Author: donorione

Every year for two days in September, Italy celebrates the European Heritage Days, in the frame of the programme promoted since 1991 by the European Council and the European Commission. During the European Heritage Days, doors are opened to thousands of monuments and sites (some of them normally closed to the public), allowing people to enjoy free visits, learn about their shared cultural heritage and become actively involved in the safeguarding of Europe’s heritage for present and future generations. Million people participate to the events.
Venetian State cultural places and local museums, as well as galleries, foundations and private associations with guided tours, special initiatives and openings of spaces normally closed to the public, participate to the EHD.
Saturday, September 22nd evening special openings are also included with admission at the nominal cost of 1 euro. 

From “DeTourism”

Venice historic centre is completely pedestrian, it is not allowed to ride bikes nor any other cycles, not even carrying them by hand. It is only allowed to carry bikes by hand exclusively in the short itinerary going from Venice-Piazzale Roma, across Costituzione bridge, and then going along Santa Lucia bank, until the Scalzi Bridge.

For those arriving in Mestre by bike and directed to Venice, a bike-park is available with more than 800 places nearby Venezia-Mestre railway station, in Trento street.

Venice mainland has plenty of green areas: two big urban parks – Parco San Giuliano and Parco Albanese – as well as a 230-hectare area of woodland, that can be visited by bike lanes. All these green areas can be quite easily reached from Mestre historic centre by bycicle, thanks to an extensive network of cycling and walking routes.

To go to Lido and Pellestrina islands with your bike, you can only use special allocated ACTV public transport routes:

• the ferry-boat services connect Tronchetto terminal to Lido of Venice
• the boat routes connect Cavallino littoral to Lido and Pellestrina islands and to Chioggia historic centre
• the boat route Fusina-Alberoni.

In Mestre and at the Lido of Venice there is a fully automated public bicycle-sharing system, available 24/7. The first hour of use is free, while the next minutes are charged according to the given rates. To access the bike sharing service, you must have a Venezia Unica card. You can register online, or at authorized sales points.

Other itineraries on the outskirts:

• the Lido and Pellestrina cycling route
• the Munich – Venice cycling route

But you can choose many other bike tourism itineraries in the Region of Veneto.

From “DeTourism”

You are invited to the concert of sacred music at our Church of Santa Maria della Visitazione Friday, August 31st at 6.00 p.m. with free admission. The international choral project of Dr. Edzard Burchards and Dr. Kai Schulze-Forster chose music by Willaert, Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Merulo, Legrenzi, Lotti.

 

The spectacular event, the most famous Venetian Regatta starts from 4.00 pm with a magnificent historical procession consisting of splendid elaborately carved boats complete with hundreds of figures in gorgeous bracade costumes. The water parade reevokes the triumphant welcome accorded by the Serenissima to the Queen of Cyprus, Caterina Cornaro, who donated her kingdom to Venice in 1489.

There are four actual races, each one on special boats: the first is reserved for the Very Young on pupparini, the second for male crews on 6-oared caorline, the third for Women on 2-oared mascarete, while the 4th constitutes the high spot of the event, that is to say it sees the famous rowing champions compete on gondolini which are a sporting development of the gondola and are only used in the city’s major rowing contest. The arrival is at the Machina ( a grandstand of honour for the authorities) near Ca’ Foscari.

You can attend the Regata Storica comfortably seated on the uncovered floating stalls set up along the Grand Canal near Campo San Polo.

On Friday 24th August 2018, in the week before the Historical Regatta, a disnar with self-organized outdoor tables will be prepared in different areas of Venice city centre, the islands and the mainland. The tradition is back for people who want to know more about  the world of rowing and meet the rowers, in a very Venetian way of living. People bring their own food and drink to share it with other participants.

From “DeTourism”

At the entrance of the lagoon, among stretches of emerged shoals and canals, in the North-east area of Venice, there is the island of the Lazzaretto Nuovo, in front of Sant’Erasmo shore. The island bears the name of the leper hospital, which was founded in 1468 by the Serenissima government in order to prevent contagion. The Leper Hospital was called  New – to distinguish it from the Old one near the Lido of Venice, reserved to the evident cases of plague. The island, then, became the site where the goods and the crews of the merchant ships, suspected of plague, stopped for a period of precautionary isolation before being able to enter into the city, thus arriving to host thousands of people during the worst plagues.
It is possible to visit the island on Saturdays and Sundays from April to October,  with a guided tour,  which includes a historical and archeological itinerary inside the walls and an external naturalistic walk along the emerged shoals.

Birdwatchers, in the northern part of the Lazzaretto Nuovo, may enjoy a panoramic tower to admire the lagoon species, inhabiting the emerged shoals. These are lands above sea level, slightly appearing on the surface level of the lagoon, which are periodically submerged by the tides. They host herbaceous and shrub-like plants that resist to high saltiness, among which saltwort, artemisia and the limonium or sea lavender, whose late-summer blooming paints the lagoon with purple spots.

From “DeTourism”