You Asked, We Answered: 19 Things You Didn't Know About Venice, Italy (2024)

This article is a collection of the most popular questions that visitors have about Venice.

Find out below which questions about Venice visitors asked Venetians hundreds of times over the years!

This collection is not meant to make fun of people but rather to address the most common questions and false beliefs, and try toanswer them.

We believe that all questions are legitimate and are they are a positive and natural consequence of travelling to foreign places.

So, get ready to learn 19 things about Venice, Italy, you might not know about!

Related: Why tourism in Venice is doing more harm than good, and what we can do about it

Sometimes Venice feels like an open-air museum. However, Venice is a real city and has no opening or closing times.

There are business hours for offices, shops, and activities, but the city does not close as, for example, a theme park would.

Although to some it may sound like it, the language Venetians speak is not Spanish.

Venetians with their friends and family speak either Italian or the Venetian dialect. This dialect sometimes sounds more similar to Spanish than it does to Italian!

Indeed, in many instances, Venetian is surprisingly similar to Catalan, a language spoken by 9 million people on the east coast of Spain.

If you’re curious to know more, Wikipedia has an in-depth article on the Venetian Language.

Yes, Venice has schools, hospitals, police and firefighters stations, and everything you’d find in any other medium-sized city elsewhere.

What is interesting, however, is that those services that normally happen on cars in other cities happen on boats in Venice. Taxis, buses, police, firefighters, ambulances, etc. are all on boats.

Fun fact: Venice has only one nightclub, which is also much smaller than a typical nightclub in other cities.

Venetians walk.

Walking is at the very centre of the Venetian way of life. Since childhood, Venetians are used to walking all day, every day, at any age, in any weather condition.

No matter what, we go to school or to work on foot, we run back home on foot, we go to our football match on foot, we go to the doctor when we’re unwell on foot, we go to the supermarket and carry our heavy groceries bags on foot, and so on.

If you want to know how hot it can be or how cold it can be in Venice, you can check out our article on the weather in Venice.

This is one of the questions that, at times, surprise Venetians the most.

Although we do understand that a moderate Acqua Alta in Saint Mark’s might look spectacular to visitors, flooding in Venice are not a show. Floodings are a natural phenomenon that Venetians learned to live with.

When Acqua Alta is particularly high it can create problems. The main impact is economic, as it forces shops to close and can damage furniture, appliances, and goods.

It is incredibly rare for floodings in Venice to be life-threatening. We have an in-depth article that explains floodings in Venice and their impact.

In October of 2020, a gigantic dam system called M.O.S.E. was completed and intense floodings in Venice do no longer happen.

You can read our words and sense of relief in this CNN article on the MOSE and how it impacted our lives.

Now you know the answers to the most common questions about Venice… but there are a few more things worth talking about!

Indeed, there are several things about Venice that are misunderstood by visitors and we are happy to clarify.

Gondolas are the most popular and the most common rowing boat in Venice, but not every rowing boat is a gondola.

Gondolas are a very specific type of boat that has a set shape and size. Most people know them as the black shaped boat rowed by gondoliers (but gondolas can also be coloured!).

Over the centuries Venetians have created many different types of boats, dozens of which are still in use today. A gondola is only one type of Venetian rowing boat.

Not every Venetian boat is a gondola, just like not every car is a Cadillac.

But gondolas are indeed the most fascinating Venetian rowing boat and their history is very interesting.

This bridge of sighs connects the trial rooms in the Doge Palace to the Venetian prisons.

At the time of the ancient Republic of Venice, the Serenissima, people sentenced to jail had to cross the Bridge of Sighs and would often die in prison soon after.

Therefore, the “sighs” the Bridge of Sighs refers to are of despair and death.

You might now understand why Venetians are puzzled when visitors chose to stand in front of it to kiss and take selfies with their loved ones.

Technically, it is not very different from kissing while looking at the Green Mile in a penitentiary.

Of all the beautiful and romantic places in Venice, is it really the best location for kisses, love declarations, and even proposals?

The sighs the Bridge of Sighs refers to are surely not those we all long for in our romantic relationships!

Often visitors refer to the water surrounding Venice as “the sea” or “the ocean”.

Venice, however, is located in a shallow lagoon. This lagoon, called the Venetian Lagoon, is a big area of 550 square km and an average depth of just 1,2 meters.

As such the depth of the waters surrounding Venice is closer to that of a puddle, rather than the depth of the sea or the ocean!

Most readers won’t believe it, but… but sometimes Venetians have the impression that some visitors see them as background actors.

People rowing in the canals or listening to music in their motorboats are not parading for tourists and their boats are not for anyone to step in. Similarly, a door on a courtyard that happens not to be fully closed is not an invitation to enter and explore the private space of others.

Venice is so different and so unique that, at times, some visitors end up being either unaware or a bit too curious and annoy locals.

Acqua Alta is a high tide that slowly rises, covers parts of Venice for a few hours, and then slowly disappears.

The intensity of this phenomenon is the result of three different factors:

1. The astronomical tide
2. The intensity and the direction of wind
3. Atmospheric pressure.

The contribution of rain to acqua alta is extremely marginal. Indeed, floodings in Venice can occur on a beautiful sunny day with no rain.

“Grazie”, the Italian word for “thank you”, ispronounced “GRAHT-SEE-YEH”.

Most English speakers, however, say “graht-see” which sound like the Italian word “grassi”, fat [“grassi”, is the plural form of “grasso”, fat].

This mistake doesn’t happen because the word is difficult but, instead, because many believe that “graht-see” is the correct pronunciation.

Now, you can start to “thank” people instead of telling them they are fat.

If you need more information on how to pronounce the word “grazie” in Italian, you can read this thread on Quora

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