Discover Chioggia

Chioggia

THE MEDIEVAL HERRINGBONE CITY

Chioggia is a populous and lively seaside town, with a picturesque appearance, built on islands and joined by bridges, with a particular herringbone urban structure. With its 15 bridges and 72 alleys it can recall Venice but with an extra pinch of folklore and liveliness thanks to the typical cheerfulness of seaside cities.

Canal Vena is the city internal canal, each of the 9 bridges that cross it, in the past built in wood and then replaced with the more resistant stone, offers unique and fascinating views. Today Riva Vena is full of Bacari, characteristic bars where you can drink good wine and taste the typical seafood finger food know as cicchetti.

Chioggia is history, culture, tradition but also mystery…

The names of the streets derive from the most important family that resided in the past or from the commercial activity that took place there. Walking through the city you can read bridges with strange names such as “Ponte delle Zitelle”, “delle Beccarie” or “della Cuccagna”. Ponte della Cuccagna takes its name from the game of “l’albero della cuccagna” is a popular traditional game on the occasion of the “Calendedimaggio” popular festival celebrated to welcome spring between 1800 and 1900. It was a game where in which the participants have to try to get prizes, usually foodstuffs, placed on top of a pole. Usually the pole was covered in grease or other substance which makes it difficult for the competitors to climb and easy to fall. In Chioggia at most they fell into the water.

Looking around you arrive at “Corte delle Streghe” (witches area) actually Corte Taccheo, so called in popular stories as the site of feline colonies and an area where the fishermen used to dye the fishing nets red in large vases, with water and pine bark, evoking images of wizards and sorcerers in the population.

Among the most important Italian fishing fleets, Chioggia also has many aquaculture activities for the breeding of mussels, clams, moleca and recently also oysters. In fact, the Chioggia cuisine offers unique excellences, the moleche are crabs that in spring and autumn lose their coating, known as the carapace, are soft and particularly tender, becoming a typical dish of the city tradition, especially loved breaded and fried.

There are many tourist attractions in the city, the Museo Civico della Laguna Sud San Francesco Fuori Le Mura offers archaeological and ethnographic collections in the lagoon area. The Giuseppe Olivi Museum of Adriatic Zoology has the most important historical collection of marine animals of the Adriatic. The clock tower of the church of Sant’Andrea, about 30 meters high, of Roman-Byzantine origin, with the oldest clock in the world still in operation. There are many excursions to do, on foot, by bike and by boat. Far from mass tourism, with the Bosetti Tour, you have the opportunity to live unique experiences on board typical boats which, due to their shape, allow you to navigate in internal lagoon areas and shallow water, to discover all the secrets of aquaculture and understand how fishing and farming takes place, also visiting the oyster farms.