Boating in Venice. Design features of gondolas

The most famous and romantic water transport in the world boasts a long history and unique features that make it even more special.

There is not a single traveler in the world who has not fallen victim to their spell: the magic of the Venetian gondolas, with their characteristic silhouette, spurred on by the wind that walks between the canals of the city of love and romance, is undeniable.

These boats are one of the most important elements of all Venetian scenes, a true parable in the tongues, but do not think that you know much about them. The imperishable symbol of the Serenissima has many secrets, which we are in a hurry to tell you right now.

So here are the most Interesting Facts about Venetian gondolas, the most romantic and mesmerizing boats on the planet.

Traditions

Their irresistible charm and admiration, which are caused by their winding forms, are known all over the world: every tourist who gets to the city dreams of taking a ride on a gondola at least once in his life. However, the characteristic appearance of the gondolas was not always inherent in them. In fact, the Venetian gondolas appeared many centuries ago and their appearance, as described by numerous documentary evidence, has undergone numerous changes over the centuries. So, in the paintings of Venetian artists of the 15th-16th centuries, gondolas are depicted as shorter, wider and less elongated boats, and, above all, not asymmetrical.

Gentile Bellini "Miracolo della Croce caduta nel canale di San Lorenzo". This is how gondolas looked at the beginning of the 16th century. Photo wikipedia.it

Today, 500 examples that plow the waters of the canals of Venice retain the same characteristics familiar to tourists, which appeared in their design about 200 years ago.

It should be noted that today the symbols of Venice are built using a sophisticated technology that is passed down from generation to generation in the "squeri", ship docks. Once upon a time, the gondola construction sites, which take their name from the word "squara" (la squadra, command), were numerous and all overlooked the Grand Canal, reflecting the importance of business.

Today there are only five docks in Venice and they are located in different parts of the city. Interestingly, everyone still works without drawing up drawings, relying only on personal experience... It is for this reason that the work of a "squerarolo" (gondola designer) requires a long apprenticeship of at least 36 months and only after passing the exam can the student take up this delicate activity.

Venetian dock "squero"

Each gondola, in fact, requires several months of construction and about 500 hours of work, and given that the average lifespan of a boat is about twenty years, in order to maintain the current fleet of 500 elements, craftsmen have to build about 20-30 gondolas each year.

Specifications

Each Squero consists of a plaza with a ramp to the water for boat access, surrounded by a fence on both sides, and a little further off a wooden building called a tesa, which is used as storage for tools and weather protection. The house of the chief "squerarolo" or the owner of the workshop has always been directly at the dock.

The gondolas, which are produced at Squero, are about 11 meters long and weigh about 600 kilograms. Each of the boats has a characteristic asymmetry between the right and left sides (more than 20 centimeters), and a flat bottom, which allows navigation even in very shallow water. The gondola consists of 280 parts and has a black wood hull, treated with a resin-based waterproofing material. In the manufacture of gondolas, craftsmen use eight types of wood - oak, spruce, elm, cherry, larch, walnut, linden and mahogany.

This is how the gondola is born

Despite the similarity of the gondolas, each of them is unique, because it is made "under the gondolier" who will drive it. In particular, for the construction of a boat, craftsmen take into account not only the height and weight of the gondolier in order to balance the boat, but also whether the gondolier is right-handed or left-handed.

There is also a place for symbolism in the construction of gondolas. Thus, the shape of the "ferro", an iron tip that protects the bow of the boat and serves as a determinant of the height of the bridge and the possibility of the passage of the gondola under it, contains six protrusions, symbolizing the six districts of the city, sometimes joined by three friezes, symbolizing the islands of Murano, Burano and Torcello. On the other side, the tip "risso di poppa" is fixed, which symbolizes the island of Giudecca.

The gondola was equipped with only one oar, which was caused by the narrowness of the channels, where wide boats could not miss. The only paddle is fixed in the "forcola", a paddle lock with a very complex shape. Indeed, the forkola allows the gondolier to move slowly back and forth, row forward quickly, turn the boat around, and perform other important maneuvers.

Gondoliers

Historically, being a gondolier is the priority of men, but in 2009 the first woman in history was licensed to operate a gondola. This is a rather difficult profession that requires endurance and great skill. Gondoliers are inherited: skills are passed from father to son.

The maximum number of passengers who can take a gondola ride at the same time is six.

However, even if the boat is empty, due to its construction, the gondolier actually applies the same force when rowing.

Where are gondolas built

If several centuries ago it was full of docks, today there are only five of them. These are two historical docks of San Trovaso - the oldest one - located on the Grand Canal in the Dorsoduro quarter, and Tramontin in Onisanti. They are joined by the relatively recently opened Squero Bonaldi, located next to the Tramontin, Crea and Costantini - De Rossi docks in Giudecca.

Addresses

To explore the history of shipping and shipbuilding in the beautiful Repubblica Marinara, head to Arsenale di Venezia, an ancient complex of shipyards and workshops. Today the complex is available for visiting in various areas (some of them can be visited freely, others on request and with a guided tour) and belongs partly to the city and partly to the Italian Navy.

Life in Venice is supported by boatmen. Motorized workhorses transport goods through blood vessels - channels, remove garbage, transport people - create traffic. For the vast majority of tourists who drop in to Venice, all the boats in the canals are gondolas. In fact, there are much more of them - about a hundred, adapted not for transporting tourists, but for specific utilitarian purposes.

True, the Maritime Museum was closed in Venice. Not forever, of course, for a while, for reconstruction. There is only a giant boat pavilion in the shipyards of the Arsenal. This hangar once housed rowing workshops, and in the 16th century, after a catastrophic fire that destroyed most of the Palazzo Ducale. it was temporarily adapted for meetings of the Grand Council, the main organ of the city's government. After the annexation of Venice to the Kingdom of Italy in 1866, the premises were transferred to military engineers for warehouses and workshops.

The 18-row "Scalè reale", the ceremonial boat that brought King Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of a unified Italy, to San Marco on his first visit to Venice. Now the bronze king is forever parked on the Schiavoni waterfront. And the ship was last launched in 1959 - it delivered the body of the Venetian Pope Pius X to Venice for reburial in the Basilica of San Marco.

Side by side with the ship, a gondola with black "plumage" is parked. Although it belonged to a Venetian nobile, it lacks any signs of the high status of the owner - the gondola did not carry either carpets or silk hangings or gilded decorations. There is a lot of speculation about when and why the most ornate Venetian boat turned black. At the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, gondolas were defiantly luxuriously decorated, so much so that such a public display of wealth seemed excessive to the Senate of Venice. To encourage modesty, he imposed high fines on their owners, and then decided to equalize everyone, deciding that all gondolas should be repainted in black. According to another hypothesis, black was adopted in memory of the thousands of victims of the plague in Venice. But everything turned out to be much more prosaic: black in Venice is not associated with mourning - the funeral boats were purple - but with the use of resin as a sealant.

Over time, gondolas, adapted to serve tourists, regained some of their former splendor: gold carvings and gilded decorations - the gondola again became a boat for pleasure.

This felze is another part of the gondola that has not survived our time. In the city of forbidden pleasures, felzi cabins were used to protect from the weather and immodest eyes. When the gondola was used for love dates, the gondolier wisely kept the secret of his clients. Secret letters were passed through the gondoliers. In the city they are still a powerful force, part of the conscious mannerism of Venetian life. But since the 1930s, when the booths were removed, the entire intimate life of customers has been going on in public, showing off to hundreds of thousands of other tourists.

Now the gondola with felze can only be seen in the Maritime Museum and in Ca Rezzonico, a museum of 18th century Venetian life. Ackroyd writes that the old gondola (and its service life is about 20 years) is taken to Murano and burned there in glass-making furnaces to give energy to another local craft. I do not know if this is true, or one of the Venetian legends.

And these are working boats that are still in use: on some they fish, others are used for regattas, and still others are restored by enthusiastic reenactors. They go by oars or sail, or install a motor. These are flat-bottomed boats adapted to work in the shallow waters of the lagoon.

At the risk of incurring class hatred, I will replace the word “boat” in the title with “yacht”.
The Penichette 1020FB is not quite a boat and certainly not a boat - it is a houseboat, by analogy with its land-based cousin - a camper.
The name “yacht” is shorter and clearer.
Perhaps at the word yacht, someone has an image of a boat by Dimon or Abramovich.
It's not my fault - only an orphan's likeness of an icebreaker is given for rent without a license.

A yacht of this class can be rented without a license (skipper's license) and any special steering skills.
How to do it (choose and rent) - I wrote, if interested - read it.

So, we entered the Venetian transport artery from the side of the canal Canale di st spirito, leaving island I on the left. S.Clemente and on the right are ruins on an islet I. la Grazia(I. is the abbreviation for “island” on the nautical chart).
That is, we got into the thick of the seemingly chaotic movement between the islands. La giudecca and Venezia.
Actually we left right in front of the square San Marco- we have seen his tower for the last 2 hours, while moving along the island of Lido.

Traffic in Venice

What to say…
Shock, of course.
Car ferries, barges, vaporettos, private taxi boats, yachts and just motor boats move along the strait.
Opposite us, across the strait, there are crowds of tourists at the gondolier stops in Piazza San Marco, a little to the right is a four-storey yacht, and a little to the left a cruise ship(floors not counted, but not less than 10).
And waves, waves, waves.

Waves, like movement in the strait, are chaotic.
But having gathered all the will and courage into a fist, I turned the steering wheel to the left and drove along the coast, first to the north, and then paraded along the coast of Venice.
No, we did not roll over, we did not drown and no one crashed into us.

Primary chaos at first glance, at the second already meaningful glance turned out to be the order of things here:
- fast boats that rush into your head-on at a safe distance turn aside, the vaporetto sees your maneuver and adjusts its trajectory from stop to stop, the car ferry - it just goes in the center.

In general, as I understand it, the best way to go in Venetian waters is to keep straight and not fuss during maneuvers - boldly turn and they will let you through.
And although on the water movement is akin to movement on land - right-hand, if necessary, you can go on the opposite lane. Just to indicate this and not rush to the sides if someone goes to the meeting head-on-head faster.
However, this does not work with a car ferry. But the car ferry goes through the center and everyone is afraid of it.

Marina in Venice

The marinas are marked with a blue anchor on the navigation map, which will be sold to you for € 10 upon receipt of your yacht charter.
In the center there are three marinas - one across the strait from St. Mark's Square, two on the island of Santa Elena ( St'Elena) Is the next island south of the Biennale ( Biennale).

We got up to the nearest one.
It is called that - Marina Sant'Elena.
A place for a 10-meter penichetta per night costs 60 euros.
There is water, electricity and free Wi-Fi.
Walk 5 minutes to the vaporetto stop.

What's good - you don't have to cut circles and look for a place in the marina.
As soon as we went inside, the manager immediately appeared on the bike, who showed two places to choose from.
Helped to moor and tie.
I took the captain's book (given with the yacht when renting) and a passport.
Payment both in cash and by card.

After the lunatic asylum with noise, waves on the canals here - calm and quiet.
There are few people on yachts - most of them are standing on a permanent basis, so they appear on weekends.
There is a pizzeria in the marina, but I recommend getting out of the territory and walking past the church to the vaporetto stop - you don't miss a small pizzeria with tables on the street.
Very affordable prices, but prices in Venice are high and the quality of food preparation is ugly.
You can also buy alcohol here.

Note

This information will be useful to those who are going to rent a yacht (houseboat) and make independent travel on the Lagoon of Venice.
For the rest, everything written above can be skipped.

Moving in Venice

Venice city center and all tourist attractions can be reached by vaporetto from St'Elena station.
But we decided to take a walk and did not regret it.
They did not go into the depths of the streets.
We went through the Biennale, the Arsenal and reached the Piazza San Marco, however, without going to it.
A number of photos taken during this walk.

The Venetian gondola has long been a permanent symbol of this Italian city on the water. Such boats, unique in their design, are nowhere to be found. Just like the unique Turkish or Arabian ones, Italian gondolas have passed through the centuries, retaining not only their original design, but also their relevance in the modern world.

There is a version that the inhabitants of Venice appeared long before the emergence of the city itself on the water, back in the IV century, and its first creators were the ancient Romans. From the ancient Roman civilization got the name, which in translation means "boat".

Such a boat turned out to have a lot of advantages, thanks to which it easily "took root" on the canals of Venice. Lightweight, comfortable, roomy, characterized by good maneuverability when cornering and a decent speed of movement - the Roman "fundola" fell in love with the inhabitants of Venice and has become an integral part of their life.

However, the Venetians themselves like to tell a different story of the emergence of the gondola - more romantic, in the spirit of their hometown. According to this legend, once one couple in love could not find a place where they could retire, and then a month took pity on them, went down into the water and became a gilded boat - a gondola, on which the lovers spent the whole night.

Design features of gondolas

Many people mistakenly believe that all Venetian gondolas are the same, but in reality there are only a number of nuances that, when building such traditional boats, are invariable rules and are determined by the city authorities. In general, the creators of gondolas are not limited in creating an original boat according to the wishes of the customer.

The length of modern gondolas is within 11 m, and this despite the fact that the width of such a Venetian boat is only 1.4 m. Such a traditional Venetian boat is created from 280 parts, which are cut from eight types of wood. The standard gondola has an elongated shape with a high stern, a slightly raised figured bow and a flat bottom. This design allows the fastest and most comfortable travel through the narrow canals of Venice. Driven by just a gondolier's oar, the gondola is capable of moving at speeds of up to 4 km / h, and this despite the fact that the weight of even an empty boat is at least 400 kg.

A distinctive feature of the gondola design is the ferro - an elegant knob on the bow of the boat, which many take for decoration. In fact, it has several practical functions. Ferro serves as a counterweight to the gondolier and protects against collisions, as well as with its help, it determines the possibility of the boat passing under the bridges.

Gondola design as a tribute to history

Historical sources claim that the first gondolas were painted in different colors, and only over time they acquired their standard strict dark color.

The usual dark color of gondolas, for which they are poetically called "black swans", is explained by various legends. According to one of them, the city hall issued an official decree on the use of an extremely strict dark color for painting boats in order to stop the struggle of the local aristocracy, who wants to demonstrate their superiority with all kinds of decorations.

According to another version, the motley colors disappeared as a sign of mourning for those who died at a time when the plague reigned in Europe, which claimed the lives of many Venetians. Another legend says that a lover secretly visited the wife of the ruler of Venice on a black gondola, and then, trying to hide such a shame, the Doge issued a law in which everyone had to repaint the boats in black.

Prestigious profession - gondolier

Gondoliers usually work exclusively on their own boats. The cost of a gondola is rather big and can range from 25 to 75 thousand euros. However, the profession of a gondolier in Venice is inherited.

Only beginners in any case (outside of family traditions) need to take a 9-month course of training in the art of gondola driving and, as a result, pass a difficult aptitude test. In addition, everyone who wants to be engaged in transporting tourists through the canals of Venice must also prove their successful fluency in English.

As a rule, this profession is purely male, but there are cases when women also received the right to drive a gondola. In 2010, young Georgia Boscolo, the daughter of a gondolier, continued her father's work, becoming the first woman in modern history to fly this traditional boat in Venice.

Modern gondolas

The process of making a gondola is not easy, therefore, only up to 20 such boats are created per year, each of which is made exclusively to order. Gondolas are made, as a rule, in small boatyards in Italy. The price of one such boat can be up to 40-75 thousand euros.

One of the most prestigious such manufacturers in Venice is the Squero San Trovaso shipyard. Excursions are often organized here, which allows you to personally admire how new gondolas are created and old ones are restored. On this gondolas are still created by hand, exclusively according to ancient technologies and using the tools of those times. It takes up to 4 months of work to create one such boat. At another shipyard in the city, Roberto Tramotina, they also use modern tools and methods to create gondolas, which makes it possible to speed up the process of creating a gondola, reducing the period to 2 months.

It seems that there are countless gondolas in Venice, but in fact there are now a little less than 450 such boats, although during the time of the Venetian Republic there were more than 7 thousand of them. In all its grandeur, the numerous gondolas in Venice can be admired in early September. On the first Saturday of the month, a grand parade of gondolas and gondoliers takes place, combined with the traditional regatta of such boats - Regata Storica, which covers a 7 km route.