Episode 132 transcript - HWhy you need to spend at least 3 days in Venice

Untold Italy Episode 132 - Why you need to spend at

least 3 days in Venice

This is the Untold Italy Travel podcast, and you're listening to episode number 132.

Ciao a tutti and Benvenuti to Untold Italy, the travel podcast, where you go to the towns and

villages, mountains and lakes, hills and coastlines of Bella Italia. Each week your host Katy

Clarke takes you on a journey in search of magical landscapes of history, culture, wine,

gelato, and, of course, a whole lot of pasta. If you're dreaming of Italy and planning future

adventures there, you've come to the right place.

Katy

Ciao a tutti! Hi Everyone! It’s Katy here, back from my travels in Italy and bursting with news

to share with you all. Of course there will be lots of new episodes to come as I visited over

half the Italian regions during a truly magical and exciting 5 weeks of fun and adventure

meeting new friends and finding inspiration along the way.

But I wanted to share with you the absolute best bit of our trip, and that was meeting up with

many of our podcast guests that I had only ever spoken to on the phone or via Zoom. In fact,

prior to this trip I had only met a couple of our guests in person so it was truly a fantastic

experience to share laughs and hugs with people I’ve come to know very well over the past

couple of years.

I met Olivia from Piedmont, now in Rome, Pierpaulo in Sorrento, Arianna from Tuscany and

Nikki in Puglia all for the first time. We spent time with Sarah and Sal from Umbria and

Debora in Arezzo, Elisabetta from Venice and of course Holly and Gianluca in Capri.

And I even managed to grab a few precious hours in Rome with Corinna, our guest on today’s

show. Corinna is one of our favorite guests and it may surprise you to know that up until that

day in early June we’d never actually met in person. She is like an old, dear friend who I

deeply admire for her passion for Italy and dedication to sharing its culture, stories and

unique secrets that are, after all, what makes a trip to Italy so special. Author of the Glam

Italia guides, Corinna is celebrating the release of her latest book 101 Fabulous Things to do

in Venice and she’s joined me today to share some of the reasons why you need to plan to

spend at least 3 days in the beautiful lagoon city to begin to appreciate it.

Katy

Benvenuta Corinna, my dear friend, welcome back to the Untold Italy podcast.

Corinna

Thank you, Katy. Thank you for having me back yet again. I so appreciate it.

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Katy

I am always, always delighted to have you on the podcast. And today I'm so excited because -

here we are finally helping you launch your new book, the latest in the Glam Italia Guidebook

series. And you know I've been dying to get my hands on a copy of this as it's, of course, about

my favorite Italian city, Venice.

Corinna

Venice, exactly. The most unique city on Earth.

Katy

Absolutely.

Corinna

The most incredible, spectacular mesmerizing city on Earth. It's just incredible. So I'm very,

very excited about the new book. And everything is very exciting right now.

Katy

It is. So before we get started talking about the book and the magical city, can you remind

our listeners who you are in a little bit about your series of Glam Italia guides?

Corinna

Yeah. I'm Corinna Cooke, and I have two sides to my business. On one side, I run the Glam

Italia Tours, which are small group women-only tours. And the other side, this whole big thing

that we're going to be talking about today is my books. I write a series of books called the

Glam Italia Series. And the first one is How to Travel Italy, so how to put together a trip, how

to figure it all out, where to stay and how long to stay, and all the different bits and pieces

and how to make a good trip into a beyond outstanding trip. And then the second book in this

series is Glam Italia 101 Fabulous Things to do in Rome, followed by Glam Italia 101 Fabulous

Things to do in Florence. And now we're up to book four, which is Glam Italia 101 Fabulous

Things to do in Venice, the most unique city on earth.

Katy

It's so exciting. Well, I think maybe some people might think, well, is there 101 things to do in

Venice? Because unfortunately, sometimes people go to Venice and dip in for the day, don't

they? And they might see a few things

Corinna

We don't want to be doing that we want to try and be there for I would say to people, try and

be there for three nights. There is so much to see and do in Venice and to experience in

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Venice and to kind of participate in you cannot beat sitting out in the summer evening in

Venice with an aperitivo and a view and just watching Venice happen and watching the light

over the city and oh, my goodness, it's like nowhere else. But when people say 101 things, I

had to cut a third of this book out. It's how far over I've gone. We were like, all right, this is

getting ridiculous now, we've got to cut back a third to bring it to. And actually, it's more than

101. But I just like the sound. But also, these books are different than regular guidebooks

because I feel that regular guidebooks tell you about the same handful of places where all the

mass tourism goes. And it's like they steer the ship straight into the storm. So your entire

experience is being around thousands of people waiting in line, whereas all of these cities

that I take you to with my books have so much more to offer, and there's so much amazing

stuff to see and do that's just going to blow your mind. And you walk in these places and

there's nobody there. There's like a handful of travelers that are in the know, we focus on

places where the tour busses don't go and where the cruise people don't go. There's a handful

in the Venice book, of course, we have to talk about Piazza San Marco. And I'm going to talk

about some of this today, but most of the book is just taking you where the tourists don't go

and you'll be bamboozled by all these incredible things to see and do.

Katy

Yeah, it's amazing. And I think Venice is a little bit misunderstood because people maybe don't

take the time to explore. And we're going to talk about how we can explore the city with you

a little bit later, but maybe we can explore why we've come to that point and what the

typical tourist normally does in Venice. And so how we can unpack that and then suggest to

people how they can have an amazing experience in Venice, because we don't want you to

come back saying, oh, Venice is a bit like a Disneyland, because, my goodness, it is not.

Absolutely not. And you can't keep me away from there. Actually, I love it so much.

Corinna

It's like a love affair that you can't get over. I've come to realize there will never be a point in

my life where I'm like, I've been 110 times to Venice. I'm not going back. It's like it gets inside

you. What happens, though, is with mass tourism, the mass tourism model is all about getting

as many people as possible and squishing them into a place. So that's how you get that kind of

Disneylandy thing happening where you have, say, five cruise ships in port, that's 20,000

people. And they all jump into this one section of the historic center, which is from the Rialto

Bridge to just marginally beyond Piazza San Marco because they all want to see the Bridge of

Sighs. And so during the day because they get off the boat at 8.30 or something. So from, say,

09:00 in the morning till 05:00 at night, whatever time they're going to go back to

all-you-can-eat buffet on the boat. It's packed - you want to avoid the area during that time.

But early in the morning and my goodness, the evenings, oh, my gosh, you just die. And I still

die every single time. It's just so gorgeous. So you need to approach that little strip. And if

you have a look on the map, we're talking about a mile or something. It's not even - it's a tiny

little strip that gets packed and if you let that be your Venice experience, you're probably not

going to enjoy it. Do that same strip once they're all back on the boat, you'll be so in love

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with it, you won't even believe it. But it means that most of the people going to Venice,

they're going to only see that, and that's going to be their only experience. So if we go beyond

that, there's all the things to fall in love with and then once they're back on the boat, then

we come back through that area, and you'll be like, oh, my God, look at the piazza, look at

the bridge. Look at this and the other. And you'll just be in love. And the whole thing about

this book is to make you fall in love with Venice. And the only way I can make you fall in love

with Venice is to take you through and show you all these cool things.

Katy

So exciting. Well, why don't you start telling us about them? Because I can't wait. Because I

always learned something from you.

Corinna

Well, part of what I wanted with this book was to encourage people to spend, say, three

nights in Venice, because a lot of people think of it as a day trip. So we need to kind of, like,

move that thinking a little bit so that you can take advantage of lots of the things. One thing

that I noticed when I'm looking at the mass tourism tour groups, they've all got the little

things in their ears, and they're stomping along, trying to remember which color flag they're

following today and trying to hear what the guid is saying and they're overwhelmed and

exhausted most of the time. With the mass tourism model is to show you this building and

then get to that bridge and then get to this building. And now we're done. And so people miss

out on all these incredible little details. And so what I thought I'd talk about today was a

bunch of cool, crazy details to look at when you're walking around in Venice that once you've

seen them, you cannot unsee them. And so I'll point them out to my tour travelers, and they'll

half lose their minds. And then they'll be like, look at all these people - they're not even

looking at it. They're not even seeing this. And it makes it really fun. And Venice is - Venice

has a sensational history. It's just so intriguing. And all the different people coming and the

going. And it was the center of the universe for a few centuries. It was where trade

happened. Everything that came from the east and the Middle East and the Far East came

through to Europe, through Venice, and then from Europe, it went back out. Stuff went back

out to the east. So you have all these incredible influences, and you see it in everything from

the cuisine to the architecture to all the bits and pieces, which we're going to talk about

some of them right now. So one of the ones I wanted to tell you about is one of my favorites,

and literally nobody knows about it. And it is not even a two-minute walk from San Pantalon,

which is an area that you're going to be. If you're in Venice, you're going to be by San Pantalon

at some point. So it's like a two minute walk from there. This is in the Dosedoro. And it's the

story of this - it's called the General's Medallion. And the story is in 1256, Venetian general

Giovanni Tiepolo was leaving to go fight battles against the Genovese in Acre, and his friends

were making fun of him and his military skills and saying, you're going to suck. If you think

you're going to win something, you've got to bring us back something to show that you've

actually won. So he brings back this giant stone medallion. So they call it a medallion. It's a

big round stone thing, right? And he comes home and he sticks it on the wall of his friend's

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house. It's like, see what I did? Now, this stone medallion, it's insane. It's so killer. It has a

partner piece. It's part of a two-piece collection. The second piece is in the Dumbarton Oaks

Museum in Washington, DC. And it's one of the prime pieces of Byzantine art that they have.

It turns out that these two medallions, it's a father and son, Alexios Komnenos and John the

second Komnenos, who are co-emperors of Byzantium from 1092 to 1118. And these big stone

round medallion, to me a medallion sounds like something you wear around your neck, but it's

like a big round stone thing. They were to commemorate them. You have one of them

priceless work of art in Dumbarton Oaks Museum. And the other one is on the wall of a house

in this little rando campiello you wouldn't even believe it. And so much of Venice is like an

outdoor museum, if you know what to look for. And I'll take my people through there. We will

be in San Pantalon, there'll be a lot of people around, we go down the street around the

corner, turn right and go into this little campiello, which is like a little piazza, but it's a small

one that would be like for a handful of houses. And boom, there it is, just there on the wall

doing its thing.

Katy

It's so cool, isn't it? Like, you can imagine the one in Washington, DC has got all these laser

cameras focused on it. Here it is just in some random street. Well, that reminds me of when I

was there a few years ago, and we were down - I was on a food tour, actually. And they took

us down into this tiny campiello and they said, oh, yeah, Christopher Columbus was born in

that building. I was like, okay, yeah, Christopher Columbus. Sorry, Marco Polo Marco Polo was

born.

Corinna

Yeah, it's so fascinating that the history of Venice and just the layers and layers of stuff.

There's another one that I wanted to tell you about that is up at the Arsenale. Most people

can use Piazza San Marco as a reference. I'm talking about a ten, maybe 15 minutes walk from

Piazza San Marco. So it's not far at all. The Arsenale was the shipyard. And I guess a lot of

people probably don't know that Venice invented the factory line. So they had this big

shipyard called the Arsenale, and they could make a whole ship in one day because they

invented this thing where it comes to this person's spot, and they do this section and it moves

along to the next spot and they do the next section, and it was like the biggest, most

important shipyard in the world for a time. But anyway, at the gateway, the doorway into the

Arsenal, there are two lions, big stone lions. The one on the left is the Piraeus Lion, and he's

fascinating. He's 9ft tall, for starters. He's a fourth century BC marble lion that was originally

guarding the Port of Athens. And then in 1687, Francesco Morosoni, I should say he was a

naval commander for the Venetians, and he stole them. But what he's also famous for is not

just stealing this lion, but blowing up the Parthenon. So at the time, the Ottomans had

overtaken Athens, and they stored all their gunpowder in the Parthenon. And Morosini sends

in one of his cannonballs, and Kaboom blows up one of the great treasures of the world. He

destroys it. But anyway, he comes back to Venice with this lion and then gets made Doge. I

grew up calling him the Dogas. And then my guide, Emmanuele would say, Dog-e.

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Katy

Dog-e sounds so much nicer, doesn't he?

Corinna

Yes, it sounds so much more interesting. Dog-e. It sounds so much better when he's saying it.

Anyway, so now we fast forward. So this lion's been standing there outside the Arsenal since

1687. Now, in the 18th century, the Swedish scholar discovered that there was a strange

decoration around the shoulders of the lion - like carved into him. And he looked into it more

closely and discovered it's 1000 year old Viking runes. And so it's a Lindworm is what it's called

and which is like a headless serpent. So it almost looks like a ribbon going around his

shoulders. And inside it is all these encryptions. It's super cool. And I think it was a Varangian

mercenary. So these Viking mercenaries were working for Byzantine - the Byzantine Empire

for a while back in, like, the 1000s or 1100s, something like that. And they think that one of

these mercenaries was with the lion and carved this thing into him. It's so old and it's so cool.

And I have never seen a single human being go, look at it apart from me. And I'm, like, falling

apart, like it's. "Oh, my God, look at that" and taking all these photos of it.

Corinna

And it's just a cool thing to see, and it's right by - I'm going to give you this one for free. I

don't normally tell the names of my favorite restaurants because I don't want them to get

overrun, but it's really close to Salvmeria which when you see it written down, it's written

Salv with a V Meria. It's how they used to do their use. They used to do them as a V. But

Salvmeriat is one of the most fantastic restaurants ever. And it's Sicilian Venetian, so it's

Sicilians and Venetians running this thing. And there's this dude called Bruno, who he's a

sommelier, and he runs the whole front of house, and he's adorable. And this place is

fantastic. You won't see tourists there, but you'll see travelers there, and you'll see virtually

every time I go there, it's all Italians. And you're sitting outside on the sidewalk of this really

wide street. So you're up away from the tourists, and you look straight down towards the

water. So the views are beautiful, the light's beautiful, the ambience is beautiful. And on the

day that I arrive and I fly in, I try to not have alcohol and not have pasta because I've got to

get myself, make sure I'm not jet-lagged, get into tour guide mode. And so last time I went to

Salvmeria, Bueno comes over and he's like, chatting. And I'm like, yeah, I just had a 27 hours

travel day to get here, so I'm not going to do pasta tonight, and I'm not going to do any wine

tonight. And he's like, oh, so I guess you don't want to know about the pasta with the

pancetta and Sicilian pistachios they just flew in this morning. Don't worry, I won't tell you.

I'm like, all right, so I'll have that. And he's like, if you're not having a wine, I probably

shouldn't tell you about... So five minutes later, I'm sitting there with my plate of pasta and

this fabulous wine.

Corinna

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I just love it. It's so fun. But you're away from the crowds, you're having this true Venetian

experience, Venetian Sicilian experience in this case. And there are so many really cool things

to see all around you, all around the Arsenale and the lion. And I guarantee you, when you

spot it, when you go and you spot because it's really faint. Now it's 1000 year old Viking runes.

1000 years of weather gets it worn down a little bit. But when you know to look for it, it's so

cool.

Katy

I love it. I think that's what's really intriguing and magical about Venice, because it is one of

the original melting pot cities, really. And you have all these cultures coming together in this

one magnificent, gorgeous city - from the domes of San Marco with these beautiful Byzantine

domes that you don't see anywhere else in Italy. And just I feel like it's a melting pot of

different cultures that's really attractive to me. I find it intriguing and mysterious, and I hope

that it's our future as well, because I feel like there's a lot of angst around people mixing. But

I think this is where it all comes together and it's beautiful.

Corinna

If you were in Rome, in ancient Rome, you would have seen all the skin colors, all the

ethnicities, all the everything. It was boom, all put in there and 15 years a slave, you could

become a Roman citizen. It's very, very interesting. With Venice, it's easy to get overwhelmed

because it's so enormously visual. So I always say to my travelers, when the big picture gets

too overwhelming, we zoom in and we focus on some small details. When the small details

start being too overwhelming, we zoom back out and we look at the big picture. The level of

details to look at is just unbelievable. And I mean, I'm there all the time with my locally

licensed guides, and they're walking my groups through. So I'm not the one doing all the

chitter-chatter. I'm the one following in the rear

Katy

Taking notes.

Corinna

Actually, I do because you can be with the same guide, like over, and they're always saying

new things. I'm like, wait, what? I have a section in the book about Piazza San Marco, and it's

all these cool things to look for, so I don't get too deep into the Basilica, like, I have a handful

of things that I really need to look at, but there's all these other things in there that people

don't know about. And one of the things I wanted to tell you today, it's one of my favorites

and I promise you, everybody listening. When you go to Venice, you will not be able to unsee

this. And you're going to see a million people in the Piazza and the Piazzetta, and you'll see

that none of them are spotting what you're spotting. So the Doges Palace is actually along

what they call the Piazzetta. So it's like an L shape from the main Piazza San Marco, the

ground floor of the Doges Palace is 36 columns holding it up, right. And each column, the

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capital of each column, each of these 36 columns, each one is different. They're obviously

hand-carved because they are centuries old but it's the Encyclopedia of Venice. It tells the

story of Venice. Venice was closer to the Byzantine Empire than it was to Rome. So we don't

have an overload of Pope stuff rammed down our throats in Venice. I do enjoy Pope's behaving

badly, but you're getting, like, a lot of different messaging. So the three corners, because the

backside of the Doges Palace is actually a waterway. So we have three corners. The first

corner is by the Basilica, San Marco.

Corinna

And then we have the corner at the end and then the far corner, which you would look around

that corner to see the Bridge of Sighs. So those three are religious capitals. They're telling

part of a religious story. And the rest is telling the other parts of the story of Venice. And it's

fascinating. And the first one I'd want to draw your attention to is the end one. So if you're

going to look around the corner to see the Bridge of Sighs from the front side of the Doge's

Palace, and it's Drunken Noah. Now, I don't know what religious education you had, but I had

no idea Noah was a drunk. I mean, he was the original Drunken Sailor.

Katy

That was actually the first song I learned to play on the guitar.

Corinna

The Drunken Sailor. Oh, my goodness. When I discovered this, I about keeled over. It was so

funny. So the capital of - that last capital, number 36, is Noah is all drunk and he's naked

drunk. His two sons are leaning around the corner. So they're around the side where the

Bridge of Sighs is. They're leaning around the corner to cover their drunken dad with a

blanket. And I'm like, oh, my God. So each of the capitals tells another part of the story of

Venice. There's all kinds of different ones, but they have these incredible people ones to look

out for. One of the ones to watch for is called Latin Women. And it's these different faces of

women coming around the capital. So if I'm losing anybody here, we have the column. And

then that piece that goes around the top of the column is the capital. So with the Latin

women, you have all these different ethnicities coming in, living in Venice and all these

different types of women. And so they're all looking out and all of them are doing this 1000

yard stare. They're looking way beyond you way, into the distance, apart from one. And she

looks right at you and she has a slight smile on her face. And once you see her, you can't walk

through there without seeing her smiling at you. She's the coolest thing. She has one of those.

I'm not sure exactly what period it was from when the women would have that scarf thing

that went around their neck like ear to ear, below their chin.

Katy

A wimple. I think it's a wimple.

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Corinna

But it's really neat. And when you see her and she's looking at you and she's smiling like she's

got a little secret, and then you can't not see her. You cannot. Once you spotted her the first

time, you cannot walk along the Doge's Palace and not see her smiling at you. I've tried. I

can't.

Katy

It's so intriguing.

Corinna

And there's another one. Column number 21 is called People of the World. I love all the

people ones the most. They have ones that have animals and all kinds of things, but I find

that people one is the most fascinating. And this one's really cool because it shows different

ethnicities that were living and working in Venice throughout Venice's history. So there's a

Moor who's wearing a turban. There's a Mongolian Tatar, and he's got this whole cool hat thing

going on. But if you look the guy to the left of the Mongolian, there's this guy with elf ears,

and it's like the wildest craziest thing. And again, it's like once you spotted the elf ears, you

can't unsee them, and it's impossible to walk along there and your eye not like ping off and

go, oh, my God, he's got elf ears. But there he is. But it's really neat.

Katy

It's like you would totally miss it if you don't pay attention.

Corinna

If someone doesn't point it out to you - and I've been to Venice many times before it was

pointed out to me - and then it's one of those things you see at once and boom, it's there

every time. And it makes walking along that stretch even more interesting because you've got

this whole other world that you're looking at, and if you watch around, nobody else is even

noticing. But I always think it must have been so amazing back there. Venice was the center

of the Earth. It was the wealthiest city on Earth, well in Europe anyway. It was the most

important city. And to be someone that was not a white Venetian, like someone from a

different race, to be able to walk through the most important stretch of the most important

city in the world and see people that look like you immortalized in stone saying 'you were

here', that must have been just absolutely amazing.

Katy

Yeah.

Corinna

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And then there's another thing, while we're in that little stretch that probably a lot of people

know about, but in case you don't know, opposite the Marciana library, where the Doge's

Palace is, we're not facing the lagoon, but a little bit further up opposite the library, you look

up to the second floor, and you have all the white Istrian stone columns and two pink ones.

You know about the pink columns?

Katy

Tell us more.

Corinna

There's a whole fantastic story with those. These pink columns, so the pink actually

symbolizes blood also have been told, but it was from here. The Doge would stand between

these columns to announce death sentences. And if an aristocrat, if somebody from the

golden book was being executed for committing a crime, they would be hung between these

two pink columns. And so everybody could see in the busiest part of the most important city

in the world, this is what happens if you go against the Republic. During Carnavale, and they

still do this now, talking back hundreds of years that this has been happening, there's a part

of the Carnavale called the Svolo del Turco where an angel floats on a high wire from the

Campanile down to meet the Doge in between these two pink columns. So that's kind of cool

to see, to imagine how that must have been back then. They still do it now, but now we have

so much more technology.

Katy

It would have been a pretty risky business to get up there back in the day.

Corinna

Can you imagine? And they're dressed up as an angel.

Katy

I wouldn't be volunteering for that job.

Corinna

No, me neither. But then also, if the Doge was going to watch a public hanging, he would

watch it from between these two pink columns. And so again, once you see them and you

realize just what was going on there, it's absolutely amazing. And then when you look if you're

standing in the Piazzetta and you now turn so you have the Doge's Palace on your left, and

you look towards the lagoon, we have the two big columns of Venice, which are also

fascinating. And it was between those columns that they would have the hangings, but there

was a way to not be hung, which is really cool. And that is when we get to the corner of the

Doge's Palace and it turns to the left. So you go down the Piazetta and it turns to the left. The

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fourth column along is out of alignment. And so they had this thing where if the convicted

person could walk, I think it was back to the column. If he could walk around the

circumference of it and not lose his balance, then his sentence will be absolved. And I'm not

sure now that they have the laws about not being able to stand and sit on monuments - I'm

not sure if you can still do it. If you can still try and try and go around that circle and not fall

over.

Katy

Sounds elegant. Sounds like you tried.

Corinna

I tried it like years ago. I haven't tried it recently, but it's a good thing to know about. And

then those two columns at the entrance to the lagoon from the Piazetta. So the one on the

left, the side that's closest to the Doge's Palace, is the column of St. Mark. And it has the

winged lion of St. Mark on top of it. And then the other one is San Teodoro, who was the

previous Saint before the relics got stolen.

Katy

I wasn't going to mention the stolen relics.

Corinna

Stealing of the relics is like one of my favorite, favorite things. But there's really interesting

stuff when you're walking through there. You need to make sure you look up and look at that

lion. That one's now a replica. The real one is inside the Museum in the Doge's Palace. But

they did like carbon dating or whatever you call it when you're figuring out how old these

things are. And they've traced him back to the end of the fourth century BC, beginning of the

third century BC. And he was from Tarsus in south central Turkey. And he was this God called

Sandon. And Sandon was the God of war and weather. And he was depicted, he would be on a

winged lion, like riding a winged lion standing up on its back. And so this lion moving around

the area and somehow wound up in Venice on the top of the column and he's had some

rebuilds to him over the last 2000 years. But when Napololean came in in 1797 and he raided

everything, he stole so much stuff. One of the things he did was he stole this lion and he took

it to Paris and put it on top of a fountain in the Place des Invalides in Paris and then in 1815,

it was to be returned to Venice. He was not allowed to have that pilfering anymore. But what

they did when they took it down from the top of this fountain, they either sabotaged it or

they had an accident. But he crashed to the ground and broke into 20 pieces. So these 20

pieces were then taken back to the Arsenal by our Piraeus lion friend from the same kind of

era and he was put back together and then he was put back up on that column in 1816 but

they took him down for World War II and he only got put back up in 1991. And then the other

one, you look at the top of the other column and you have Saint Theodore who was the Slayer

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of Dragons and somewhere along the line his dragon got replaced with a crocodile. So I don't

quite know how, but you see him up there, he's up there with his crocodile.

Katy

Obviously, he was a bit scared of big dragons and the crocodile was easier.

Corinna

But it's really cool. And then there's another - one last thing I want to tell you about those

columns is that again, you will see nobody looks at this, nobody sees this, but these two

enormous columns that came over from Constantinople, they stand on octagonal bases and

those octagonal bases each had sculptures around the bottom of them depicting the various

arts and craft skills that paid to have these columns erected. Now over the last thousand

years, most of it has been degraded, but the only one that's still visible on the bottom of the

St. Mark's column is the green grocers displaying their fruit and veggies in these wicker

baskets. And then if you look across at the San Theodora one, you can see there's a

blacksmith raising his hammer to hit an anvil, there's a fishmonger offering fish from a basket

and two very faint ones which are possibly a butcher and a winemaker, but it's just neat like

these thousand-year-old sculptures still there. And I love all these crazy little details to look

for.

Katy

Yeah, I think it's really fascinating to see that people pretty much live the same way that we

do now in a lot of ways. Things change, but things stay the same thing in the context of this

magical city. That's what I love actually, is the juxtaposition between this stunning

architecture and all these details. And then you have just normal life going along.

Corinna

And they see this stuff every single day and it's just things they walk past in life, whereas like

we might walk past 711 or something.

Corinna

So another thing I wanted to talk about is when people take trips to Murano to see the glass.

A lot of times, if you're not in the know, you'll be encouraged to get on one of these factory

free boats where they'll have a free boat that takes you over and it takes you straight to a

specific factory store and you're expected to buy from them. So we don't want to do that.

We're going to have a different plan. And you can walk up to Fondamente Nove. So from

again, from Piazza San Marco, which we're using as a center point to walk to Fondamente

Nove, is maybe 15 minutes. Like, walking through brain-bendingly, gorgeous, ancient Venice.

It's insane. It actually takes me longer because I keep stopping and taking photos and talking

to people and all this kind of stuff. But it's a beautiful walk through the Fondamente Nove.

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There's a whole lot of things I tell you about in the book that are on the way, like, it's all

happening, right, and through there. But it's really easy to just jump on the Vaporetto from

there and was over to tell her takes 20 minutes. But before we get on that boat, we're going

to hang a left. So we're up there on Fondamente Nove. We're going to walk up just like a

block and hang a left. And there's a church called the Gesuiti. Have you been to Gesuiti?

Katy

Yeah. Incredible.

Corinna

It's absolutely nuts. It's a really rococo of baroque thing. But I always think of that if Jesus

took LSD, this is what would happen.

Katy

Zero restraint. There's no restraint there at all.

Corinna

It's one of the most amazing things you ever see. But it's just so full on. It's like a madman

fever dream. So this church has three chapels along the sides on each side, and the chapels

have these plasters separating them. And those are the only surfaces in the entire church that

are not decorated. And it's an explosion of decoration. And there's these twirly barley sugar

columns that are, like twirling around on themselves going up. There's marble inlay that's

made to look like fabric. There's insane art in there, like Tintoretto and Titian and stuff. It's

just so much. And it, to me, looks very different than the rest of Venice. And it has a really

interesting story behind it, because this church was originally built in 1155 by this religious

order called the Crociferi, which are the cross-bearers. And then in, like, 1651, Pope

Alexander VII suppressed that order. It was like, no, you're done. So now they had this empty

church. They were kicked out. The Crociferi were kicked out, and they've got this empty

church that coincided with Venice needing more money. And the Jesuits had been kicked out

of Venice, like, 60 years prior, and they had to give up their beautiful church in Dorsoduro.

But now Venice needed money so they said you can come back, but only if you buy this church

on the outskirts of town. Actually, as it turned out, they were expelled again later on, but

they were never popular in Venice. So when they came back, that's probably why they built it

so over the top was just like, 'ha you don't like us, we'll take that'

Katy

'We're back!'

Corinna

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It's a visual banquet and the wow factor of this church is just off the charts and it's all kind of

a bit nutty. I love anything that's kind of a little bit off beat, but it's literally a block from

where you get the Vaporetto to go over to Murano. So this is another reason to be staying in

Venice for a couple of nights, two or three nights, because there's so many things to do and

it's really nice to have a day where you can at will get a Vaporetto pass. It's $20 or €20 for the

day and just meander around the islands. So the first one is Murano. And yes, it's where all

the glass blowing is and yes, there's all the glass factories. But if you keep walking, I like to

get off and just walk straight up the main drag where all the glass factory shops are like we're

talking about three blocks or something, you get to the end and now you're getting into a

whole different world of Murano with really phenomenal old buildings and just really cool

stuff to look at. And one of the things that's really interesting there is the Basilica of Santa

Maria and San Donato. This is the 7th-century Basilica. It's one of the oldest in Venice. It had a

rebuild in 1125 and it got this amazing mosaic floor. I mean, to me it's worthwhile going just

to go and see that. Plus it has the relics of the Dragon Slayer, San Donato. So San Donato goes

back to Roman times and he was from Arezzo and his claim to Fame was slaying a dragon.

Well, it got evolved into slaying a dragon and the dragon's rib bones are behind the altar. So in

reality it's probably like a mammoth or something that was dug up, some dinosaur that was

dug up. But people really believe that this was a dragon. And so they have these dragon bones

behind the altar. So cool and it's so neat to see. And the mosaics are incredible. And in the

book, I have a lot of stories about this church and why you would want to go and see it. And

it's just so old. And then right by there is another really cool one, this really cool artisan

called Alessia Fuga and I've written about her in the book as well. And she makes unbelievable

glass jewelry. Like unbelievable. It's Murano glass. It's modern and interesting and you'll find

people of all ages and all walks of life enjoy wearing it. In fact, I was at a Prosecco winery

and the lady that owns the winery was talking to us and explaining stuff and I'm looking at

this necklace she has on. I'm like, I hate to interrupt you, but is that an Alessia Fuga? And

she's like, "yes, it is!" She's like so excited. But it's a really wonderful, wonderful artisan that

is well worthwhile. If you're in Murano, you must walk up there and go see her shop. And then

she's into the whole experiential travel movement as well, which is very big in Venice. You

have all these different types of artisans that get involved in it, and they offer, like,

workshops and classes and demonstrations and things where you can go and see how it's done

or have a go making it yourself. The idea is that rather than you walk into a shop just buying

something and walking away, that you actually have a connection to the soul of Venice, which

I think is really wonderful. And Alessia does that, and she's phenomenal well worth Googling

and definitely well worth visiting, especially if you want to get, like a really unique gift for

somebody.

Katy

Or for yourself. This is the thing. It wasn't quite Venetian glass, but I've got a pair of

sunglasses that I bought in Venice many years ago, and everyone says, I love your sunglasses

and I go "yeah, I got them in Venice". And it's because there are so many beautiful it's not just

Venice - Italy throughout Italy, you can find this as well, but there's such a commitment to

craftsmanship and attention to detail on these things. So if you're wanting to spoil yourself,

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buy a piece of beautiful jewelry and you'll remember it, and when you touch it and it's around

your neck or it feels special and you can feel that special part of Venice with you.

Corinna

I'm a big believer that when you're buying souvenirs when you're buying something from your

trip to bring home with you, it must be something that has an emotional connection. If you're

just walking into a high street store and buying or whatever off the rack in some high street

store, from some store that is all around the world anyway, it's not going to resonate with you

when you pull it out of the closet and you're going to forget in a year's time, where did I get

that from? What was that? It's not going to make any sense to you. But when you go to the

workshop of an artisan and in Italy, they are everywhere. This is what Italy was built on. And

you're able to see that artisan at work and you're able to talk to them and you're able to

become a part of this experience that actually holds with you. And you'll pull that item out,

whether it's something that you're pulling out of your closet or whether it's some knickknack

thing that you bought for your house, it will mean something to you every single time you see

it. And that's what it's about. That's what you want to take home, something that you

remember where you were and why you were there and what happened and what the lady

said that's what it's all about. But I have another one.

Katy

Please tell.

Corinna

So when you had another Venice episode where they touched on this wine and (a fabulous

episode by the way), and I wanted to get into it a little bit more. So if you listen to this and

you haven't heard the previous Venice episode, go back and listen to it because she was

brilliant. But she talks about - when we're in these islands in the lagoon, we have Murano and

we have Burano, which is a really famous one with all the fisherman's houses and all the

bright colors, the Torcello, which is the oldest of them. But back at Murano, when you're

coming in on the Vaporetto, instead of getting off at Burano, get off at the stop before which

is called Mazzorbo. Mazzorbo and Burano are connected by a bridge. And if all you do is get

off and take the five-minute walk from Mazzorbo into Burano, you are still going to be ahead

of all the people getting off the Vaporetto, so you're still doing good. But there is a very

special winery on Mazzorbo. It's called Tenuta Venissa. And basically what happened is there's

this family called the Bisol family and they've been making prosecco for 500 years up in the

Valdobbiadene. And there was this grape that was specific to the lagoon of Venice. It was the

only place that it could grow and it was wiped out in about the 1400. And the Bisol family

have been looking for it for years. And it's a special golden grape which is the Dorona or D'oro

means gold. So long story short, a little over a decade ago, they were able to find a corner of

a church was not being used, the garden was not being used and they were able to find three

of these plants that were tested and found to be the Dorona grape. So they got the rights to

farm it. And so the Tenuta Venissa in Mazzorbo, the winery part of it is this Dorona grape and

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they only make 4000 bottles per year. It's very, very unique and prestigious, quite incredible.

It's a vibrant gold-colored wine and it has this very velvety, full-flavored, like a full-flavored

white wine. It's beautiful. It has no pesticides or anything because the salt spray that comes

off the water with the wind, keeps all the buggies away. Their first vintage was in 2012. And

as I said, they make 4000 bottles per year. The bottles are hand-blown by Carlo Moretti on

Murano. He's one of the really famous glass blowers. And the bottles have gold leaf on them,

like gold leaf labels that are made by the Battiloro family in Cannaregio. And these have been

Goldsmiths in Venice for 1000 years - their family. So everything about this experience, even

just looking at a bottle, you're just taking in all of this history of Venice. And each bottle is

hand-labeled and like hand-numbered and the gold is fused directly onto the bottle, and they

get a new label every year as well. So you have this experience where you've got this wine

that only grows here, that wine does not grow anywhere else in the world. And then you've

got multiple Venetian artisans who have been involved in the creation of this project. And the

bottles are expensive. But what an unbelievable and unique gift to bring back for yourself or

for anybody else.

Katy

Yeah. Just so precious. There's no way to describe the contrast between the way that we kind

of live our lives - just go choose something on Amazon or you know what I mean? It's just a

completely different respect for art and culture and history. I love it. It's beautiful.

Corinna

It's incredible. So the last thing I wanted to talk about is another cool option for neat stuff to

do in Venice is to whip over to Giudecca Island. So from San Marco or actually from the San

Zaccaria Vaporetto stop, which is at San Marco, we're just beyond the Doges Palace. It's a

three-minute ride to Isola San Giorgio, and then three minutes more, and you're on the

Giudecca. So the Giudecca is a long, slim island that looks across at the Dorsoduro, which is

the other side of the Grand Canal. So you have the Giudecca Canal running between the two

of them, and you find not that many people know to go over there. And it is just fantastic.

There's so much cool stuff to see and do. And you can even if you just get off at the first stop,

which I think is Zitelle, and just walk the Fondamenta. So it's one big, long Fondamenta that

goes along the whole stretch. And it's got all these gorgeous little restaurants and bars and

lovely eateries. And you can sit out there and have lunch. And you look across the canal at

Dorsoduro and at Santa Maria della Salute.

Corinna

It's just fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. And it's a very artisan island. So there's lots of kind of

like art colonies. There's a fantastic building called the Three Eyes, which has become a

famous photography museum that has all kinds of unbelievable exhibitions and stuff going on

in there. But there's a place that I want to tell you about that as you're walking a little ways

along the Fondamenta. It's the Convento dei Santi Cosma e Damiano, which was a

15th-century convent. So what they would do when you had these really, really, really

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wealthy families, if they had a bunch of daughters, you had to kind of offload them because

all these daughters marrying into other families were going to dilute the family fortune. So

they stick them in convents. And this one was actually set up by one of the really wealthy

Noble families. And it was a convent until Napoleon came along and he dissolved it and used

it as a barracks for his military. So a lot of the art was lost, but in the 1980s, the government

made this initiative. It's called Casa e Bottega. And it goes back to the ancient or the old

system of the shop would be at the bottom of the shop in the workshop, and the artist would

live above. So they've done that here with it's called the Artisti Artigiani del Chiostro. And so

you've got these fantastic old cloisters, you can walk through the building in the courtyard

and everything. It's really cool to see. And it's kind of like nicely run down, so it's not

polished, which is really cool. And it has this workshop space for ten artisans. I don't think

they have all ten in at the moment, but it is so cool. And you see all these really neat,

different art forms. Like, there's this one guy that works with paper and makes these

incredible paper lampshades. And it's all very different to what you see elsewhere. And it's all

great stuff to bring home as souvenirs and as gifts for people. I tend to do all of my Christmas

shopping when I'm in Italy. So I'm always like popping in on these places and finding really

neat, unusual things to bring home. But that's well worthwhile to go and have a look at. And

it's like, go have lunch, go have a look at that.

Corinna

There's another very famous church along the way there - another one of my favorites is

Sant'Eufemia. So this one was first built in 865, and it had various renovations over the

centuries. And when you go inside, you can kind of see all these centuries of life, like this

plaster chipped away. There's old columns and old brickwork, some really tremendous art.

And one of my favorite things, I'll probably offend lots of people with this, but it's what I

consider really hilarious pietà? So instead of the pietà where you have Mary and she's cradling

Jesus dead body and it's all traumatic and everything. With this one, instead of him lying in

Mary's lap, he's kind of draped over a rock and she has her right arm raised up over him, and it

looks like she's about to smash him over the head with a rock. Like she's probably doing

something really religiously or something. But to me, when I first saw it, I was like, oh, my

God, she's about to hit him. And so now I can't look at it and not see her about to smash him.

And also she looks like she's twelve. So this whole thing is all just so incongruous. But it's also

brilliant. And I don't know, it's kind of neat. It's a fun thing to go have a look at when you're in

Giudecca. And I swear you'll start laughing when you start thinking that she's going to smash

him with the rock.

Corinna

But the last thing I want to tell you about and try and go quickly because I'm talking too long

on Giudecca is they have what was convent called Le Convertite, which was for reformed

prostitutes and sexually besmirched women were put into this convent. And then there was

the priest was Fra Giovanni Leon. He made the 400 nuns in there into his personal harem.

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Katy

Maybe the pieta is maybe like a reflection of what was going on there, who knows?

Corinna

But the Council of Ten found out about it. And so in 1561, they beheaded him. But they took

13 tries to chop his head off and it didn't work. But in the end they got a knife and chopped it

off. But anyway, the old convent has now become the women's prison. And they have this

really great philosophy of, rather than being a philosophy of punishing people, it's about

rehabilitation and teaching people skills that they can use when they come back out to the

real world. So they have an unbelievable organic garden in there. And one of the programs

available to women incarcerated here is that they can work making toiletries for the Bauer

Hotel Group. So beautiful smelling toiletries they make there. On Thursdays, if you're in

Venice on a Thursday morning, you can buzz over to Guidecca and they have an organic

market outside the prison. So all these organic fruits and vegetables that the women are

growing, they have them out and market stands outside. And so half of Venice goes over to

buy them. It's some of the best produce you're going to find anywhere.

Corinna

And then they have this other program that I'm kind of obsessed with. It was this group called

la cerc, which means the Circle. They decided it would be really good to teach women how to

sew. And they created this program. It was called actually il cerchio not la cerc back in 2003.

I think it was. They figured that if they could teach them how to make clothing, it was going

to give them a usable, necessary skill, something that society needs. So any inmate who

wants to can learn how to sew. And then those that - there are some that just want to learn

how to sew, that's what they want to do. And there's others that want to evolve into working

in design. So being Italy, Italy is full of incredible designers. They have these designers and

design teams working with these women, teaching them how to make unbelievable clothing.

And the fabrics that they're working with are donated by Fortuny, Rubelli and Bevilacqua. So

you have these unbelievable, unbelievable fabrics. And so they actually have a shop that they

sell them. And the women are taught to make really classically, beautiful dresses, classic,

timeless, exquisite fashion and the greatest fabrics you can possibly get. And over in Castello,

back over to San Marco, not even a ten-minute walk from Piazza San Marco, they have a shop

which is called Banco Lotto number Ten. This is the shop that sells these clothes. And to me,

there's no more sustainable travel thing that you can do than to buy a piece of clothing that's

locally made by these women in the prison learning these good skills that they can come out

into the world and integrate into society and be something, not go back to whatever sent

them in there in the first place. But the clothing is, oh, my goodness, it is phenomenal. And

it's designed to be pieces that you would keep for forever and where for forever. And, oh, my

gosh.

Katy

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Heirloom pieces. Now, Corinna, this has been absolutely phenomenal. You know, so many

little stories and pieces of information about Venice. Now I'm tipping you didn't find them on

Google. So I'm curious, how do you find all these amazing pieces and snippets of gorgeousness

all around Venice?

Corinna

Well, I'm obsessed with finding interesting things, so there's an element of researching

everything to death. But I work with local guides in Venice all the time. So all of my tour

groups, when I bring a tour group in, it's not me telling you the stories. I have local guides

that I work with. They step in and they take over the tour for that morning and they're

showing their thing or doing their thing. And I find that even though I've been going to Venice

for more than 30 years, I am still learning new things every single time, just constantly. And

so I'm a huge proponent of using local, licensed guides. So they have to be licensed. So they're

actually part of the Venice license guide profession. But what I've done with this book is I

have a link inside the book that you can get a PDF that you can download with guides that I

work with that I can recommend because it can be really tricky if you're arriving to a city you

don't know you haven't been to before. Like how on Earth are you supposed to find a really

good licensed local guide? So all of them do general walking tours, but the ones on the PDF,

they all have some kind of really interesting specialty. So I have one that's a specialty foodie

guide. She does the most outstanding foodie tours you could possibly imagine. I have another

one who, amongst just so many things, she's fascinating, but she said to me, she came to

realize that Venice is a very difficult place for somebody who's either vision impaired, a blind

or impaired vision or somebody who's in a wheelchair. It's a difficult place because it's canals

and bridges. So she developed specialty tours for people who either have sight-impaired or

are in wheelchairs or otherwise mobility impaired, which I think is brilliant. And then I have

another one who specializes in one of her sub specialties is doing these amazing tours for

kids. So kids of all ages. And she creates these incredible treasure hunts and scavenger hunts

with them. And it's just dynamic. I have another one in there who - her degree was in

Japanese language and Japanese art. And she went on to work at the Oriental Museum in

Venice and then got poached by the Peggy Guggenheim. So of course she does all of the

normal walking tours. But if you are interested in modern art, Venice is one of the world's

centers of modern art. Like, some of the greatest collections in the world are there. Like, it's

something that I'm not conversant in. So I can pick up Erica and have her take us through, and

she can just, like, open the whole world to you when it comes to modern art. And I have

another one who - he went to University for archeology, specializing in Islamic archeology.

And of course, Venice, the architecture, all the stuff that was plundered and bought over all

has all the Islamic background to it. So when you have someone like that who can explain to

you what you're seeing and what the relevance is and why this building looks like this and

where the foot from that statue was actually found 30 years ago underneath this mosque that

was being excavated in Turkey. And it just is fascinating. So I've created this PDF just to help

my readers to connect with local people who can just expand things even more for them,

which I think is going to be really cool.

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Katy

Yeah, I think that's a resource that's incredible, especially if you're the type of person that's a

little bit curious and you've got something that you want to explore a little bit deeper.

Corinna - Auguri! Big congratulations on the publication of this book. I know how much love,

thought and attention went into its creation. How can our listeners get their very own copy

and discover all of your Venetian secrets? Maybe not all, but a lot.

Corinna

Well, all of my books are exclusive on Amazon, so wherever you are in the world, dial into

your local Amazon and you can get it. And if your country doesn't have Amazon, I think there's

a way that Amazon gets it to you. So they're all available all around the world. And then all of

my social media, the newsletter, everything you can click in from my website, which is

corinnacooke.com. So you can just go there and find all the stuff. The Instagram is really fun

to follow because that's the one that I really put everything up on as I'm moving around Italy,

and you can see all kinds of really great Venice content on there as well. Yeah, that's how to

find me.

Katy

So exciting. Corinna, I know this book is just flying off the shelves now, but you know what? I

can't wait to hear which books up next.

Corinna

Oh, that's a goodie. There's more on the way, but it's going to take a while. But for now, I just

want everybody to come to Venice and fall in love with Venice and see all these amazing

things to see and do in Venice. There's chapters on madly chic places that go have an

aperitivo. There's a chapter on where to get the greatest coffees and what to eat. And there's

a huge chapter on interesting and unusual things to go and see and do and there's so much

and I think once you start reading it, you realize how Venice is a very tiny place, but it's just

an enormous number of things to see and do there and I can be there ten days straight and I'll

get on the train to leave and I was like, man, there's all these other things I wanted to do. I

didn't get to you can spend forever there and be in love with it and eat food and drink the

drinks and love it all.

Katy

Yeah. Amazing. Well, we're going to go back to Venice and we're going to go exploring and

hunting out lions and great little aperitivo bars all with your help. Grazie Corinna. Thank you

so much for joining us on Untold Italy again.

Corinna

Thank you Katy and Ciao, everybody.

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Katy

Ciao. Ciao.

Katy

Yes I think with all those amazing sights and stories to uncover, it’s obvious that you’ll need at

least 3 days in Venice to truly uncover its magic and mystery. Corinna’s book 101 Fabulous

Things to do in Venice is jam packed with suggestions to help you plan your time there no

matter what your interests are.. Be it the delicious cicchetti snacks that define the city’s food

culture or the intriguing ghosts of the city or its incredible and rich art heritage. You can find

this and all Corinna’s Glam Italia travel guides on Amazon and of course we’ll put a link to

them and all of the places mentioned in this episode in the show notes at untolditaly.com/132

Thanks for your ongoing support of Untold Italy. We truly appreciate all of you, our listeners

joining us from around the world. I recently met some of you in Italy including Michelle in the

Pantheon in Rome - ciao Michelle! - and I loved hearing all about when and where you listen

to the show. So much fun. It’s quite incredible that someone driving from North Carolina to

Florida is listening to an Australian woman talk to an Italian about the delights of Sorrento.

So we’d bet thrilled if you helped spread the word so we can reach more Italy loving travelers

just like you. The best way you can do this is by leaving us a 5 star rating or review on your

favorite podcast app or forwarding this episode onto a friend who is planning their very own

dream trip to Italy .

Next week on Untold Italy we’re heading to a different coastal region, Liguria, on the north

west pocket of the Italian peninsula. But until then, keep dreaming of Venice and ciao for

now

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