OUR BLOG IS 10 YEARS OLD TODAY!
Pensi che la città sia cambiata? Has Venice changed since 2012? This was the first question my cousin asked me when the other day, we were talking about the anniversary of our blog: 10 years ago, it went online, on 18 May 2012.
Ten years have passed that don’t seem like a decade but rather, like a century: 2012 was like living in another age, and in the meantime, life in Venice has changed indeed. And in some respects, for the better as you can discover in the posts on this blog.
This is a very personal story, background stories about this blog we never told you:-) and how the blog changed and adapted to the changes in Venice.
2012 - STARTING OUT ON A LIGHT NOTE
Starting out on a very happy note with my first blog post (hey, finally our own website!) This article was called A first glimpse of the gardens in Venice. I used images I had taken on a visit to the Campanile and wanted to explain why this is a good place to get acquainted with Venetian history - and five special gardens.
I started this blog on Google’s own blogging platform, taking readers to my favorite garden restaurant nearby in the second post, to the green courtyard San Giorgio dei Greci in the third, and finally, around Campo Santa Maria Formosa to see the various types of altane - rooftop terraces. Well, there are several types, and you can see all of them from this campo.
2013 - LEARNING TO BLOG
By now, we publish 2-4 articles per week including recipe stories, and of course, my personal Castello Food Guide (as my family’s home is located in the Venetian sestiere Castello). And we’re seriously thinking of writing a book! A book taking up the recipes Nonna Lina cooked for me when I was a child, her life in the hotel and restaurants. And of course, about her garden whose history is unfolding step by step as I dive deeper into the books from Lina’s library.
2014 - WINDS OF CHANGE
The year starts out with the initiative Poveglia per Tutti. Readers ask legitimate questions, about who owns the Lagoon, and how come an island can be auctioned off? A strange summer follows, feeling cool and mellow like the weather must have been in the late Middle Ages, when the climate was colder during the Little Ice Age - also in the Lagoon of Venice.
Often, I cannot leave the home in summer because the rain is pouring down in July, and thanks to a friend of mine, Federico, I meet a lot of new friends on Instagram. From mid-July Nonna Lina’s home is renovated, so we publish a post of her leading readers virtually around showing how the ground floor is being remade and reinforced by concrete. Insights into renovating in Venice you don’t see often, which Lina insists that I share on the new blog. She wants it to become something special and personal so that readers can really understand how we live here in Venice.
2015 - OUR YEAR OF HOSTING RETREATS
The blog - and Instagram - draws more readers interested learning about the gardens, food and wine, so in June and on 21 November (Festa della Salute), we offer retreats to small groups of guests hosted by Nonna Lina and me on the terrace. A few months earlier, Nonna Lina and I decided to broaden the topics of the blog. Our aim was to turn the “Garden in Venice” blog into a colorful magazine about Venice, written from the female perspective. My cousin suggests to re-name the blog La Venessiana, which means the Venetian woman. We choose this name but dedicate it to a special Venetian woman: Donata Badoer.
2016 - EXPLORING THE GARDENS
Another beautiful year as we continue our garden explorations with our Venetian Instagram group. A highlight I’ll never forget is 24 April, when we’re exploring a green jungle which used to be the largest spice garden in Venice in the 14th century. Our guides are my friends Giuseppe and Anna, an architect and expert on Venetian gardens.
2017 - EXPLORING THE ISLANDS
A year of exploring the islands! We provide updates on Poveglia and post images from this island simply from everyhwere: Seen from the Lido, seen from a boat, seen from the gardens of the islands Sacca Sessola, and more. And we post a story about the unknown background of the Redentore Feast which became the most widely shared post so far. Readers were taken aback by the stringent measures the Republic of Venice took during a major outbreak of the bubonic plague 1575 - 77, and the lockdown imposed on the city for almost two years.
And then in autumn, Venice was hit by a bad bout of acqua alta. We felt we were getting closer to a tipping point, explaining the damages of acqua alta slowly creeping into the facades, a real danger to the buildings in Venice.
2018 - CAN WE PLEASE TURN BACK TIME?
What can we do to raise awareness that visitors need to branch out, not just visit Piazza San Marco and surroundings? Especially in summer, life is almost impossible here: By 10 am, the little square in front of the house is hopelessly crowded by tourists passing by and branching out towards Piazza San Marco. And it will remain like this until 7 pm at least.
2019 - WAKE UP CALL
In July, I’m watching tourists bathe in the water during a high tide that flooded Piazza San Marco. Lina says, I wonder what it must feel like swimming in knee-deep water from le fogne (canal), with the Basilica just in front of you?
Life is incredibly crowded here in our part of the city, five minutes from Piazza San Marco, so we spend most of the time in the garden. In the afternoon, it’s simply impossible to walk over to the Piazza, so I explore the other parts of the city for the blog, and the Biennale area. Very few people around here, even in the midst of August!
And then, a near-catastrophe strikes - Venice is flooded for six days on end (12 - 17 November 2019), coming dangerously close to the fatal flood of 1966. Something that nobody of my generation thought we would ever witness. So by December, we’re really looking forward to the new decade, making plans to open up the garden again for the retreats!
2020 - PANDEMIC MODE
The new decade starts out promising - the special yellow rose on the terrace is blossoming on New Year’s Day! But then, a pandemic strikes, and I’m really surprised how Nonna Lina adapts to the fact that we may not leave the house when a strict lockdown was imposed in spring 2020. And I’m struck by her foresight as she’s explaining dryly, you’d better be prepared to live with the pandemic for at least three more years - just look at history. Yes, in Venice we should know, having gone through three major pandemics in history.
2021 - PANDEMIC MOOD
From mode to mood: While Venetians adapted and made so many plans during the first few months of the pandemic, a few issues seem to become a never-ending story. The mood in Venice is thoughtful, calmer and at the same time more tense than in 2020. The pandemic changed our priorities.
Readers disappointed that Venice is making so little “progress”? Overwhelmed by pressure from so-called Venetophiles, we decided to take the blog offline for the rest of the year. So here’s why we haven’t posted in seven months!
2022 - MISSING VENICE?
Opening the blog again, refreshed but on our terms - and on a new platform which is why the domain has changed slightly to lavenessiana.online and lavenessiana.blog.
Now, my cousin and I do the writing and collecting of new topics for the blog. But there’s a wonderful neighbor taking Lina’s place, a journalist who recently turned 80, providing input on topics like sustainable travel, wine in the Lagoon, and so much more.
Tourism in Venice picked up around Easter but the life-changing experience we made during the lockdown is still palpable. It will take time to absorb the learnings from the pandemic, but you can sense progress all over.