The Floating City had humble 5th century beginnings as a defensive refuge built on wooden piles driven into the mud of the northern Adriatic. As the years progressed, so did the city, which would eventually become the seat of one of the medieval world’s greatest powers. Splendor would follow power, prompting one visitor to observe, “To build a city where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself, but to build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius.”
And yet even those who during Venice’s ascendency planned its conspicuous display of might, wealth and refinement as attractors to visitors the world over, would have struggled to envision the human traffic jam that occurs daily along the primary corridor between Stazione Santa Lucia and Piazza San Marco. This procession can at times be so brutal that the most jaded travelers may advise you to avoid Venice altogether. Ignore them, and instead seek out these five sanctuaries from the mob.
- GHETTO EBRAICO & GHETTO NUOVO
Venice was not the first city to ostracize Jews, but the term “ghetto” was coined when fiat segregation occurred here in the 16th century, at the time when Shakespeare set The Merchant of Venice. Today, hundreds of Jewish Venetians live among their ancient synagogues, temples, yeshivas and shops in this quiet neighborhood just a few blocks northeast of Santa Lucia.
- LA FRARI
Stepping into almost any church not named “St. Mark’s” will provide a break from the crowds and the heat, but there’s only one Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, also known, in true diva fashion, simply as La Frari. Flanked on either side by the glorioso tombs of two renowned artists (Renaissance painter Titian, and neoclassical sculptor Canova), the nave’s spaciousness takes on heroic proportions contrasted against the cramped passageways just beyond the portal. The setting is so coolly serene, and the light so gently diffused through the modest clerestory windows, that one might be tempted to take Venice’s Best Nap in one of the dozens of empty pews at the foot of Titian’s incomparable “L’Assunta” (Assumption of the Virgin) altarpiece, but you didn’t hear that here.
- PALAZZO DEL BOVOLO
A few hundred meters northwest of Piazza San Marco, in the secluded courtyard of the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo, is a spiral staircase rivaled by few I’ve ever seen.
- CAMPI
Dotting the neighborhoods west of San Marco are several campi (each a campo, or field), originally plots of soil that were cultivated but today are quaint plazas that attract a mere fraction of the visitors thronging the nearby Piazza. My favorites are Campo San Moisè with the ornate façade of its eponymous church, and Campo San Maurizio with the leaning campanile (bell tower) of Chiesa Santo Stefano serving as its delightfully unnerving backdrop.
- DORSODURO
Crossing the Grand Canal at Ponte dell’Accademia – stop and see Leonardo’s “L’uomo Vitruviano” – leads you to the southernmost of Venice’s six sestiere (subdivisions), Dorsoduro, whose name (meaning “hard back”) comes from the relatively sturdy soil on which it was built. The main route from the Accademia to the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute can become somewhat congested, but even a twenty meter detour south from this path will make you feel as if you’re among the first to explore these nooks.
OR…
Visit Venice at night, and support the locals who have welcomed-slash-tolerated us for centuries by staying in a Casa (home), a family-owned inn whose name is usually Ca’ followed by a given name or surname of an ancestral proprietor. Also, if you prefer to entirely forgo even a brief moment of walking shoulder to shoulder with the selfieing masses, get around town on a vaporetto (water bus).
QUESTIONS FOR READERS
- When is the best time of year to visit Venice?
- What other cities might you compare to Venice?
- Any suggestions for other quiet places to pause during a visit here?
Resources: Wikipedia.org, Livitaly.com, Basilicadeifrari.it
WANDERLOOSED 