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Seaside Beautiful Town South of Venice

The shortest road between two points is seldom the most interesting (this is valid for all the rest of the world also..). In other words: use the highways only to move from a major area to another, but then use the back roads as much as possible, they are really fun to drive and they'll take you right in the hearth of Italy.

Remember that in Italy roads and highway are not marked North - South - West or East, but with their destinations. For example, the entrance of highway A1 in Florence will be marked MILAN instead of North and ROME instead of South. The entrance to the same highway in Rome, though, will be marked NAPLES instead of South, and FLORENCE instead of North.

If you can, don't go in August. In some cities it will be impossible to find even a grocery store open (Milan) while some other areas will be unbelievably packed with visitors (all the cities of art and the coast). For some strange reason, Italy stops in August and everybody goes on vacation. Imagine that the Courts and some hospitals close too! So, if you really have to go in August, the situation is worse in the cities of art than in the coast. If you really must visit either Venice, Florence, Rome or Naples (ranked by their August crowd-ratio) in August, I recommend that you stay in a hotel outside the city and that you park the car outside the downtown area.

The number one resource for a foreigner, who is visiting Italy, are Italians. They will be happy to help. Don't let the language be a hurdle. Use any three-dollar phrase book and try your best pronunciation. Believe me, they will understand (and they'll be proud of it). Remember to pay a lot of attention to their hands because they really say a lot, especially if you are asking for direction. DON'T BE AFRAID to ask. I have seen Italians who could not understand English look for others who could in order to help a foreigner. I have seen Italians who drove out of their way just to show tourist the right way to a place. So, please ask and you'll be happy you did!

Venice is a city unique in the world for the way it has developed: it was in fact built on over one hundred islands in the lagoon area, 4 kilometers away from the mainland and 2 kilometers from the Adriatic Sea. The whole historic center, crossed by canals crossed by hundreds of bridges, is a treasure from an artistic and architectural point of view and takes on an exceptional atmosphere on the occasion of the "high water" phenomenon, when the high tide exceeds the level. of the mainland by flooding the main squares and Venetian streets. Precisely for these characteristics Venice is one of the most visited Italian cities by tourists from all over the world. From an administrative point of view it is the provincial capital and the capital of the Veneto region.

With the fall of the Roman Empire, hordes of barbarians descended from the north of Europe, bringing death and destruction to Italy. The inhabitants of the Venetian cities, to escape the ferocity of the Huns and Vandals, took refuge in the islands of the Adriatic lagoon: it was thus that, around 450 d. C., Venice was born, a 'city of the islands' subject to Byzantine influence and governed by a duke, or doge, elected by a popular assembly.

The skilful use of diplomacy and weapons led Venice in a short time to be the master of the coasts of Istria, Dalmatia and Puglia and to become a real power less and less dependent on Byzantium. The splendor of what was called the Serenissima Republic, however, began only in 1202, when the doge Enrico Dandolo provided decisive help to the knights of the fourth Crusade in the conquest of Constantinople.

From the division of Byzantine assets, the Serenissima gained immense wealth that allowed it to broaden its commercial horizons: its ships dominated the Mediterranean as far as the Middle East and returned to the lagoon loaded with precious goods, unavailable in Europe.

Venice reached the pinnacle of power at the beginning of the fifteenth century, after defeating the Duke of Milan and conquering many cities in northeastern Italy, becoming with Milan and Florence one of the main powers of the Italian peninsula. From then on began the slow but inexorable descent of the Serenissima: starting from 1415 the Turks conquered the Venetian colonies in the Middle East one by one while at the end of the century the Portuguese, circumnavigating the Cape of Good Hope, opened a new path towards the Indie taking away the commercial primacy in those areas from the Venetians.

The last dazzling military victory was that of Lepanto, in 1571, against the Turkish fleet. Then the decline becomes unstoppable. In 1797 Venice lost its independence: it was conquered by Napoleon Bonaparte who later gave it to the Austrians. The Serenissima Republic no longer exists and only 70 years later, in 1866, the Venetian territories will become part of the nascent Kingdom of Italy.

Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance art: these are the main points of reference for the artistic development of Venice. The Byzantine style characterized the first centuries of the city. Marble and columns arrived from the Middle East in the lagoon city, where the work for the construction of the first large buildings was directed by oriental and Ravenna masters. A masterpiece of Romanesque-Byzantine art is the Basilica of San Marco, the center of Venetian life of all times. Today few buildings from that era remain and their location clearly demonstrates the first lines of development of the city: from San Marco to Rialto and, along the banks of the Grand Canal, from San Zan Degolà to San Polo.

From the mid-thirteenth century, the Gothic style was established in Venice, as in the rest of the Italian cities, among the most vivid testimonies of which we remember the Doge's Palace and the Ca 'd'Oro. In the sixteenth century the Renaissance style (Rialto bridge), then the Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassicism leaves a strong imprint. The testimonies of the great Venetian masters of painting of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are relevant throughout the city.

By car: Venice can be reached by car via the A4 Turin-Milan-Trieste motorway: at Mestre the motorway connects with an 11-kilometer freeway ("Ponte della Libertà") that leads to the lagoon. By car, however, it is not possible to go beyond Piazzale Roma, where the paid parking lots are located. Another way to reach Venice is to leave the car in the Mestre area and use public buses, which guarantee an excellent connection with Piazzale Roma.

By plane: The Venice / Tessera airport, "Marco Polo" is located 13 kilometers from the city and is served by the most important international airlines.

On the train: The Venice train station is called S. Lucia and is located on Fondamenta S. Lucia, near the last stretch of the Grand Canal. It is served daily by Intercity and Eurocity trains. The Mestre station, on the mainland, is located in piazzale Favretti.

Venetian cuisine has rustic origins, but trade with the Middle and Far East at the time of the republican splendor has enriched and vastly varied the recipe book. The galleons of the Serenissima returning from long journeys brought salt, pepper, ginger and even saffron from distant China to the lagoon city: spices unknown at that time, capable of stimulating the imagination of local cooks who gave life to an art one of a kind cuisine. And still today the Venetian cuisine seems to renew the freshness of those fragrances, with dishes with an elaborate preparation and a refined taste that often recall the flavors of distant lands.

Eating Venetian means first of all tasting the fish of the upper Adriatic. It is a fish of great quality and almost infinite typology which, thanks to the imagination of the recipes, lends itself to the most daring gastronomic variations. Crabs, octopus, scallops, moeche and cuttlefish are served with refined solutions that reflect the particular sensitivity and elegance of the Venetians.

The spider crab, for example, is a large crab that becomes a delicious appetizer on the tables of the Serenissima: it is thrown into boiling water and, at the end of cooking, seasoned with olive oil, salt, pepper and a pinch of lemon. A dish that demonstrates the Asian influence on the local gastronomy is instead that of sardines in carpione (in saor) that is braised and accompanied by onion, sultanas, candied fruit, pine nuts and vinegar, with the typical alternation of salty and sweet food. Another typical appetizer of the Venetian Riviera is the mixture of crustaceans and boiled fish, such as mantis shrimp, garusoli, baby octopus.

Among the first courses we should mention the delicate risottos, prepared with fish, shellfish and vegetables. We remember the risotto with cuttlefish ink, the one with prawns, with eel, with gobies and capes (clams and cockles). Shrimps and spider crabs are also excellent for pasta dishes, also accompanied by bigoi (desalted anchovies).

Among the main courses, pan-fried cuttlefish, stewed eels and all the fish from the Adriatic; sardines, turbot, baby octopus, mullet. The Venetian frying, conducted with expert techniques, is internationally famous.

But there is not only fish on the tables of Venetians. Among the dishes that have made the history of their gastronomy we find the Venetian liver, probably the best known of the specialties of the Serenissima that today can be tasted in almost all parts of the world. In practice, it is liver sliced ​​and cooked in a fried oil, onions, butter and parsley: a dish that is almost mandatory to taste during a visit to Venice. Another famous dish is risi e bisi, rice with peas, which opened the lunch of the Doge of Venice on the day of the feast of St. Mark.