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Journal

Stories from within

People, memory and the daily rhythms that reveal the lagoon from the inside.

Stories worth staying for

Reported features, conversations and essays rooted in observation, reliable sources and respect for the people who make the lagoon their home.

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Editorial illustration of a ninth-century merchant ship departing an Alexandria harbour at dawn, evoking the smuggling of St Mark's relics to Venice.

The Saint Smuggled in a Basket of Pork

In 828, two Venetian merchants slipped St Mark's body out of Alexandria beneath layers of pork, betting Muslim customs officials would look away. The theft gave Venice its patron saint.

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Editorial illustration of a grand Venetian merchant palazzo beside the Grand Canal near the Rialto Bridge, evoking the Fondaco dei Tedeschi.

Warehouse, Customs House, Post Office, Mall

For 800 years, the Fondaco dei Tedeschi has remade itself with every shift in Venice's fortunes—warehouse, customs post, telegraph office, luxury mall. Its DFS store closed in 2025.

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Editorial reconstruction of a medieval Venetian galley reused as a shoreline foundation.

The Island That Became a Ship: San Marco in Boccalama Beneath the Lagoon

San Marco in Boccalama once received travellers, sheltered boats and supported an Augustinian community. As its ground became harder to defend, Venetians deliberately sank two old vessels along the shore and used them as part of an embankment. Centuries later, archaeologists found the lost island and a remarkably complete medieval galley beneath the mud.

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The brick entrance and historic buildings of Lazzaretto Nuovo in the Venetian Lagoon.

The Island Where Venice Made Ships Wait

At Lazzaretto Nuovo, merchants’ marks, porters’ notes and a walled cemetery preserve the human machinery of quarantine.

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A view of Burano, the lagoon island long associated with lace-making tradition.

Island Lives: Portraits Carrying Lagoon Knowledge Across Generations

On Burano, Pellestrina and Sant'Erasmo, practical lagoon knowledge still passes hand to hand — though the chain is thinning.

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Acqua alta flooding across Piazza San Marco, with visitors crossing on raised walkways.

What Acqua Alta Actually Means for the People Who Live With It

Beyond the postcard flood photo, high water is a managed seasonal condition with its own vocabulary and infrastructure.

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A craftsman repairing a wooden gondola hull inside a Venetian boatyard.

The Last Forcola Makers: A Conversation at the Workbench

Inside the handful of workshops still carving the sculpted oarlocks that let a gondola be rowed standing up.

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The covered fish market hall at Rialto, empty in the early morning light.

A Morning With Rialto's Market Vendors

Before the day-trip crowds arrive, the fish and produce markets run on a much older rhythm.

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Brightly painted houses lining a quiet canal on the island of Burano.

Growing Up on Burano: Lace, School Boats and Island Childhood

Behind the colourful houses, a small fishing community where childhood runs on tide tables.

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A gondolier rowing past the Rialto Bridge on the Grand Canal.

The Gondolier's Route: A Day on the Water

Behind the striped-shirt cliché is a regulated, physically demanding trade with its own guild and exam.

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The ornate Gothic facade of Ca' d'Oro on the Grand Canal.

Restoring a Palazzo: What Conservation Really Involves

Fighting salt, tide and settling foundations as much as the ordinary decay of time.

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Sant'Erasmo's Growers: Farming an Island in the Lagoon

The lagoon's largest island still supplies Venice's markets with produce grown on tide-shaped land.

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The Rialto Bridge seen from the water, a fixed point on every vaporetto route.

Notes From a Vaporetto Captain

What it actually takes to pilot Venice's public waterbuses through fog, tide and crowds.

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A misty, quiet Venice canal in winter with almost no one about.

Venice in Winter: Why Locals Say It's the Real City

Cold, foggy and far quieter — residents say winter is when the city returns to its own rhythm.