Venice Now
Turning Tides: Venice's Bioplastic Revolution
Venice leads in sustainability with a project transforming lagoon seaweed into bioplastics, addressing plastic pollution and ecosystem preservation.
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An independent view of Venice
Life, seen from inside the lagoon.
Stories, places and experiences shaped by water—the people, islands, rituals and quiet details that make the Venetian Lagoon unlike anywhere else.
Photograph: Paul Colin Hennig, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
The editors
Inside the Lagoon is reported, written and photographed independently—no hotel group or tourism board behind the byline. What follows are seventy field-researched features across seven chapters, each one an attempt to see the lagoon as the people who live in it do: tidal, particular and still very much working.
New stories
Six secrets
of the Republic
A saint smuggled under pork, a statue missing its foot since 1204, a shipyard built to outpace every rival, a mailbox designed for accusations, a bench broken into a new word, and a warehouse still reinventing itself after eight centuries.
Venice Now
Venice's Eco Vaporetti: A Quiet Revolution on the Grand Canal
In September 2023, Venice launched its eco-friendly vaporetto fleet, reducing pollution and preserving the city’s fragile lagoon environment.
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Venice Now
Venice's New Boat Traffic Rules: Navigating Change in the Lagoon
Venice enforces new boat traffic rules to reduce overcrowding and environmental harm in the lagoon, sparking local debate and varied reactions.
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Stories
The Art of Glass: A Day in a Murano Workshop
Discover the world of Murano glassmaking, where artisans blend tradition with innovation, crafting exquisite glassware using age-old techniques.
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Venice Now
Venice's New Cruise Ship Regulations: A Delicate Balance
In 2023, Venice restricts cruise ships over 25,000 tons from central waterways to safeguard its lagoon and heritage, balancing tourism and preservation.
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Venice Now
Venice's New Hybrid Vaporettos: A Step Toward Sustainability
Venice introduces hybrid-electric vaporettos to reduce emissions, protect the lagoon, and enhance the visitor experience.
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Six ways in,
drawn from seventy
A small selection from the stories, places and experiences already published—a place to begin before you follow your own thread through the lagoon.
Stories
A Morning With Rialto's Market Vendors
Before the day-trip crowds arrive, the fish and produce markets run on a much older rhythm.
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Places
A First-Timer's Guide to Murano, Burano and Torcello
Three northern lagoon islands, each built around a different trade, and how to visit each one without rushing.
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Experiences
Learning to Row Venetian-Style
A first attempt at the lagoon's own standing, forward-facing rowing technique.
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Living Style
Living With Water: How Venetian Homes Adapt to the Tide
How Venetian buildings are engineered, floor by floor, around a tide that comes indoors.
Discover living style
Culture
Gondola Construction: Inside a Squero
How eight types of wood become an asymmetric hand-built boat.
Explore culture
Food & Drink
Moeche: The Soft-Shell Crab Season Venetians Wait All Year For
Why Venetians track the two brief weeks a year when lagoon crabs shed their shells.
Taste the lagoon
La vita veneziana
Style begins with attention.
To proportion and patina. To what the season brings to the table. To materials made more beautiful by use. Italian living, refracted through Venice, has always been a conversation between elegance and necessity.
Discover Venetian living styleAn editorial compass
Follow what
interests you
Every chapter offers another way into the lagoon—from island geography to interiors, craft to cellar.
Stories
Portraits from the water's edge
Fishermen, glassmakers, market vendors and the households carrying lagoon knowledge forward.
Read storiesPlaces
An archipelago, not a backdrop
Sestieri, outer islands and the routes that connect a lagoon larger than the postcard suggests.
Explore placesExperiences
Ways to move through it well
Boats, workshops, wetlands and itineraries chosen for pace over spectacle.
Find experiencesLiving Style
Everyday elegance, shaped by water
Interiors, ritual and the seasonal rhythms of a home built to live with tide.
Discover living styleCulture
Inherited, practised, renewed
Architecture, glass, print, music and traditions understood in context.
Explore cultureFood & Drink
From water to table
Lagoon ingredients, markets, bacari and the wine that fills Venetian glasses.
Taste the lagoonStays
A room within a place
Independent profiles chosen for character, setting and a relationship with the lagoon.
Where to stayOur approach
Independent by design
How we research, choose, disclose and care for the stories we publish.
About the project