Your Key To Venice Italy 2025

If only they could talk: campi, calli and bridges, stories of a city and it's inhabitants.

Born within a conglomerate of islands offering shelter from the barbarian 5th-century invasions, Venice turned into the longest-lasting Republic in history. Home to many different communities, it was the result of 1100 years of mercantile expertise, where centuries of trade crafted the city into a cosmopolitan civilization, where usual outcasts (women or foreigners) were granted unparalleled freedoms.
To give a first taste of Venice’s soul, let us start our journey from the iron head of the gondola, its artistic aerial picture, symbolizing its main islands, the Grand Canal, and its sestieri, the city’s six districts. In one of them, the San Polo district, Rio Terà de le Carampane lies: nowadays, the term ironically refers to older women faking their age, but in the 1500s, it referred to courtesans, both poor and noble, residing in the Ca’ Rampani palace.
We arrive at Campo de la Pescaria, where a historic eatery offers its bargoers cicchetto al baccalà (codfish tapas), a delicacy discovered by chance after a Venetian merchant’s shipwreck in Norway; the building’s façade allegedly portrays the protector of pilgrims, who may rest there sipping a glass of wine, witnessing the long-lasting vocation of such building.
After taking the traghetto (a canal-crossing gondola), we dock in Cannaregio and stop at Santa Fosca’s pharmacy, founded in the1600s, where marks from the pestles can be still seen on the pavement: did you know that the thermometer was invented by a Venetian doctor, Santoro Santoro? We then reach Campo dei Mori, named after four statues of wealthy Arab merchants, and visit the Bottega del Tintoretto, a workshop equipped with presses and tools from ancient Venetian printmaking artisans.
For noir enthusiasts, a must is Calle de la Testa, home of Venice’s executioners: both official and unofficial death sentences were handed out there, with the Venetian stiletto, a thin glass blade, being the preferred tool to accomplish the latter. Worthy to mention is then the uniquely designed Ponte della Sensa: rumor has it that when Mary Shelley was in town, the clouds over that bridge would form monstrous figures.
Near Campo San Giovanni e Paolo, Father Rino guides us through the 14th-century library of San Francesco della Vigna Church, a treasure of inestimable value. While walking, look for brick arches connecting two palaces: back in those times, that was the way to signal the existence of family alliances forged by marriage.
After a pause at the Morion, a colorful, mural-painted social center hosting events and concerts, San Marco Square opens up; just around the paron de casa (the bell tower, tenderly dubbed “householder”), the Royal Gardens, once the chair of the Health Magistrate, and Sotoportego de la Polvere, where both men and women once bought cosmetic powders
Our promenade ends with a stunning view of Ca’ Dario cursed palace, whose owners all historically met an undesirable fate.
The palace has just been sold: would you have dared to buy it?

Domiziana Quaia is a member of Les Clefs d’Or Italy. This article has been published in its original form.