The Italy blog review site Italytutto recently had an entry about Venice Kayak, titled “blogs from the waterline – kayaking in venice, italy.

… his two blogs, Venice Kayak and  René Seindal, will make even the most unadventurous wish they too could to take to the waters of Venice and the surrounding lagoons.

Read the full article here: Tour Venice in a New Way with Venice Kayak.

]]> http://www.venicekayak.com/2009/05/11/press-cimber-sterling-inflight-magazine/feed/ http://www.venicekayak.com/2009/05/10/la-sensa-venices-marriage-to-the-sea/ http://www.venicekayak.com/2009/05/10/la-sensa-venices-marriage-to-the-sea/#comments Sun, 10 May 2009 13:40:24 +0000 rene http://www.venicekayak.com/?p=505 The Sensa - Ascension in Venetian - is an thousand year old ceremony where a symbolic marriage ceremony between La Serenissima and the sea. The celebration has its origins in 997, following a military victory in Dalmatia which brough those lands under Venetian control.

The central part of the ceremony is a procession on water from St.Mark’s to San Nicolò on the Lido, where the Patriach of Venice will bless a golden ring, which will then be tossed in the water by the Mayor (in lieu of the Doge) as a symbol of the Venetian dependence on the sea and its dominance of the seas.

The Doge travelled on the Bucintoro - the golden ship - but the last Bucintoro was destroyed in 1797 and never rebuild, so now a less impressive ceremonial boat is used.  The rest of the procession will be of sports gondolas, all with four oarsmen, from the various rowing associations of Venice.

Following the procession and the ceremony is a regatta of four-oared gondolas, starting from St.Mark’s going to San Nicolò.

This year the feast is on May 24th.

The procession with the Patriarch and the Mayor will start at St. Mark’s at 9am with the ceremony taking place on arrival at San Nicolò. The regatta starts at 11 am from St. Mark’s.

Venice Kayak has a kayaking tour of Venice on May 24th, with an early start from San Nicolò, so we can be there and watch the ceremony. As we paddle towards the city we will also be able to see a part of the gondola race as the row down along the Riva degli Schiavoni.

There are still a couple of empty kayaks available for this trip, so it is a chance to get on a unique kayaking holiday in Venice and lagoon.

The program is:

• Saturday, May 16 - Arrival,
• Sunday, May 17 - paddling tour of Venice (Castello, Rialto, Cannaregio),
• Monday, May 18 - Venice again (St. Mark’s, Canal Grande, San Polo and Dorsoduro),
• Tuesday, May 19 - Northern lagoon (Sant’Erasmo, Burano, Torcello),
• Wednesday, May 20 - rest day for exploring on land or going to the beach,
• Thursday, May 21 - afternoon visit to Murano, dinner in the lagoon and evening paddle through Canal Grande,
• Friday, May 22 - Venice (Giudecca, Dorsoduro, Santa Croce),
• Saturday, May 23 - Venetian rowing class in a local rowing club, learn to row like a gondoliere,
• Sunday, May 24 - departure.

Included in the package:

• Kayak, paddle, life vest, jacket,
• Italian and English speaking guide,
• Dutch coach,
• Camping in tents.

Not included is:

• Airfare or other transportion to and from Venice
• Food
• Accommodation upgrades (caravans in the camp site or nearby hotel)

Price:   € 645,-

Full announcement from Kanosport Zwalker (in Dutch).

Further inquiry: Paul van Boerdon, pablo@zwalker.nl

Due to popular demand Venice Kayak opens a week early this season, with tours starting on April 17, and availability from April 20, for those already in Venice and looking for a day trip in kayak.

The Financial Times Deutschland had a weekend section on Venice this weekend, in occasion of the Venice Film Festival, with a 2/3 page article on Venice Kayak.

Journalist Inke Suhr visited us on Friday, August 22nd, and we went for a very nice, half day paddle around parts of Venice city.

The full article in PDF format (7Mbytes).

The online article from Financial Times Deutschland.

Some went into Venice to see a bit of the city by foot, while others ventured to the beaches of the Lido di Venezia which are among some of the best in Italy.

The two girls in the group wanted to practise rescue manoeuvres, so we saw them over to the 16th century Sant’Andrea fortress just across from the camping, where they had a few hours of training for themselves.

The rest of us launched shortly after three and paddled over to the girls, before we continued toward the destination for the afternoon: Murano.

Murano is a small island just north of Venice, famous for its glass works. They have been on the island since the 13th century, when they were banned in Venice proper and ordered to move to Murano. Venice was most built of wood at that time, and the risk of fires were high, so the glass furnaces were moved to Murano.

The glass works are mostly located on the south and east side of the island. There the predominant winds could be used to feed the furnaces.

We paddled north of the Vignole islands and around some barene and mud banks towards Murano, where we arrived at the entrance to the main canal of the islands. There are only a handful of canals on Murano, and we paddled down the largest, up the western side to a smaller canal, back down to the centre of the island.

General giddiness struck again as a member of the decided Murano was just the right place to practise paddling side saddle.

We stopped at the church of San Donà. Founded in the 7th century, the current church is from the 11th century, and it is quite a beauty.

We moored all the kayaks besides a bridge to take a walk around the island. We agreed to meet again at six by the boats, before Jes and I followed the group down to where most of the glass works and souvenir shops are. Some went shopping for glass, some went sight-seeing and I went to the supermarket for more water and fruit

Time is relative in Italy, and people adjust surprisingly quickly, so starting at six people came slowly back to the boats, with the best adjusted at least half an hour later, so it was close to seven before we were on our way again.

Luckily we had only a very short paddle to the Vignole islands, where the restaurant for the evening was. It is a local, family run place, accessible only by boat. Their parking lot is a pier, and you eat outside in a garden. They specialise in fresh fish from the lagoon and vegetables grown just behind the restaurant.

They have quite a choice, so while people considered, we ordered antipasti for all. We got three large plates, one with several kinds of baby octopus and squid, one with various kinds of local vegetables, and one with a very local speciality, sarde e scampi in saor. Saor is a sweet and sour sauce with raisins, pine seeds and lots and lots of lightly fried onions. When we had worked our way through those dishes, everybody was full, so we went directly from antipasti to dessert.

At the point it was getting dark, and suddenly it started to rain lightly, so we moved under a canopy. Good thing too, because shortly after we had a Venetian thunderstorm right over our heads. We fetched coffee and cake inside, running under the rain, while another group in the restaurant put on some music and started to dance the tango.

The thunderstorm passed, and the horizon cleared as fast as it had darkened. We had been close to call off the remainder of the days programme, but as the sky cleared and the stars returned, we decided to go through with it anyway.

We went back to the boats, put on our head lamps and strapped coloured light to our backs, before we started to paddle towards Venice through the dark lagoon. I had a flashing beacon on my back - somebody compared me favourably with a Christmas tree - and led the way.

Thunderstorm in mind, we followed the walls of the Arsenale instead of crossing directly towards San Michele, the cemetery island. At Sacca della Misericordia we paddled down to the Canal Grande, which we followed slowly downstream.

Paddling at night in Venice is a very special experience. The city is very quiet, few boats and only a vaporetto every 20 minutes, and most of the palaces are illuminated.

We reached the old markets before Rialto, where there are always people hanging around. The markets are a bit like the Spanish Steps in Rome, there’s always somebody.

At Rialto we stopped for a while to fully absorb the spectacle.

Like an Italian dinner, a night paddle in Venice has to be consumed slowly, without haste, taking all the time needed, enjoying each bite fully before considering the next. Rush it and ruin it.

The Canal Grande has been called the most beautiful street in the world, and it is not exaggerated. It is such an incredible place, but by day it is hard to fully appreciate it because it is so busy. By night it really shines.

We slowly almost drifted along the palaces and the moored gondolas towards St. Mark’s. There we stopped again, as always inside the gondala enclosure, for another digestive break.

The square of St. Mark, with the Doge’s Palace, the church and the campanile, and the two ancient columns with St. George killing the dragon and the lion of St. Mark, it one of the wonders of the world, and it is a rare occurrence having it almost to yourself.

From St. Mark’s we paddled along Riva dei Schiavoni, the Biennale gardens and Sant’Elena. The only boats we met were some empty and dark vaporetti on the way home for the night. Many vaporetti have their night stations at the gardens.

From Sant’Elena we followed the briccole towards Certosa and Sant’Andrea, for the final crossing to San Nicola, the camping, a hot shower and a warm sleeping bag.

Paolo, the owner of the camping, greeted us on the road where we came in, looking very relieved. The thunderstorm had passed San Nicolò as well, only later, and Paolo had expected us back a lot earlier because of that.

The tide would remain resonably high all day, so route planning was easy: we could go wherever we wanted.

We started by crossing the bocca di porto, the mouth of the lagoon. There’s a huge shallow area in the middle, but thanks to the tide we went straight through, avoiding most traffic easily.

We continued up along the east side of Sant’Erasmo, another shallow area opened up for us by the tide. At low tide the area between Sant’Erasmo and Punta Sabbioni is full of stranded boats whose proprietors wade around in the low water collecting snails and mussels while the kids play on the exposed sand banks.

The inherent giddiness of the group was immediately triggered by the shallow water and traffic-free surroundings, and most of the group started splashing around doing all sorts of manoeuvres, edging, bracing, trying to do the smallest circle or whatever came to mind. Nobody capsized, the water wasn’t even deep enough for a proper capsize.

One of the guests paddled my Rockpool, so I was in a Point 65° Whiskey, designed by Nigel Foster. It is very hard not to join in with such games when you’re sitting in the ultimate piece of maneouvrability. It is amazing what you can do in that boat.

We had to call an end to the fun after a short hour, or we woundn’t make it to Torcello and back.

We continued north along Sant’Erasmo, passing some of the barene there. Barene are lagoon islands that just manages to remain above a normal high tide. One of the girls in the group was a biologist, so we took some time looking at the very special species of plants found in such a humid and salt environment.

A couple of us squeezed into a rather narrow canal between the barene, and ended up having to either ’seal’ our way across a few mteres of land, or get out and pull the kayak across, as the canal got so narrow and curveous that we couldn’t turn or even reverse out again.

We were now approaching Murano, only much later than planned. We did a meticulous tour of all the small canals in the town, enjoying the spectacle of the many coloured houses, and a leaning campanile that could give the tower in Pisa a serious inferiority complex.

Just how yellow can it get

Don’t idle on the wrong side of this tower!

At the end of our tour we moored our kayaks near the main square and went in search of a place to have lunch. We decided on a small trattoria, which proved a wise choice. Both pizza and pasta were excellent, and so was the dessert, and not expensive either.

It was well past three before we continued. Somehow it always takes longer getting into the boats when they parked near shops and bars.

We paddled the few kilometres to Torcello without any detours, or we would have had problems getting home before dark.

At Torcello we found a nice quiet corner to land, and went sightseeing. Torcello was a flourishing lagoon city for over six centuries, until silt deposits in the estuary of the river Sile led to serious problems with malaria, and around 1300 AD the city was effectively abandoned. Now only two churches, both dating from around 1000 AD, are the only buildings left of what was once an important city. In the 16th century the Republic of Venice had the Sile rerouted north of the lagoon to stop the process of the lagoon drying up.

We couldn’t enter the two churches as we weren’t properly dressed - both churches are still consacrated - and we had little time anyway.

When we returned to our boats, two taxis were squabbling over the remaining space, and one made a rather violent maneouvre which half floooded half our boats. From what I understood of their discussion in dialect it had nothing to do with us, but we got the splash anyway.

It was getting late and we still had almost two hours paddling between us and San Nicolò, so all further detours and unjustified giddiness had to be cancelled. We still paddled in a leisurely pace, just in a bit straghter line than before.

The route took us back to Burano and past San Francesco in Deserto. Legend says that St. Francis spent a night on the island on return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and a franciscan monastery was founded there soon after his death. The monastery was abandoned later, but reformed again. The island also serves as the cemetery of Burano.

As we passed in front of Burano we saw that people were getting sports boats ready, and we saw a bright red racing gondola towards San Francesco. They’re incredibly fast, and none of us could keep up with it.

We then followed the western side of Sant’Erasmo towards Lazzaretto Nuovo. Most of the time it was a quiet paddle, with Sant’Erasmo on one side and some barene on the other.

We saw some beautiful, large branzini jump in front of the kayak, some must have been 30cm long. They were definitely no smaller than branzini I have been served in restaurants.

At some point a dog barked behind us, and a motorboat came up the canal with a fairly large dog standing in the stern. It stared a bit at us, but seemed good enough.

I also saw an egret on a pole, but as I approached to get a good picture, I hit the stub of another pole and the egret took off. I got a rather weird photo of an egret’s behind in mid-air.

From Lazzaretto Nuovo we only had a few kilometres, and with the persistent high tide we just went straight across back home to San Nicolò, in good order and well before dark.

We paddled along the Lido, where we met one of the great cruise ships, then across towards San Servolo and then San Giorgio Maggiore. As we passed the Canale della Grazia, we arrived right in front of St. Mark’s square.

The St. Mark’s basin is one of the more difficult spots in Venice. Traffic can be quite intensive, with boats of all kinds, from transatlantic cruiseships of 15 storeys above the water line, across car ferries and vaporetti to taxis, motorboats and gondolas. All this activity creates some very choppy waves of up to half a metre.

We opted for a break in front San Giorgio Maggiore, to relax a bit, take some photos of the truly spectacular cityscape in front of us, and make sure everybody knew what to do when we started the 400m crossing.

Fortunately, traffic was light but it is still a tricky process getting across, with numerous stops along the way, and much care of keeping the group as compact as possible.

In front of St. Mark’s is an enclosure of wave breakers, which creates a calm area for the many gondolas working off the waterfront of the square. We crept in there for more photos and just hanging around, enjoying the unique viewpoint we had all to ourselves. General giddiness dictated a few rolls in front of St. Mark’s, just because After all, when is the next time you get a chance to do that?

We then continued into “Gondolandia”, that is, the area between S. Marco and Rialto, where most of the gondolas circle. Paddling there is on their terms, you have to go where you can go, not necessarily where you’d like to go.

We went under the Bridge of Sighs, which didn’t look good because the palaces on both sides of the canal were covered in scaffolding, passed S. Maria Formosa and stopped al cavallo (Piazza SS. Giovanni e Paolo) for lunch and ice cream. There’s a really good gelateria there.

After lunch we continued towards Rialto, went a bit up the Canal Grande and took a small turn into the Sestiere S. Polo before returning to Canal Grande further down. Along here we met a very curious sight - one of the few canal sweepers employed by the city to keep the canals clean.

We then returned to “Gondolandia” by the canal that passes under the apsis of S. Stefano, only to get utterly stuck in a gondola traffic jam. It took quite some time to extricate the entire group.

Its a bit of a pain being in charge of a group under such conditions. There’s no turning around, so it involves a bit of shouting messages up and down the canal and a lot of patient waiting. I don’t think our guests minded, though. They had first class seats to the entire show, and got a very good impression of how the whole gondola business is run, and also a close up look at how the gondolieri operate their boats.

Once we’d all gotten out, it was time to head back home to San Nicolò. We followed almost the same route, crossing the Canale Giudecca to San Giorgio Maggiore, around San Servolo and up along the Lido to the camping.