The windows of the palazzos along the Grand Canal are high and there is often a loggia on the side of the facade, i.e. a kind of terrace hidden behind the columns. The ground floor is accessible by boat because this is Venice.
Although they are medieval noble palaces, they had no defensive purpose. The fleet was the wall of Venice and the lagoon was the moat.
Important palaces on the Grand Canal include, for example, Ca’ d’Oro, Ca’ da Mosco, Ca’ Rezzonico, Palazzo Foscari and, of course, Palazzo Ducale aka the Doge’s Palace.
In addition to residential palaces, fondacos for foreign merchants were also built. Impressive Fondaco dei Turchi and Fondaco dei Tedeschi were buildings reserved for Turkish and German merchants, which were at the same time warehouses for trade goods and residential buildings for merchants. The word Fondaco comes from the Arabic language.
The remains of the Apostle Mark were looted
Arabs and Byzantines therefore strongly influenced Venetian culture. Even a little more was sought from both.
According to the story, in the 9th century some Venetian adventurers, perhaps even under the leadership of the then Doge, looted the remains of the apostle Mark from Alexandria, Egypt, which was held by the Arabs, or Saracens. They were hidden under pork meat during smuggling so that they wouldn’t be examined.
Saint Mark (San Marco) became the patron saint of Venice. His lion symbol appears on the walls of buildings around the Mediterranean and northern Italy in the area of the medieval Venetian empire.
But the Saracens didn’t leave the matter alone. They reportedly sent their agents to retrieve the relics. However, the Doge’s secret police were effective and the Saracen agents met a grim fate in the alleys and canals of Venice.
There are some place names as a memory from those times and a Saracen’s head engraved on the wall of a house in the sestiere of Cannaregio.
Viking carvings in the middle of Venice
The Fourth Crusade in 1204, largely financed by the Venetians, didn’t end against the Muslims holding the Holy Land, which would have been a bit like the idea of the Crusades. Instead, the expeditioners ended up sacking Constantinople, the Christian capital of Byzantium, which in turn was the idea of the Venetians. Byzantium was not only a trading partner, but also a hard competitor.
Some of the loot can be seen publicly and free of charge in the middle of Venice. The handsome stone horses in front of St. Mark’s Cathedral are from Constantinople, as are the stone lions in front of the Arsenale in Castello.
Arsenale was the shipyard of Venice, the birthplace of the naval power that ruled the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages. It is located slightly outside the tourist flow and the area is therefore worth visiting.
A runic inscription can be distinguished on the other lion statue when viewed closely. It was undoubtedly scratched by a Viking warrior who was a member of the Byzantine emperor’s bodyguard to pass the time. Or as a graffiti of the time.
Influences were exported all over Europe
Venice was one of the most powerful states in medieval Europe. Its economy was based on the fact that it acted as an intermediary for trade between China, the Ottoman Empire and Europe.
Marco Polo was a Venetian and although he may not have visited China, a Venetian trade delegation did. Polo’s home can still be found in the center of Venice near the Rialto Bridge, and why not.
With the help of its fleet Venice controlled the Mediterranean Sea and areas on islands and for example the Dalmatian coast.
It not only received influences from elsewhere, but also spread them. Thus, traditional dishes from Venetian restaurants can also be found in the seafood restaurants on the Montenegrin coast, with Montenegrin names.
Venetian representatives visited the court of the Serbian despot in the 15th century to strengthen diplomatic relations.
The shape of the windows of Smederevo Castle, which rises along the Danube, looks very familiar to the eyes of those who have been to Venice.
Read more about Serbia here
But why is the hotel built in a medieval palace called Scandinavia? Because the family that owned it in the 15th century traded especially with Scandinavia.
See art treasures in numerous Venetian churches
On Christmas night 2019 the church of Santa Maria Formosa is full. However, space is made for us at the end of the bench with a smile.
We don’t usually go to Christmas church or to church ceremonies in general. When the church is fifty meters from the door of the Hotel Scandinavia, however, we cannot pass up the opportunity. After all, we are in Venice.
The atmosphere is warm and relaxed, but we retreat to our hotel room in between.
In Venice there are churches on almost every block. The threshold for getting in is usually literally low, with no or only a couple of steps. Very often the churches are from the Baroque period, but there is also a much older churches, like St. Mark’s Basilica.
Among the most impressive of the medieval churches is SS Giovanni e Paolo (Church of Saints John and Paul) in Castello, next to the hospital.
Don’t do what we did, that is, mistake the hospital for a church. At least you’d avoid getting weird looks from the doorman asking if you can come in wearing shorts and a short skirt.
One of the most magnificent Renaissance churches is the Scuola Grande di San Rocco church in San Polo. The San Rocco brotherhood built its headquarters and the church next to it in the 15th century. Decoration work continued even in the 18th century.
The best professionals in the region, such as Tintoretto, Tiapolo and Titian, were hired to decorate the headquarters and the church. Along with the paintings the sculptural decoration is wonderful. If you’re wondering what to see in Venice, here you’ll find a collection of art from Venetian masters.
Where do the wells get their water from?
What about the wells? How can you find fresh groundwater on small sandbars surrounded by the sea?
You can’t.
Beneath the squares of Venice there are huge water tanks where rainwater filtered through the sand from the courtyards and roofs was collected.
A high stone ring rising from the ground prevents the overflowing sea water, acqua alta, from entering the well and spoiling the drinking water.
Old wells can still be found in all the squares, at least one in each. Even more in the largest ones, as well as in the courtyards of palaces.
And where do the Venetians dump their waste water?
Although drinking water nowadays comes from the mainland via water pipes, the situation with regard to wastewater is not necessarily as good. You can still see square openings at the water lines of the houses, from which sewage flows untreated directly into the canal.
Despite this disgusting fact, the persistent notion that Venice smells is untrue. We have visited this beautiful city several times – also in the warm season – and the smell has not hit our noses. Maybe some others have had worse luck.
P.s. *Book your stay at the former palazzo hotel Scandinavia here.