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About Venice
Venice is one of Italy's most beautiful and romantic cities, built on the water in a lagoon. The city is built on an archipelago of 118 islands, intersected by 150 canals and connected by more than 400 bridges. Close to Venice are Marghera and Mestre, modern industrial towns.
Venice (Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venexia,Venessia), nicknamed the city of canals and La Serenissima, is the capital of the region of Veneto.
Venice was founded towards the middle of the 5th century by the inhabitants of the mainland who had fled to the lagoon to escape the barbarian invasions. Very soon, Venice developed maritime traffic and became a bridge between East and West. Venice was a vassal of the Byzantine Empire until the 10th century. Beginning with control of a trade route to the Levant, Venice emerged from the Fourth Crusade (1202–04) as ruler of a colonial empire which included Crete, Euboea, the Cyclades, the Ionian Islands, and footholds in Morea and Epirus. In 1381 it defeated Genoa after a century-long struggle for commercial supremacy in the Levant and eastern Mediterranean. In the 15th century, with the acquisition of neighbouring regions, the Republic of Venice became an extensive Italian state. In the heyday of the Venetian Republic, some 200,000 people lived in Venice. Merchants from Germany, Greece, Turkey and a host of other countries maintained warehouses here; transactions in the banks and bazaars of the Rialto dictated the value of commodities all over the continent. It gradually lost its eastern possessions to Ottoman Turks, with whom Venice fought intermittently from the 15th to the 18th century; it gave up its last hold in the Aegean in 1715. The republic dissolved and the territory was ceded to Austria in 1797. Incorporated into Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy in 1805, it was restored to Austria in 1815. A revolt against Austria (1848–49) eventually resulted in Venice being ceded to Italy in 1866. It suffered little damage during World War II, but flooding along its many miles of canals caused severe damage in 1966. The waters of the lagoon rise and flood the city on a regular basis, complicating efforts to preserve its architecture, which includes Italian, Arabic, Byzantine, and Renaissance forms. There are today some 450 palaces and homes of major historic importance in Venice. In the old center, the canals serve the function of roads, and every form of transport is on water or on foot. In the 19th century a causeway to the mainland brought a railway station to Venice, and an automobile causeway and parking lot was added in the 20th century. Beyond these land entrances at the northern edge of the city, transportation within the city remains, as it was in centuries past, entirely on water or on foot. Venice is Europe's largest urban carfree area, unique in Europe in remaining a sizable functioning city in the 21st century entirely without motorcars or trucks. The classical Venetian boat is the gondola, although it is now mostly used for tourists, or for weddings, funerals, or other ceremonies. Most Venetians now travel by motorised waterbuses (vaporetti) which ply regular routes along the major canals and between the city's islands. The city also has many private boats. The only gondolas still in common use by Venetians are the traghetti, foot passenger ferries crossing the Grand Canal at certain points without bridges.
Venice is served by the newly rebuilt Marco Polo International Airport, or Aeroporto di Venezia Marco Polo, named in honor of its famous citizen. The airport is on the mainland and was rebuilt away from the coast so that visitors now need to get a bus to the pier, from which a water taxi or Alilaguna waterbus can be used.
Most of the city's workers find employment in tourism and related industries, though Venice also plays a key market role within the vibrant economic system of the Veneto region.
Venice and its lagoon are listed as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.
Places to see
St Marco Square - Piazza San Marco , almost rectangular in shape, surrounded by palaces and covered walkways. In the background is St Mark's Basilica - Basilica di San Marco, beautiful church blending the architecture of East and West. It was consecrated in 832 AD.
Palazzo Ducale, also on St. Mark's Square, is the most impressive building in Venice and well worth a tour. It was the political and judicial hub of Venetian government until the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797. The palace was connected to its prisons by the famous Bridge of Sighs.
Grand Canal - Canal Grande traverses the city in the shape of a letter S and is skirted by the most sumptuous palaces. These include the Ca’ d’oro, Ca’ Rezzonico (Museum of 18th century Venetian art), and Ca’ Pesaro.
Museo Correr, the civic museum of Venice.
The Palace of the Doges is said to date from the ninth century; its actual form, a singularly graceful type of Gothic, dates from the fifteenth and fourteenth.
The Library of St Mark is in the old Mint, a 16th century Venetian masterpiece.
Along the Grand Canal is the Rialto Bridge, the most majestic and best-known of all Venice's bridges.
The Academy of the Fine Arts, in the guild of S. Maria della Carità, contains pictures almost exclusively of the Venetian School.
Some of the most important churches from an arts point of view are Ss John and Paul (San Zanipolo), Santa Maria dei Frari, and Santa Maria della Salute (by Longhena, built after the plague of 1630).
Other places
The Venetian Lagoon
Islands:
Burano
Lido
Murano
San Michele
Sant'Erasmo
San Lazzaro degli Armeni
Torcello
Vignole
Giudecca
