Paddling Through The Floating City
Issue 2 / Tue 1st Nov, 2016
Mary Booth heads to the city of Venice, surrounded by water there are no roads for cars and gondolas are the preferred form of transport. Once a year, though, paddle boards dominate the waterways!
The city of Venice has long been considered one of the most elegant, unusual, fascinating and, dare I say, romantic places in Europe, if not the world. Built around an archipelago of 117 islands that have been formed by 177 canals it is connected by a series of bridges - 409 to be exact.
In the centre of the city, there are no roads, and it's the canals that provide the transportation.
The old gondolas, stunning yet somewhat crumbling architecture, uneven alleyways and narrow canals all creates a timeless appeal to the city centre, and it is undoubtedly beautiful.
Venice has always been one of those foreign places on my ‘must-see, yet maybe later’ list. Plenty of friends and family have visited for extended art-filled weekends, romantic getaways, food and wine-tasting or just part of a cultural tour of Italy. However, despite all of their glowing reports and dreamy recollections of long lunches and aimless strolling it never quite made it to the top of the list or had me booking flights.
Perhaps that’s because we’re always looking for the next surf destination and the more cultural holidays have been filed into the ‘future holidays’ box for when we’re no longer able to tear it up in the surf, paddle for miles, or even mountain bike our way through a two-week vacation.
I fully realise that I could be missing out on some of these incredible World Heritage Sites. Venice is said to be sinking at a rate of 1-2mm per year, slow though that may sound it doesn’t bode well in the long-term. However, I always sway more towards active, sporty holidays than the more sightseeing orientated ones.
It was earlier this summer when the stars aligned, and I was able to tick off both with an invite to join the exclusive annual event ‘Surfin’ Venice’!
Organised by RRD International and SUP in Venice founder and Surf Club Venezia president, ElianaArgine, the event aims to bring together paddle-boarders from around the world for a ‘meeting’. Not in the dull, Monday morning boardroom sense of the word, but as a general rendezvous of like-minded sportsmen (and women); to experience the sights, sounds and smells of Venice in an entirely different manner and to share something a little magical.
The Surfin’ Venice meet first took place in 2010. As many will know, RRD is an Italian company, and proud to be so. Roberto Ricci, the founder and company’s namesake, thought it would be a good idea to link the history of the paddle with the evolution of the paddle. With Venice having one of the oldest rowing traditions, which still continues today through the extensive use of the gondola, it seemed serendipitous to bring the two together, and so Surfin’ Venice was born.
The number of participants has always been restricted to around one hundred. In such a historical city, with so many controls, regulations and some very strict and peculiar ‘rules of the road’ (aka waterways), not to mention the sheer scale of the logistics involved, it’s rather an amazing feat to have been able to get the event approved at all. I mean, can you imagine getting a hundred random people together to slowly longboard down The Strand in London, Champs-Élysées in Paris or Broadway in New York, all while being totally preoccupied with the sightseeing on offer?!
This number small may appear somewhat exclusive; however, it’s open for anyone to get involved. Rather like Glastonbury Festival you just have to be quick on the ball to grab your spot, oh and the ability to paddle a SUP is helpful too of course.
The event starts on a quay just to the outskirts of the city centre where everyone meets in the morning to begin the not insignificant task of inflating around ninety paddleboards! With people having flown in from around the world and travelled from every corner of Italy for the event, the inflatable SUP is the board of choice for convenience and practicality for the majority. RRD also loans out a considerable number of boards for those who haven’t brought their own.
We all set off together en masse and proceeded to paddle along the length of the Grand Canal through the heart of the city. It’s somewhat surreal paddling down the main artery of this bizarre floating mini metropolis with its water-busses, private water taxis, waste collection boats and even the police. Everything you imagine a city having on its roads you see here in floating form!
A troop of paddleboarders gliding amongst this action in their garish black and white event vests must be quite a sight, and all the bridges we pass under are lined with onlookers.
Eliana is in one of the accompanying safety boats, complete with a megaphone that she use to point out key buildings and historical facts (and shout at us to hurry up when a water-bus is approaching at speed!)
It is incredible to see Venice from this vantage point. Despite all the hustle and bustle of the Grand Canal it weirdly feels calmer, probably because you’re not being jostled by hoards of tourists with their cameras out.
There are a lot of laughs – particularly when one of the group has a wobble and ends up in the water (definitely not somewhere you want to be!!!), and the rather tentative moment you try to get your phone out for a selfie.
The journey ends at the Monastery of San Giorgio Maggiore, a peaceful haven located on an island where the Grand Canal meets one of the main shipping channels that filters via Venice. One of the biggest challenges is to get us all across this busy waterway!
A simple, but very welcoming lunch awaits us, and we all sit in the shaded courtyard chatting about what we’ve just done, the buildings we’ve passed by, how amazing the city is to still be standing when built entirely in water, and where our next SUP adventure might be. New friends are made, memories are secured, and the ‘meet’ has done exactly what it set out to.
Since getting fully addicted to paddleboarding, kitesurfing and mountain biking I had forever put cultural trips towards the bottom of the list. However, this venture has re-ignited some of that desire for education and experience. Being able to combine the two is the cherry on the top, and I can whole-heartedly recommend it! It would appear that Venice has cast its dreamy and romantic spell on me too!
You’ve seen the photos, watched the video and read about how much cooler it is to see Venice from the water, and it’s ranking on your to-do list (I can recommend it!). Rather than sitting in an expensive gondola for an hour you fancy combining some paddle-boarding fitness into the equation and doing something a little different - though the question stands, how can you do this without taking part in the once-a-year RRD event? Sadly, just rocking up on the quayside, dropping your board into the water and paddling off into the mêlée isn’t allowed (all watercraft on the canals must be licensed), and the Italian waterways police will soon be upon you.
Thankfully, SUP instructor and Venetian local ElianaArgine runs ‘SUP in Venice’, a private company offering a variety of paddleboard tours around the city’s waterways. Eliana grew up in the city and has worked in Venice as a tour leader for a number of years – she’s instrumental in the Surfin’ Venice events happening and possess an in-depth knowledge of the history, architecture, canals and buildings. She’s the only person/company to have paddleboard tours approved by the Venice authorities, and it gives the opportunity for people to see Venice themselves on the water throughout the year. Speaking perfect English (as well as Italian of course), her delightful nature and enthusiasm for the city are infectious.
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By Mary Booth
