Adresses and street names in Venezia by Trekki
As opposed to the signs being distributed all over in the city to make us tourists not get lost, Veneziano adresses are quite confusing. Originally, addresses are given by sestiere, followed by a number. This system has been introduced by Napoleon (that?s what I have read) and leads finally to around 30.000 different numbers throughout whole Venezia. The numbers are consecutive within a sestiere, so theoretically one can walk around along a street in a given sestiere until he finds the number. But, haha, this would take too long. Luckily for us most of the Venezianos have realised our confusion with this address system and give us the street name as well on websites or business cards (note: the original number is the same, however). The same applies for most of travel guide books.
But?. again, if you have time during your stay in Venezia, and not plan to rush through the city, it is a lot of fun to find addresses according to the Veneziano system. Just watch the systematic, and you will sure find out that it works pretty well. I played this ?game? quite often and after a while, I found what I was looking for.
Apart from that, Venezia has several interesting ?street names? or designations, which are specific to her position at or in the water.
There is a book, by the way, called Indice Anagrafico, for those who are interested in finding each number :-)Let?s start with the plazas, of which Venezia has a lot of, and very much different ways to call them. There is only one single piazza (plaza): Piazza San Marco. The other plazas are either called piazetta, such as (THE) Piazetta San Marco at the lagoon and Piazetta Leoncini north of the basilica or piazzale as in Piazzala Roma, the one where cars and busses from mainland arrive. A corte is also a plaza, but more like a courtyard, cortile would be a small corte.
Quays are called fondamenta (like Fondamenta Nouve), shopping streets are called ruga or rughetta (if they are small). A riva (like Riva degli Schiavoni and the other rivas east of Piazza San Marco) is a big quay.
Streets are called calle, and it is said that Venezia has around 3000 of them. Small versions are calletta, and a rìo tera is a street which was formerly a canal, but then filled up. A ramo is a dead end, it usually ends in cortiles or at the water. Salizadas are tiny streets, these are the oldest ones in Venezia, the ones that have been paved first ages ago. A sottoportego is a tiny roofed street, as given the small space in the city, houses are built tight and this created the need for room to walk between them.
What I found most funny is the very much black humour, Venezianos had in their street naming. There are for examples calles with such fascinating bloodthirsty names like Rìo Tera degli Assassini ? street of the murderers, or Ponte dei Squadrartal ? bridge of the ones that have been divided into four parts?
This lets the imagination flow quite a bit, and consider city?s history and what had been done with traitors or scammers. At least she does not conceals her history :-)
