A Venezia puoi girare il mondo in un giorno – Walking around Venice, you can take a world trip in one day. That’s how the very first supporter of our Blog sees her home town Venice. She’s my 93-year-old Grandmother who grew up in the northern Lagoon but moved back to her family home on Campo S. M. Formosa after the war in late April 1945.
On 20 June 2016 our Blog La Venessiana celebrated its first anniversary. In the early afternoon one year ago during coffee I told my grandmother that I wanted to start a blog on Venice. Taking the readers behind the scenes and into private homes, kitchens and gardens. Above all, exploring the stories of the Venetian spice merchants and the culinary treasures they brought back to Venice from the Levant.
For years Grandmother, who inherited the library of a Venetian monastery, wanted me to join her sorting through her books. I’m really fascinated by this incredible source of recipes and ancient documents. They have become an important source for the blog posts I write and the book we are currently preparing.
Grandmother’s interest in Venetian food is based on her own background. For decades she spent four weeks in November or December in a Levantine country searching for Venetian traces. Some Venetian families still live there working for international organizations, NGOs or in embassies, and she visited with them. She traveled with a group of Venetian friends and they took thousands of pictures and made films which we watched for days on end during the Christmas holidays. Now I’m very glad I was able to see all those films showing the beautiful countries and food of the Levant, for this is where Venetian culture originally comes from.
Grandmother joined me writing the blog with many ideas and unusual insights into Venice. This is how she explains our city to you:
When you arrive in Venice you enter an ancient world of its own. Time and reality don’t seem to apply in this floating town. You might consider it a strange place with no cars, water reflections and surprising colors everywhere. Istrian stone buildings and almost no green, no gardens at first sight. I’m talking about arriving at Riva degli Schiavoni – San Zaccaria. From here, you enter the winding world of the Venetian calli such as Calle delle Rasse or Calle degli Albanesi. You notice there’s a calle degli Armeni, and a Chinese artefact in a shop window. In the Lagoon, you visit an Armenian island with a monastery and its fantastic Damascus rose garden. You continue walking and come across fragrant pastries, sweets and menus and try baccalà whose ingredients come from Scandinavia. You taste sweet bread based on a recipe originally from Persia. You visit Biblioteca Marciana and the Ancient Greek and Roman exhibitions … we could continue along these lines, see what I mean? In Venice, the ANCIENT world has survived like in no other place on Earth. All you need is the knowledge to read its codes.
Thank you for following our Blog during its first year, for your comments and private mails, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter messages. It’s been an overwhelming experience making new friends all over the world and meeting some of them in Venice last year and this spring. Please feel free to contact us any time, we look forward to hearing from you !!
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