Venice, one of the most historical city in the world, awoke from its lethargy and began to develop quickly thanks to the opening of the Suez Canal (1869), which greatly shortened the journey by ship between Europe and Asia.

A port for transatlantic ships was built and Venice became the preferred point of embarkation for well-to- do colonial and European administrators who wanted to travel east.

The fashion for sea bathing and the patronage by high society sponsored the resurgence of this enclave.

Since then, Venice has been closely linked to the Arts – especially music and the cinema – with the Biennale as its ultimate expression of this.

And there have been a few scares, such as 4 November 1966, when it suffered the worst floods in its history. If the flood line is normally 110 centimetres, the flood that day reached 2 metres. Since then, a number of steps have been taken to protect its exceptional heritage from the tides.

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Venice, the romantic queen of Italy, grew from the destruction of the Goths and was destined to become a romantic and monumental city that distils a sweet decadence. Frozen in time and besieged by tides and tourists, it attempts every day to survive the success and the advance of the sea, which threatens to turn it into a modern-day Atlantis.

A city without streets, also known as La Serenissima, it is made up of over 100 islands joined together by some 400 bridges and is regarded as one of the most unique cities in the world. Cars are banned in the centre, and even the police and the postmen use barges to get about. Its name is closely associated with other such illustrious names as Tintoretto, Bellini, Vivaldi and Marco Polo, while its past is enveloped in silks and imbued with aromas of the most varied spices.

What was once a mighty commercial and seafaring power in the Mediterranean still retains its splendour in the eyes of the visitor, to the point of having been reproduced in a Las Vegas casino, yet it is a giant with feet of clay, standing as it does on a muddy lagoon in northeast Italy.

Venice invites visitors to quell their hurry and let themselves be hypnotised by the eternal lapping of the Adriatic. Who could possibly resist being bewitched by such charm!

The Story:
Although by the start of Christianity the marshy Veneto coastline had already been settled by fishermen and hunters, the true origins of Venice date back to the fifth century, when inhabitants from the hinterland moved to the islands to escape the devastation of the Goths as they cut a swathe to Rome.

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