By: Lia Contesso
Submitted: 2010-04-19 02:38:47 | Word Count: 531
The first event for which it is worth thinking about spending some days in one of the Venice’ hotels is the traditional non-competitive march “Su e zo per i ponti”, in April, this year on the 18th; it is a march that follows a 10 km path (or the reduced one, 5 km) “up and down the bridges” of Venice. Anyone can participate, children and those who are not children any more, running or walking: the important is to arrive; the subscription fee, after having covered the organizing expenses, is traditionally given for a charity purpose that for 2010, reaching its 32nd edition, will be to help Haiti after the earthquake that hit it this year.
The second event still leaves some time for the organization and to book your rooms in Venice: it’s in May, with the “Vogalonga”. It’s a regatta that starts from the San Marco basin and ends at the Dogana, the Salute Church, more or less 30 km through the most suggestive places of the city and the islands that surround it – Burano, Murano and others. The Vogalonga was born in 1975 to manifest against the deterioration of the Venice lagoon, to sensitize to the respect of nature and of the traditional culture of the city of Venice: the wave-motion produced by motor boats, in fact, is one of the dangers against which the lagoon city has to fight. That’s why, of course, all the boats that participate in the Vogalonga are rowing boats of any kind, realizing the objective that seemed impossible to see the rows win against the engines.
This year the Vogalonga, a little older than the Su e zo per i ponti, arrives to its 36th edition, and the participating boats (in 2009 they were 1680, with more than 6000 rowers) will fill the Grand Canal and the Venice Lagoon on the 23rd May; and if at the beginning the boats didn’t come further than from the nearby regions, now the rowers come from every part of the planet: in the 2009 edition the strangers were much more than the Venetians – 3086 strangers, 1257 Venetians and 1755 Italians from other regions. The luxury hotels in Venice and every kind of receptive structure of the city are prepared for the events, ready to host all those who wish to assist and even participate to the events.
The “n
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on-competitive” character of these events is fundamental to see them not only as sporting events, but also (or most of all) connected with the Venetian traditions and with the love for the city. What characterize them the most, in fact, is that both of these events follow a route that does not aim just to cover a determined distance, but its purpose is showing the most beautiful and picturesque parts of the city, renowned or not, thus transforming itself not into a simple route, but into a true tribute to Venice and its beauty, which cannot be described in any other way.
