Venice Kayak

Venice Kayak has appeared on Brazilian television, in a programme called Pelo Mundo.

The coverage can be seen online here:  Empresa oferece passeios de caiaque guiados pelos canais de Veneza

The Certosa Hotel and Venice Kayak offers a combined package of three nights at the Certosa hotel, a dinner in the hotel restaurant and a kayaking day tour of Venice or the lagoon.

The offer is valid for stays between August 21st and September 1st.

Prices are as follows.

• For one person in a single room: €314 (kayaking tour with others).
• For two persons in a double room: €549 (€275/person).
• For three persons in a triple room: €749 (€250/person).

The hotel room is with breakfast included.

The dinner is at the hotel restaurant, and consists of various Venetian specialities, such as sarde in saor, pasta allo scoglio,  frittura mista.

The kayaking tour can be any of Venice Kayak’s day tours, to Venice, or Burano through the lagoon of Venice. Evening tours can be arranged for an additional €50, and private tours (with no other participants) for an additional €100.

Booking through the Certosa Hotel, phone: +39 041 2778632, fax: +39 041 8623113, email info@venicecertosahotel.com.

Venice Kayak has initiated a cooperation with the  Hotel Cipriani, offering kayaking tours directly from the hotel’s premises on the Giudecca island.

The Hotel Cipriani is the most prestigious hotel in Venice, in a category of it’s own. Located on the Giudecca island, almost directly in front of the Piazza San Marco, it is only a five minutes paddle to the start of the Canal Grande.

Tours from the Hotel Cipriani are only available to guests of the hotel. They are booked through the concierge.

Venice for Visitors – one of the authoritative Venice travel web sites – have recently featured Venice Kayak on their front page.

In the last several years, we’ve occasionally noticed small flotillas of kayaks in the back canals of Venice. We never gave them much thought until a reader asked about boat rentals, whereupon we discovered Venice Kayak in a Google search.

Read more on the Venice for Visitors blog

Venice Kayak was featured in an article in the largest Swedish daily on Sunday, June 12th:

Venedig från vattenytan

Glöm dyra gondolturer! Att paddla kajak under broarna på Venedigs alla kanaler måste vara det absolut bästa sättet att uppleva en av världens vackraste städer.

Article by Helene Lundgren, photo by Felix Oppenheim.

When we’re paddling around Venice we often get photographed, very often indeed, and every once in a while the photos appear here and there, in magazines, on web sites, in blogs or even in advertising. We do stick out a bit in the canals of Venice.

Last month when I was out paddling with a couple, I paddled backwards down the Canal Grande, just so I could get them some good holiday shots from their kayaking tour in Venice.

By chance Fausto Maroder who works at the Alloggi Barberia in Venice, noticed it and took some photos. He has later put those photos on his blog.

Interestingly, while I did it to take photographs, he imagines I did it to be photographed.

Here are a few other photos from that same day.

“À faire en Italie : la liste de François-Étienne” is a different travel series in television, produced by Canadian Evasion TV.

Venice Kayak features prominently in one of the two Venice programmes:

Dans cet épisode, François-Étienne apprend à créer un masque pour le carnaval de Venise, il monte dans la célèbre basilique Saint-Marc pour y admirer ses chevaux et il visite la réputée boutique Venini où l’on vend du verre de Murano. Aussi, il contemple Venise d’un nouveau regard en participant à une expédition de kayak dans ses canaux et il découvre ses secrets les mieux gardés grâce à Ana, la Vénitienne, qui l’initie au visage moins touristique de la ville. Et, bien sûr, il est hors de question pour François-Étienne de quitter Venise sans manger son plat typique, les seiches, et sans passer par la célèbre piazza San Marco!

The kayaking part of the programme is online on Vimeo, from where the video below comes.

The video footage was shot in the summer of 2010, and the other paddlers are Canadian Steve Lutsch and Venetian Loretta Masiero.

Paolo Brandolisio is one of the few remaining makers of traditional Venetian oars and oarlocks for gondolas and other Venetian rowed boats.

Last year, out of curiosity, I took a couple of my old worn Greenland paddles down to his little workshop close to San Marco, and asked him if he could make me a replica, if only a bit shorter, sharper, smoother …

Within a week he passed me a paddle, from his doorway on the canal behind the workshop, so I could give its try. It was absolutely brilliant, even if it was just a trial cut made of whatever sticks had littered the floor of his shop.

Paolo is truly a great craftsman, and an artist.

He has by now started a small production of beautiful Venetian kayak paddles, which can be bought directly from his shop, where you can also find many other things, like miniature oarlocks and carved ornaments.

Paolo’s paddles are made from a variety of wood, depending on where it goes on the finished paddles, just like each bit of a gondola is made of a specific type of wood, for the correct degrees of weight, durability,stiffness and water resistance.

They’re not only high quality paddles, they’re little works of art and history, embodying a thousand years of wood working traditions.

Paolo currently makes three different models.

The basic paddle is made of one single piece of wood, with inserts of hard wood to reinforce the edges of the blade.

The paddles I have are made of more pieces of wood, to make a light, stiff and yet durable paddle. The paddles are all individual, but usually made of light wood in the middle, reinforced by inserts of hardwood along the edges and tips of the blades.

Lastly, Paolo can paint the paddles on the same designs as gondola paddles are often painted. This makes for some very Venetian souvenirs to take home for display, or use if you can get yourself to do it.

I now have three of his paddlers, some of the very first. They’re now as worn as the ones I brought him a year and a half ago.

Venice Kayak will for a while–for practical reasons–do the tours from the island of Certosa, which is just east of Venice city.

The island is reachable by vaporetto 41, which passes the S.Lucia station (departure at 9:15 for arrival at the Certosa at 10am), Piazzale Roma (9:18), S.Marta (9:24); and on the Giudecca island: Sacca Fisola (9:28), Palanca (9:31), Redentore (9:34), Zitelle (9:37); and S.Zaccaria (9:41), Arsenale (9:44), Giardini (9:47), Sant’Elena (9:50); with arrival at the Certosa at 9:56.

By vaporetto 42, from Murano Museo  (9:23), Murano Navagero (9:26), Murano Faro (9:29), Murano Colonna (9:32); then Fondamente Nove (9:41), Ospedale (9:43), Celestia (9:45), Bacini (9:48), San Pietro di Castello (9:55); with arrival at the Certosa at 9:58.

The Certosa stop is by request only, so tell the sailor on board that you need to get off on the Certosa island, when boarding the vaporetto.

Both vaporettos run a 20 minute schedule, so the previous vaporetto is 20 minute before the times mentioned above.

There’s a hotel on the Certosa island, and the meeting point is at the bar there, so the ones coming early can have a coffee and a snack.