11th May 2008
Venice Lagoon

The Vogalonga is the well known regatta which since 1974 has taken place in Venice on a Sunday in May. Born in order to protest against the water traffic along the Canal Grande and the necessity to protect the lagoon town from the wave-motion caused by the boats with outboard motors (a phenomenon which brings about the erosion of the foundations of the most beautiful Palaces), nowadays it has lost its protesting character and has become an evocative sports celebration you must not miss. From the morning a thick stretch of multi-coloured boats gather in St. Mark’s Basin. From here the 32 km rowing race starts and it moves as far as the islands of the Northern Lagoon in order, then, to go back to the Canal Grande. Everybody, along the canals, supports and greets the participants who, in the latest years, have been of any nationality. Actually it is an amazing and very folk Feast you must not miss.

May 4, 2008
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In the past centuries the Sensa  feast has played an important role in social and political life of Venice, it has been one of the most important and sumptuous celebrations , which became legend, myth and history of the city. The famous festival, in which the Doge on  the Bucintoro, launched a ring off the waters of San Pietro di Castello, the famous Wedding with the sea, still celebrated by the city authorities: a reconstruction of many boats and of the the Bucintoro boat  will sail  along the San Marco dock, the Mayor of the city then  throws the ring in Laguna to symbolize the marriage with the sea.  Historically the Sensa is the result of an overlap in time of rites  and civil and religious events, today they prefer to give the  meaning of celebration of the Sea and then feast of the city that  draws from its relationship with the sea, reason for living.

To know more about Local Festivities in Venice click here

Villa Widmann – Foscari, Mira
Friday 25 and Saturday, April 26, 2008
from 10.00 to 18.00 

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At the Great Festival of Wine, 25 and April 26 large Italian wineries will meet at Villa Widmann of Mira (Venice) to show and give a taste of the best quality wine. A selected number of producers from all regions of Italy will display their best productions of vintage 2007 and the most prestigious reserves.
In The Cafeteria and the Campiello of the beautiful complex of the Villa, one of the jewels of the late Baroque and Venetian old summer residence of the nobles, there  will also be qualified companies in creating gastronomic specialities. It will be the opportunity to spend a moment of relaxation in a place rich in art and history framed by lush green park.
In honour of the Great Wine Festival of the entrance to Villa will be reduced to 4 euros.
For information: Horeca Brenta tel 041 5102386 – Patrick Salmaso 339 8244133 – Michele Lovo 346 0116945

from 29 August to 6 September 2008
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While fans awaiting the Cannes Festival official program, voices are already beginning to move about the Venice exhibition, scheduled in Lido di Venezia from 29 August to 6 September 2008. Could be the 2 beautiful actors, George Clooney and Brad Pitt, to open the  dances with the comedy “Burn After Reading” by Ethan and Joel Coen, fresh winners of ‘Oscar with “This is not a country for old”. The new Coen’s movie  is a comedy: a former CIA agent who loses the manuscript of his memoirs. The manuscript in CD format is intercepted by two employees of a gym, believing fo having in their hands boiling material , they bring to an auction the CD to get money with which they will pay some surgery always dream. Since initially could go to Cannes, ti has disappeared from the last tam tam and seems to take the route of Venice, even alone. The film will open on September 12 in America.

25th April – 1st May 2008
Campo St. Maurizio

The name Bochaleri dates back to 1300, when the workers of Venetian ceramic, a refined production appreciated all over Europe, organized in a corporation known as the Scutelarii first and then in Bochaleri. This ancient art, suppressed by a Napoleon decree in 1806, has survived history and oblivion thanks to the efforts of artisans who through the years have conserved and handed down jealously the secrets of the production of tankards and their fine decorations. This year too, close to the Festa of the Sensa, the ‘I Bochaleri’ association is organizing a true fair in Campo San Maurizio from April 25th to May 1st. Visitors can watch all the phases of production and decoration of the ceramic, and children, in particular, may create little objects in clay under the supervision of the expert ‘bochaleri’.

The ‘‘Belle Ferroniere’’, namely Leonardo’s masterpiece, is going to be the testimonial of the exhibition ‘The Louvre. Masterpieces in Verona. Leonardo, Rffaello, Rembrandt and others. Portraits and images’ which, on 19th September, will open at the Gran Guardia of Verona. The exhibition is the first one of a four-year project which starting from next autumn to 2011 wants to take, yearly, never seen masterpieces, coming from the greatest museums in the world, to Verona. Five are the sections of the exhibition itinerary, the first one of them will be just dedicated to the Portrayal of a society. The impressive setting up is made of about 140 works and it is part of an display project that until 2011 will see Verona holding never seen masterpieces coming from the most important museums in the world, actually from Louvre, to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, from the Museum Rodinin Paris to Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and Kroller Muller Museum in Otterlo.
The exhibition holds the lead of being the first one in Europe for getting such a borrowing from Louvre Museum. Subdivided into five sections it will propose, among lots of works of art, Botticelli’s, Tiziano’s, Goya’s, El Greco’s, Ribera’s, Ingres’s, David’s, Holbein’s, Cranach’s, Veronese’s, Rembrandt’s, Fragonard’s masterpieces.
And also Velasquez and Durer, Botticelli’s ‘Sacred Motherhoods’, Bronzino, Filippino Lippi, Carracci, Poussin, Vouet. The allegorical portraits of Tiziano and Rubens. To go on with Raffaello, Gericault, Rembrandt, Tintoretto, Van Dick, Guido Reni, Georges de la Tour, Ingres, Guercino, Bernini.

In 1999 the first American-style Casino was born in our country. Venice Casino at Ca’ Noghera, which opened after the shutting down of the very famous one at the Lido, contains the best of American games, but it is located inside a building which had been restored for such use but not refined enough. This year the plan for the rearrangement of the whole area will start: it is a rearrangement that will certainly concern the gaming house too.
Within 2009 Tessera is starting works for a stadium with thirty-thousand covered seats and annexed shops, trade areas, restaurants and a brand-new Las Vegas-style casino as well as a hotel with at least 350 rooms. Such buildings will be connected by a bridge and the calls for bids for the assignment of the construction of the two edifices will be shortly assigned – the Mayor of Venice Massimo Cacciari has assured. Thanks to these interventions at last the new gaming house will be able to compete seriously with the one at Nova Gorica. The total maquillage of the area of Tessera envisages works on more than two million square metres of ground.

The Southern Lagoon, namely the ‘water park’ of Venice, is full of secrets that, for not a long time, everybody has been able to visit thanks to the new sailing service ‘ATN Laguna Sud’. This area, contained between the lagoon town and Chioggia, Lido islands, Pellestrina Isle and the Riviera del Brenta, still nowadays represents a coffer of biodiversities and it is furrowed by some not-to-miss itineraries for the lovers of bird-watching but also for those who want to discover Venice in a very original way.
During the voyage you can catch sight of the marks of man on strands and islets which have been inhabited since ancient times. Actually they were used as grounds for hunting and fishing activities, as well as for fish breeding and the military defence of Venice. During the itinerary, then, you can run into the ancient shelters for fishermen: the so-called ‘casoni’, such as the casone Millecampi, with its fishing balance, the casone of Valle Averto and the casone Prime Poste. Very educational particularly is the visit to Valle Zappa. Here man breeds sea bass, sea breams, eels and crabs, that will end up on the stalls of Rialto as well as the other fishing markets of the Veneto. The tour Southern Lagoon just here shows the secret casolare, which is little known even among the inhabitants of the lagoon isles: we are speaking of the refined Hunting Casone of Valle Zappa, built in 1925 with a style reminding us the one of northern Europe residences. It is a very unusual presence but which, despite its showy windows and the refined details, is wonderfully inserted into the landscape. The journey can touch, according to its duration and the type of the chosen route, Chioggia or Pellestrina Isle. A guide explains the natural characteristics of the lagoon and its fishing dales and entertains the guests with short stories and ancient legends about hunting and fishing.

Palazzo Mocenigo
from march 29 to june 1, 2008

Marisa Bronzini (1920 – 2007) undisputed maestro and delicate weaver, is one of the leading exponent of the Contemporary Textile Art.
This homage presents more than thirty art works which go over her artistic career during the whole XX century.

The exhibition takes place in the Musuem where on the ground flour you can see tapestries and other works of big dimensions, while on the first flour there are more than twenty beautiful textile sculptures.

Moreover a selection of contemporary “Artistic Rugs”, coming from Sardinia, installed on the first flour, pays homage to Marisa Bronzini’s exceptional craft and artistic competences.