Venice is a woman: The world's feminine side

By Daniela de Rosa

Venice is known to be the most romantic city in the world. But you don't have to wait for Prince Charming in order to visit it. You only need a girlfriend, curious, with good taste and a pinch of irony. Like this 'little black book' will help discover a Serenissima only for women: sightseeing, hotels, restaurants, cafes, lounge bars and shops. And much more: you'll find in it everything about the Venetian ladies who shaped the city, all you must know about the gondoliers and many other oddities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Permesola
• Release date: Jul 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9788835869634

Book preview

Daniela de Rosa

Venice is a woman

The world's feminine side

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Table of contents

INTRODUCTION

WHY VENICE? THERE IS A REASON. AND MORE THAN ONE.

CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS OF THE SERENISSIMA REPUBBLICA'S WOMEN (AND THEIR MEN)

VENETIANS OF YESTERYEAR

VENETIANS OF TODAY

THE INSIDER’S ADVICE

WHEN TO VISIT

WHAT TO PACK

HIGH WATER

HOW TO GET THERE

HOW TO GET AROUND

GOING SOLO

Cannaregio

Castello

San Marco

San Polo

Dorsoduro

Santa Croce

Giudecca

VENICE WITH CHILDREN

FIFTEEN ‘MUSTS’

GO ALL OUT

FREE (OR NEARLY)

OUTSIDE VENICE

THE LIDO

PELLESTRINA

MURANO

BURANO E MAZZORBO

TORCELLO

SANT'ERASMO

LE VIGNOLE

SAN LAZZARO DEGLI ARMENI

MESTRE

WHERE TO STAY

WHERE TO EAT AND DRINK

FOR A SNACK

COFFEE TIME

DINING AS IT SHOULD BE

SHOPPING

FOR THE WARDROBE

FOR THE NIGHTSTAND

FOR THE HOME

FOR THE LARDER

STAYING OUT LATE

DORSODURO, WHERE STUDENTS HANG OUT

THE CLASSICS

HYPER-CHIC HOT SPOT

BASIC SERVICES

LAUNDRIES AND MORE

HAIRDRESSERS

COSMETICS

BEAUTY AND GYMS

PHARMACIES

FUN FACTS

TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR THE SMART TRAVELLER

USEFUL NUMBERS

FURTHER INFORMATION

IN LITERATURE

IN FILMS

ON THE WEB

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

VENICE IS A WOMAN

Daniela de Rosa

COPYRIGHT 2020 ©Permesola.com

All rights reserved

www.permesola.com

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INTRODUCTION

Travel guides age quickly. More than their own writer. Since I tried to describe the feminine side of Venice – and I’ve been the first in doing so – Venice itself has changed. Not much, because it’s the same amazing city it has always been, but enough to require a new book.

While you explore it, while you stroll along its calli, you can listen to the playlist on Spotify I have specifically compiled for your stroll.

Venezia has been visited by the majority of people at least once. I lived there for ten years and I go back regularly for weeks, sometimes months. It could be the most difficult city to visit and, for someone who loves photography like me, impossible to be shot at. Everything has already been seen, told, photographed. It’ really difficult to find something original. Therefore, I don’t want to tell you what you can find in Piazza San Marco or how good is a coffee in Caffè Florian. I want to convey the unicity of this strange place, sole shaped, such as Tiziano Scarpa in his book " Venezia è un pesce" (a beautiful book, in my opinion), that needs to be savoured slowly, on foot, leaving behind the rest of the world at each step. Let’s be frank: Venice has not got any better in the last 20 years. On the contrary. Politic has favoured a ruthless tourism, 30 million people arrive every year, step on every single masegno, go up every single bridge, fill its calli. The meagre population (not much more than 53.000, as a display in the Campo San Bartolomio pharmacy shows) can’t breathe under this burden, not always polite and respectful, but craving cheap souvenirs, and dreams to stuck into their backpacks to bring home.

However, I’m sure that you someone offers a weekend in Venice or if you are presented with an excuse to visit t again, you’ll never say no, even though you have visited it a million times. Because the charm Venice exudes (together with the smell of rotten water rising from the canals, in summer more than ever) is something unique and no other place in the world has it. Therefore, get ready for a new discovery. Follow me and find the Venetian women inside yourself. And remember not to bring your heels.

You can find all the places mentioned in this guide in this map, that I compiled specifically for you.

"No city was superior to Venice for its number of high-profile women, beautiful in body as in spirit and mind.

Roman ladies were pretty, but not always chaste (...) those that lived in the Caucus were pretty (and still are), but cruel and vindictive at the same time.

Only the Athenians could be compared to the Venetian women in regards to their beautiful figures, liveliness, their graceful speech - but the Venetians surpassed them in their softness, modesty and subtle wit."

Eugenio Musatti, La donna in Venezia, Draghi, Padova, 1891.

WHY VENICE? THERE IS A REASON. AND MORE THAN ONE.

Venice at sunset: is that a reason enough?

That’s easy: it’s the city that everyone wants to see at least once in their lifetime. It was built on the water, against all odds of construction and has withstood the test of time throughout centuries without changing much; it’s both an anti-modern yet anti-conformist city. It’s quite an architectural feat: building a city - and what a city indeed! - on wooden poles stuck in the mud and mire… it’s nothing to sneeze at. Yet the handful of people from Veneto fleeing from the barbarians around 400 A.D. did just that - they built the city on the water, counting on the fact that the enemy wouldn’t be able to reach them through the swamps and lagoons. Even if only for this reason - to see how an aquatic city lives and breathes centuries later - it would be worth seeing.

But there are other reasons too: Art, for example. In its age of glory (that of the Serenissima Repubblica), Venice was busy building, decorating, and embellishing. Among its palaces, museums, works of art - its array of cultural assets is dazzling. And then there's romanticism: they say that Venice is the most romantic city in the world. It's true. But it's worth seeing without having to wait for the love of your life to walk with arm in arm through the narrow streets because it is also a safe city that is well-suited for women, provided they're not wearing heels (but we'll talk more about that later).

CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS OF THE SERENISSIMA REPUBBLICA'S WOMEN (AND THEIR MEN)

The gondoliers are very often flirtatious

Flirtatious Men and Their Colleagues

Like all touristic cities, Venice is filled with... tourists. That is also young ladies and women, maybe in small groups, that go there to take in the scenery and monuments. There are some Venetians who are convinced that these women only want to have fun with the locals, and they've created a proper Club for Flirts, with the goal of 'conquering' as many foreign women as possible. They have a scoreboard and point system: Swedish women are worth less than Spanish women because they're easier to conquer, for one thing.

… And so on and so forth. They 'work' in the neighbourhoods around Piazza San Marco, and when all is said and done, they run off to tell their friends how it went.