How I stuck my oar in – and saw a Venice I’ve never seen before
12.10.2023 - 21:37
/ theguardian.com
One of the clues to how Venice was built is the stone it’s built on: the white, pocked stone capping the fondamente that line the city’s canals is pietra d’Istria – a type of limestone that was quarried in what is now Croatia. So how did it get to the other side of the Adriatic sea, to form the foundations of Venice? By boat, of course.
“The city was built with traditional boats and for traditional boats. You have to see the city from the water to understand it,” says Emiliano Simon, one of the founders of Venetian rowing and boating association Venice on Board, as we stand on the white stone next to its offices in the northern Cannaregio district.
Since its inception, Venice on Board has been restoring traditional boats and offering tours of the canals away from the main tourist sites, as well as lessons in voga alla veneta(Venetian rowing) for visitors and locals. It has restored about 12 boats, dating from the 1950s to the 80s, from a nimble wooden lagoon boat called a topa to an enormous gondola-like sandolo. I’m here to have a tour and lesson in a mascareta, a light and easily manoeuvrable wooden boat often used by women in competitions.
The art of rowing and the use of these boats has almost died out since the second world war, Emiliano tells me. While his grandfather had rowing lessons at school, interest faded as motorboats became cheaper and more popular. “There’s a huge generation gap,” he says. “Our grandparents all know how to row – but now I’m the one teaching my father!” As well as being noisy and polluting, motorboats cause a swell that damages the city’s foundations and the association is on a mission to resurrect the old ways and promote a more sustainable way of getting around.
The Venetian way of life is at risk of being subsumed entirely by the voracious mass tourism. This year, the number of tourist beds officially surpassed the number of residents. Many Venetians are leaving the city, unable to afford rents that have been driven up by lucrative short-term tourism rentals. More and more motorboats transporting tourists, including the dirty public vaporetti, are clogging the canals. In September, the city narrowly avoided being added to Unesco’s list of heritage sites in danger for the second time, after the local government stuck a plaster on the problem by deciding to put in place an entry fee for the city on the busiest days of the year. The first time around, in 2021, the government agreed to ban cruise ships from entering the city, although they can still go through the lagoon.
As I step into my mascareta, it wobbles dangerously. “The boats tip a lot because the bottom is flat. They’re built like that because the lagoon is so shallow,” he says, adding that traditional boats