Things to do in The Veneto
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University
Follow Via VIII Febbraio to the Palazzo del Bò, seat of Padua’s history-making university. This institution was founded by renegade scholars from Bologna seeking greater intellectual freedom, and some of Italy’s greatest and most controversial thinkers taught here, including Copernicus, Galileo, Casanova, and the world’s first woman doctor of philosophy, Eleonora Lucrezia Corner Piscopia (her statue graces the stairs). Guided tours cover Galileo’s lecture hall and the world’s first Anatomy Theatre, a six-tiered hall built for scientific autopsy in 1594 before biohazards were understood – dissected corpses were dumped into an underground stream.
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Ponte di Rialto
An amazing feat of engineering in its day, Antonio da Ponte’s 1592 marble bridge was for centuries the only land link across the Grand Canal. The construction cost 250,000 gold ducats, a staggering sum that puts cost overruns for the new Calatrava bridge into perspective. Now that the Rialto is clogged with kiosks and foot-traffic jams, locals go out of their way to avoid it, or zip up the less scenic northern side of the bridge. The southern side faces San Marco, and when crowds of shutterbugs and tour groups clear out around sunset, it offers a romantic long view of gondolas pulling up to Grand Canal palazzi at striped moorings that look like floating barber poles.
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Galleria
San Marco was officially the doge’s (duke’s) chapel until 1807, and the doge’s far-reaching influence is highlighted by gilt bronze horses in the Galleria, upstairs in the Bascilica di San Marco. Through the Galleria you can access the Loggia dei Cavalli, where reproductions of the bronze horses gallop off the balcony over Piazza San Marco. Note that you’ll need to be dressed modestly (ie knees and shoulders covered) to enter the basilica, and large bags must be left around the corner off Piazzetta San Marco dei Leoni at Ateneo di San Basso, where you’ll find free one-hour baggage storage.
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Il Ridotto
From an open kitchen the size of a closet comes a parade of tasty small plates: a dollop of savoury Tuscan bread pudding, Venetian crudi composed into a glistening mosaic, a silky pistachio flan. Mains are comparatively anticlimactic and pricey, but antipasti like the lobster-nectarine salad and inventive primi such as gnocchi stuffed with wild herbs make an inspired meal. There are only five tables, set close together, which makes reservations essential and haphazard service puzzling – but ever-present chef/owner Gianni Bonaccorsi is warm and attentive, and the decor of exposed brick and gossamer veils sets the scene for modern Venetian romance.
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Palazzo della Ragione
Ancient Padua can be glimpsed in elegant twin squares framed by arcades, the Piazza delle Erbe and Piazza della Frutta, separated by the triple- decker Gothic Palazzo della Ragione, the city’s tribunal dating from 1218. Inside, frescoes by Giotto acolytes Giusto de’ Menabuoi and Nicolò Mireto depict the astrological theories of Pietro d’Abano, with images representing the months, seasons, saints, animals and noteworthy Paduans (not necessarily in that order). Unfortunately, the frescoes had to be restored after fire in 1420 and storm damage in 1756, so most of the original work was lost.
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Fiaschetteria Toscana
A classic that has long maintained quality, the Fiaschetteria Toscana has sought-after super-Tuscan options on the menu of 600 wines, but it’s Venetian where it counts: the wild-caught lagoon seafood menu, especially the crudi, seafood risottos and frittura della Serenissima (a haul of lightly fried seafood). But you can also choose to rebel against the city’s pescatarian impulses with proper cuts of meat, including lagoon game and Chianina steak that makes pampered Kobe seem tough. Leave room for Mariuccia’s rovesciata, a Venetian take on caramelised-apple tarte tatin, and don’t miss lunch specials.
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Roman Theatre
Across Ponte Pietra, north of the city centre, is a Roman Theatre, built in the 1st century. The bridge is a quiet but remarkable testament to the Italians' love of their artistic heritage. The two arches on the left date from the Roman Republican era (1st century BC), while the other three were replaced in the 13th century. Then in 1945, retreating German troops blew the bridge. The Veronese fished the stonework out of the river and painstaking rebuilt the bridge in the 1950s.
The theatre itself, cunningly carved into the hillside at a strategic spot overlooking a bend in the river in the 1st century BC was once three times as high as what remains today.
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Palazzo della Mostra del Cinema
A seaside Fascist monument, this rigid airport-terminal structure seems as ill-suited to the playboy Lido as a woolly bathing suit. And C+S Associates’ 2003 ‘Wave’ entrance just begs for a skateboard. But once the red carpets are rolled out and the stars arrive for the Venice International Film Festival, it all makes sense.
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La Rotonda
No matter how you look at it, this villa is a show-stopper: the namesake dome caps a square base, with identical colonnaded facades on all four sides. This is one of Palladio’s most admired creations, inspiring variations across Europe and the USA, including Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello (La Rotonda’s late owner, Mario di Valmarana, was a retired University of Virginia architecture professor; he died in 2010). Inside, the circular central hall is frescoed from the walls to the soaring cupola with trompe l’oeil frescoes. Catch bus 8 or 13 (€1.20) from in front of Vicenza’s train station, or just walk (about 25 minutes by foot).
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Venice Grand Canal Boat Tour
1 hour 10 minutes (Departs Venice, Italy)
by Viator
The best way to appreciate the beauty and uniqueness of a city built on water is by boat! Gliding through Venice's Grand Canal and minor canals, you'll be…Not LP reviewed
from USD$57.65 Advertisement
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Palazzo Fortuny
The not-so-humble home studio of outrageous art nouveau Spanish-Venetian designer Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo features three floors swagged with Fortuny’s printed textiles, mood-lit with his signature patterned glass lanterns. Today these sumptuous halls host rotating exhibits by modern artisans, inevitably upstaged by Fortuny’s preserved top-floor studio and 1910 sketches of bohemian goddess frocks that could rule red carpets today. If these salons inspire decor schemes of your own, check out Fortuny Tessuti Artistici in Giudecca, where wall coverings are still hand-printed according to Fortuny’s top-secret methods.
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Chiesa delle Zitelle
Designed by Palladio in the late 16th century, the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Presentazione, known as the Zitelle, was a church and hospice for orphans and poor young women ( zitelle is old local slang for ‘old maids’). The church bell only rings on Sundays and the doors are rarely open, but you can get a spa treatment in the adjoining convent and sleep in the orphanage – no, seriously. The Palladio Hotel & Spa has creatively tweaked the original structure without altering Palladio’s blueprint, marble walls, beamed ceilings, or the original cloisters garden, transforming the premises into a memorable high-end spa-hotel.
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Castello
Soave’s fortifications encircled with 24 watchtowers aren’t intended to keep visitors away from the good stuff: they were built on a medieval base by Verona’s fratricidal Scaligeri family, who ultimately had more to fear from one another than marauding invaders. The Castello is easily reached on foot (signposted) through gardens and vineyards. Cross the drawbridge on the north side of the castle and pass two courtyards to find the stairway to the Mastio, the central defensive tower that apparently served as a dungeon: during restoration work, a mound of human bones 2m high was unearthed inside.
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Casinò Di Venezia
No opera can match the dramas that have occurred at Venice’s palatial gambling house since the 16th century: Richard Wagner survived the 20-year effort of composing his stormy Ring cycle only to expire here in 1883. Wagner’s suite has been turned into a museum, with Wagner memorabilia that includes a request from Wagner’s wife to deliver champagne to their favourite gondolier and, in a rather macabre touch, a copy of the sofa on which he had his fatal heart attack.
But the real draws here are on the casino floor, especially roulette wheels and marathon blackjack sessions. Hotel guests can usually get a coupon for free casino entry from their concierge. Slots open at…
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Banco Lotto 10
Prison orange is out and plum silk velvet is in at this nonprofit boutique, whose hand-sewn fashions are the fruit of a retraining program at the women’s prison on Giudecca. Designed and made by women inmates, the smartly tailored jackets, dresses and handbags often incorporate opulent silks, velvets and tapestry donated by Fortuny and Bevilacqua. Even La Fenice has dressed its divas in Banco Lotto ensembles. Volunteers run the boutique and purchases fund the women prisoners’ continuing career training and reintegration into society after their release.
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al Covo
Featuring all the markings of a classic Venetian trattoria – low-beamed ceilings, exposed brick wall, regulars installed in the corner – but with twists on the typical dishes. Caprese salad gets the Covo treatment with basil and mozzarella di bufala served with a heavenly cherry tomato gelée. Squid-ink pasta is served with clams and squash blossoms. And Adriatic tuna swims in no fewer than five sauces – at once. Prices are understandable given the top-quality, lagoon-fresh ingredients, and are offset by reasonably priced, limited-production wine.
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Chiesa di San Giacomo Dell’Orio
La Serenissima seems as serene as ever inside the cool gloom of this Romanesque church, founded in the 9th and 10th centuries and built in its current form by 1225. The basic blueprint is a Latin cross, but it’s hardly strict: chapels bubble along the edges, and pillars were added inside seemingly at random for decorative value. Under the striking 14th-century carena di nave (ship’s keel) ceiling is decor dragged here from far-flung Venetian territories, including a Lombard pulpit perched atop a 6th-century Byzantine green marble column.
Lurking in the dark, cool interior are some notable 14th- to 18th-century artworks, including luminous sacristy paintings by Palma Il…
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The Lido
The main draw here is the beach, but the water can be polluted and the public areas are often unkempt. Some of the beaches at the southern end of the island, such as those at Alberoni, are an exception. If you want to stay closer to the northern end of the island (and the vaporetto stops), you will pay a small fortune (up to €10 for a sun-lounger) to hire a chair and umbrella in the more easily accessible and cleaner areas of the beach.
The Lido became a fashionable seaside resort around the late 19th century and its more glorious days are depicted (in admittedly melancholy fashion) in Thomas Mann's novel Death in Venice.
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Tarnowska's
Watch your step as you pop down a couple of steps into this elegant hotel bar (locals know it as La Contessa, the Countess), ideal for a cocktail or postprandial brandy. With its polished tile floors, it spreads into several separate spaces. Alongside those having an animated chat over lovingly prepared tall drinks are other folks beavering away at computers, for this is one of those rare things in Venice, a wi-fi spot. The Russian Countess Maria Tarnowska, it is said, had one of her lovers assassinated in this very place.
The Russian Countess Maria Tarnowska, it is said, had one of her lovers assassinated in this very place.
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Campanile
The basilica’s 99m-tall tower has been rebuilt twice since its initial construction in AD 888, and Galileo Galilei found it handy for testing his telescope in 1609. Critics called Bartolomeo Bon’s 16th-century tower re-design ungainly, but when this version suddenly collapsed in 1902, Venetians rebuilt the tower as it was, brick by brick.
Visitors head to the tower top for 360- degree lagoon views and close encounters with the Marangona, the booming bronze bell that could be heard in the Arsenale shipyards (bring earplugs on the hour). Due to ongoing stabilisation efforts and drainage works, the Sansovino-designed marble loggia at the base of the Campanile is currently…
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Osteria di Santa Marina
Don’t be fooled by the casual piazza seating and simple dark-wood interiors: this restaurant is saving up all the drama for your plate. Given the à la carte prices, you might as well go for the €55 fixed-price menu or the all-out adventure of the €75 tasting menu, where each course brings two bites of reinvented local fare – a prawn in a nest of shaved red pepper, black squid-ink ravioli stuffed with branzino (sea bass), artichoke and soft-shell crab with squash saor (Venice’s tangy marinade). Dessert is a must, especially the house-made gelati and hot chocolate pie.
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Chiesa di San Giovanni in Bragora
This serene, 15th-century brick church harmonises Gothic and Renaissance styles with remarkable ease, setting the tone for a young Antonio Vivaldi who was baptised here. Look for Bartolomeo Vivarini’s 1478 Enthroned Madonna with St Andrew and John the Baptist, which shows the Madonna bouncing a delighted baby Jesus on her knee. Bartolomeo’s nephew Alvise depicts Jesus in later years in his splendidly restored 1494 Saviour Blessing, with a cloudlike beard and eyes that seem to follow you around the room.
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Bar Terazza Danieli
Gondolas glide in to dock along the quay, while across the lagoon, the white marble edifice of Palladio’s San Giorgio Maggiore turns from gold to pink in the waters of the canal: the late afternoon scene from the Hotel Danieli’s top-floor balcony bar definitely calls for a toast. Arrive after lunch and linger the afternoon away over a spritz (€10) or cocktail (€18 to €22) – preferably the sunset-tinted signature Danieli cocktail of gin, apricot and orange juices, and a splash of grenadine.
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Ponte delle Tette
‘Tits Bridge’ got its name in the late 15th century, when neighbourhood prostitutes were encouraged to display their wares in windows instead of taking their marketing campaigns to the streets. Crossing over the bridge, you’ll reach Rio Terà delle Carampane, named after a noble family’s house (Ca’ Rampani) that became notorious as a meeting place for local streetwalkers, who to this day are known as carampane. Instead of hanging out in windows, more-ambitious working girls might be found studying: for educated conversation, courtesans might charge 60 times the basic rates of the average carampane.
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Squero di San Trovaso
When it’s time for a tune-up, gondolieri head to the squero (small-scale shipyard). The wood cabin on the corner of the Rio di San Trovaso may look like a misplaced ski chalet, but it’s actually part of one of the city’s three working squeri. From the right bank, you can see refinished gondolas drying in the yard. If you find the door open during working hours, you can poke your head inside in exchange for a donation left in the can by the door – but no flash photography is allowed, as it might startle the gondola builders as they’re completing a tricky bit of woodwork with sharp tools.
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