Lido of Venice, Veneto, Italy
Lido di Venezia is an barrier island in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. Lido is the beach of Venice. This island shelters the lagoon from the Adriatic Sea, and is famous for its Movie Festival which is held every year between the end of August and the first week of September.
The Lido of Venice is a thin island that stretches for about12 km between the Venice lagoon and the Adriatic Sea, bordered by the ports of San Nicolò and Malamocco, connected to the city and to the mainland only by scheduled water buses and motor rafts for the transport of vehicles. Lido is one of the few islands in the lagoon on which there are roads for vehicles; there is also a small tourist airport. With the nearby island of Pellestrina it forms a municipality of the municipality of Venice.
Trendier and more residential than traditional Venice, Lido still offers small canals, a variety of dining and impressive views of the city from across the Lagoon. At times it feels reminiscent of Palm Beach, Florida, with its upscale homes, historic architecture and its easy, island feel.
In 1920 it was the most important beach in Italy, due to its aristocratic atmosphere. Here Thomas Mann wrote A Death in Venice and it was shot in Visconti’s 1972 movie. Some of the scenes of The English Patient were shot here as well. A scene from Casino Royale (Daniel Craig, 2006) was shot here as well. The British travel writer Robin Saikia’s book, The Venice Lido, gives a lively overview of the Lido’s literary and social history from ancient times to the present day.
History
One of the earliest settlements in the Lagoon of Venice. Lido’s origins dated back to the Roman days. Prior to the 19th century it was also a scarcely populated island. Until the 19th century Lido’s main role was a military one for the defence of the lagoon as it lies by the lido inlet, the widest point of entry of the lagoon and the one which is closest to Venice. It continued to have a military role until WW II.
The Lido of Venice is the object of the defensive system of the Venice lagoon with the construction of several military forts. In the twelfth century the fort of San Nicolò was built where there was the barracks of the Fanti da Mar, one of the oldest marine infantry in history. For centuries the island has been used for military exercises and as a place of control for probable threats from the sea. In 1202 it was the embarkation point for the fourth crusade which never reached the Holy Land, but the city of Constantinople which became the capital of the Latin Empire. In 1591 the Fort of San Nicolò was changed into a permanent fort
In 1700 the Alberoni fort was built, originally surrounded by a moat. In 1838 under the Austrian dominion the fort of the Quattro Fontane was built which was demolished in 1936 to make way for the Palazzo del Casinò, the summer seat of the Venice Casino until the end of the nineties. In 1847 the fort of Malamocco was also built, which was later demolished in 1924 to make way for a sanatorium.
At the end of the 19th century the Lido of Venice established itself as the most sought-after seaside destination in Italy and one of the most sought after in the world for aristocrats and consequently the construction of large hotels began such as the Hotel des Bains (1900) and the Hotel Excelsior (1908 ). In 1872 the Bagni Lido Civil Society was born and a vaporetto connection system was born between the Venice Santa Lucia railway station and the Lido. From the landing stage of the boat, a horse-drawn tramway system brought guests to the Bathhouse.
At the turn of the 20th century, the action of tourist exploitation based on private individuals, aim to transform the Lido into a seaside resort of international level. During the Belle Époque period, the international jet set of the aristocracy and rich European and overseas bourgeoisie flocked to the large hotels on the island to take advantage of the beaches. In 1925 the Lion’s Bar was built which will be used for 10 editions of the exhibitions of the Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation. Many Art Nouveau villas were also built such as Villa Romanelli, Villa Monplaisir, Papadopoli villas and many others.
When the construction of the sewer network began, Eng. Nicolò Spada studied how to channel the black waters of debris towards the Lagoon so that the entire stretch of sea water overlooking the Lido was immune from domestic pollution. The Lido is still today the only beach in Europe to have this structure. The elegance and beauty of its beaches served as a source of inspiration for the name of the Parisian cabaret Lido.
Main Attractions
The coast of the island is characterized by the eighteenth-century murazzi, works of defense from the sea, which extend from the Alberoni to almost the square of the Casino. The old Austrian fort of the Quattro Fontane once stood here (first half of the 19th century ), but since the 1930s it has been replaced by modern buildings, such as the Casino, and the Palazzo del Cinema, home to the Mostra del Cinema.
It is said that every island is a little world in itself: for this reason, you should not miss to discover the Venice islands with a short boat trip in the Venetian Lagoon and to get to know the many different faces of Venice. In few places in the world is it possible to forget one’s present, immersing oneself in the laid back atmosphere that one feels in some islands of the Lagoon, like Lido and Pellestrina.
Despite Lido and Pellestrina being amongst the closest islands to Venice, they are very unique: for example, in the historic city centre the canals are seen as roads and you can’t cycle along the alleys and paths, here you can pedal away happily. On foot or by bike, from San Nicolò, the most westerly point of Lido, you can walk along the wide tree-lined roads and along the sea front towards Malamocco bridge, taking in the Liberty and Art Deco style villas and grand hotels.
Everyone knows Lido for the famous international cinema festival, which brings big global stars to the island at the end of August and the beginning of September, and has been doing so since 1932. Every year there are shows, events, press conferences, parties and galas.
Towards the center of the island, the architecture becomes rich in Art Nouveau buildings and green parks. The main communication route is the Gran Viale Santa Maria Elisabetta, the wide tree-lined road that runs perpendicularly across the island from the lagoon to the sea. Some canals intersect in the area, effectively dividing the Lido into sub-islands, similarly to other locations in the lagoon. The ancient center of Santa Maria Elisabetta overlooks the lagoon and preserves several buildings from the late nineteenth century, as well as the church of the same name, founded in the sixteenth century and enlarged in 1627. In this locality, flanking the lagoon, there is the votive temple, erected after the First World War in memory of the fallen and where the remains ofNazario Sauro, Giovanni Grion and some of the dead of the Treglia Massacre in the former Yugoslavia.
Going north along the San Nicolò Riviera, flanked by Art Nouveau buildings, you reach the locality of San Nicolò, where you will find the largest fortification on the island (the Ridotto del Lido ) and the ancient church of San Nicolò or San Nicoletto, founded in 1044 and rebuilt in the seventeenth century. Inside there are works of works by Palma il Vecchio ( Madonna with the Putto ) and Palma il Giovane ( San Giovannino ). On the day of the Ascension, it is here that the Serenissima celebrated the Marriage of the Sea, a ceremony that is still repeated annually in the month of May during the feast of the “Sensa” or Ascension.
On the sea side, a long avenue runs along the beach, lined with maritime pines. The promenade extends from the area of what was once Ospedale al Mare to San Nicolò and, in the opposite direction, leads to the beginning of the walls. In the village of Malamocco, the Church of Santa Maria Assunta built in the 15th century with works by Giulia Lama, Giuseppe Torretto and Girolamo Forabosco. In the waterfront area known as the former Luna Park there is the planetariumof Venice managed by the Venetian amateur astronomers association.
In the Alberoni area there is the San Camillo hospital specializing in neurorehabilitation, there is also a department for the treatment of acquired neuropsychological disorders (URNA). The Stella Maris retirement home is located in the same area. Also in the Alberoni area is the ” Francesco Morosini ” summer camp of the Municipality of Venice, aimed mainly at children and the elderly. At the end of the island there is the WWF Oasis of the Dune degli Alberoni.
The Venice Film Festival
Lido di Venezia is home to the Venice International Film Festival. It is the world’s oldest film festival and one of the three most prestigious ones, together with the Cannes Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival
The film festival started in 1932. It was the idea of the then chair of the Venice Biennale who was worried about a decline in tourism at Lido due to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and understood that cinema could help to alleviate this. It was successful. The prince Umberto di Savoia, the wife of the Prince of Wales, Winston Churchill, Henry Ford and film stars such as Greta Garbo and Clark Gable attended. Forty films form six countries were shown on the terrace of the Excelsior hotel. No awards were given, but an audience referendum chose which films and performances were the most praiseworthy.
The second film festival was held in 1934. It was meant to be a biennial event but it became annual because of the success of the first one. There were some 20 awards, but there was no jury. Premiers were shown, which increased the prestige of the festival.
The Lido has also hosted numerous film-shoots. In 1971 the film Death in Venice (Morte a Venezia) directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Dirk Bogarde and Björn Andrésen, and based on the Death in Venice novel published in 1912 by Thomas Mann was screened. Both the novel and the film were set at lido and the Grand Hotel des Bains, where Thomas Mann stayed with his wife and brother in the summer of 1911. The novel was also turned into the Death in Venice opera by Benjamin Britten in 1973 and a ballet by John Neumeier in 2003.
Landscape
Frequented by Venetians and foreigners for its beach with fine golden sand and the International Film Festival, the Lido contains a rich heritage of gardens and natural oases to be discovered on foot or by bicycle, even out of season. Enclosed between the lagoon and the Adriatic Sea, until the mid-nineteenth century this 11-kilometer-long island was a countryside dotted with vegetable gardens, vineyards, artichokes, and also stables, ditches, mills and wells that stood next to watchtowers and military posts, which were part of the ancient defensive system of the Venice lagoon.
The first bathing establishment on the Lido was inaugurated only on the night of San Giovanni in 1857, which in the space of a few decades became one of the most exclusive beaches in Europe frequented by royalty and artists. The rural landscape was gradually obliterated by villas and hotels of eclectic inspiration with unusual elements of Romanesque, Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance or mountain inspiration masterfully made by designers and craftsmen in cement stone, wrought iron, Murano glass, ceramics from Bassano and Treviso..
The shady gardens, which surround the buildings, show themselves today with reserved elegance through the fences overlooking the water or on the streets and avenues crossed by pedestrians, bicycles and cars. The flowery decorations of the liberty style bloom all year round on stairways, terraces, turrets, loggias but also berceau, vases, statues, benches. Narrow gravel paths lead through evergreen domestic and maritime pines, cedars of Lebanon, magnolias, holm oaks, yews, palms and pittospores. Flowerbeds bordered by box hedges and thick convallaria welcome seasonal blooms and small carpets of ivy.
From April, spectacular lilac and white clusters of wisteria follow one another, white flowers of black locust and jasmine perfume the air, vigorous oleanders attract the eye with their colors, intrusive convolvuluses entangle themselves with their bells, romantic roses rise in the sun, climbing American and Canadian vines in the fall are tinged with red.
Among the foliage of plane trees and maples that line the Gran Viale stands the façade of the Grande hotel Ausonia & Hungaria covered by admirable majolica with female figures and polychrome plant motifs: recently restored, it is a masterpiece by Luigi Fabris from Bassano and extends over a record size of 800 square meters.
At the corner with the D’Annunzio promenade, a large green spot of pines, cedars, cypresses, yews and magnolias is announced: it is the wood remodeled into a park with a great variety of trees, the work of the Tramontin landscape architect to protect the privacy of the guests of the ‘ ex Hotel des Bains, celebrated by the writer Thomas Mann and later by director Luchino Visconti in Death in Venice. Shady vegetation that brightens up in the swimming pool area, redesigned by Pietro Porcinai from 1968 to 1971.
The garden of the Quattro Fontane Hotel is very rich in blooms, which in its name recalls the underground cisterns that once collected rainwater, filtered by the sand dunes. Next to the Barchessa built in the sixties by Alfeo Pauletta di Pola for the Bevilacqua family, there is an unexpected chalet from the early twentieth century by Giovanni Sicher.
Still visible some sixteenth-century elements of the ancient casino which, designed by Gian Antonio Rusconi with Andrea Palladio for the noble Daniele Pisani, was a place of pleasant meetings and conversations among the vineyards and in the late nineteenth century osteria frequented by poets and artists including Robert Browning.
Surrounding
The picturesque town of Malamocco is worth a visit. It’s the first settlement on the island and looks like a little Venice with canals, squares and paths. Its fish restaurants are popular with Italian film makers Mario Soldati, Fellini and Italian comic book creator Hugo Pratt. The magistrate building (Palazzo del podestà) is nice to visit, it is the permanent home to archeological finds relating to the history of Lido.
Going towards the southerly end of the island you reach the sand dunes Oasi Dune degli Alberoni, set between the Adriatic sea and the lagoon. Its name comes from the large trees which were clearly visible to those arriving by sea and which indicated the entrance to the canal port. The oasis surrounds one of the biggest and best conserved sand dunes on the Adriatic coast, with dunes as tall as 10 metres. There are paths crossing the pine forest which is 30 hectares big, and is home to flora and fauna.
When you get off the boat at the island of Pellestrina, you come across little fishing villages: San Pietro in Volta, Portosecco and Pellestrina – where it seems you have gone back to Venice of the 50s. You see the fishermens’ wives sat outside their front doors, bent over their crocheting, an island tradition like in Burano.
Natural space
An absolutely green area of the Lido is that of the Circolo Golf Venezia, created in the early thirties by Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, then president of the Compagnia Italiana Grandi Alberghi: an area of over 100 hectares in Alberoni, the southern end of island with maritime pines, willows, poplars and mulberries around an Austrian fortification.
Beaches
The Lido beach owes its fame to the natural dunes of fine and golden sand and to the clean and still water, made such by the protection of the two large breakwaters of S. Nicolò (to the north) and the Alberoni (to the south) and by the numerous other minor dams, which start from the shore in front of each bathing establishment, called brushes. At both ends the two large dams mentioned above stretch into the sea, which limit the entrance channels to the lagoon for maritime transport heading to the port of Venice.
The Venice Lido is a favourite destination for Venetians during the summer. Its beaches are places of great charm and elegance, the gently-sloping seabed allows even the youngest children to bathe in tranquillity, thanks also to the protection of the San Nicolò and Alberoni dams and countless others which project from the shore in front of each bathing area.
The main feature of the equipped private beaches of the Lido is the capanna: a large cabin with a veranda and an awning fitted to the closed structure. The bathing establishments are many and they all give the opportunity to hire the equipment (capanna, mini-capanna, deckchairs, beach umbrellas, sun loungers, and so on) for different periods.
The Venice Lido also offers areas of free beach such as the sand dunes of San Nicolò and the Alberoni, the Murazzi rocks and Bluemoon beach, popular with tourists because it is strategically close to the Santa Maria Elisabetta vaporetto stop and also because it is equipped with showers and bathrooms.
Conservation space
An absolutely green area of the Lido is that of the Circolo Golf Venezia, created in the early thirties by Count Giuseppe Volpi di Misurata, then president of the Compagnia Italiana Grandi Alberghi: an area of over 100 hectares in Alberoni, the southern end of island with maritime pines, willows, poplars and mulberries around an Austrian fortification.
For those who love natural and wilder environments, a few steps away there is also the WWF Oasis of the Dune degli Alberoni, where you can discover a unique habitat chosen by numerous birds that stop or winter here.
For two kilometers the bare beach, the shifting dunes with the pioneer vegetation, the inland dunes with arid grasslands and with a flora similar to that of steppes follow one another and finally the interdunal lowlands with wet grasslands. Behind a pine forest of 30 hectares, born from a reforestation carried out after the war. Another treasure trove of biodiversity is the Natural Reserve of the San Nicolò area, at the other end of the island, to the north. Behind an airy and deep beach, a typically coastal vegetation survives the sand and salt that lash and encrust it, the rains that dilate it, the intense evaporation caused by the sun and the wind.
Linked to Pellestrina by the sea fortifications (Murazzi), the nature reserve Ca’ Roman is the home to unique species of birds, both water based ones like the Oyster Catcher, and Mediterranean ones like the Horned Owl and the rare European Nightjar. To visit Ca’ Roman is like going back in time and seeing the Venetian coasts of old. The reserve is also an area of interest due to the fort – Forte Barbarigo – and the Austrian bunkers, used up until the second world war. When the birds migrate, both protected nature reserve areas are a real paradise for bird watchers and wildlife photographers: in winter you can see the Yellow Legged Gull, the European Herring Gull and the Black-throated Loon; in spring it is common to see the Sandwich Tern and the Mediterranean Gull, species which are not very widespread in Italy.