“The most beautiful road in the world”, this is how the Grand Canal is known as. Gondola serenades have always been part of Venetian culture, an unchanged tradition for an unchageable city. Venice is indeed unique because unlike other cities, which require leaps of imagination to see their past, it remains just like it was a thousand years ago, with the same palaces, squares and canals.
If you look around, what you will see is almost exactly what a nobleman in the 18th century might have looked upon, and before him a Renaissance courtesan and before him a merchant in the Middle Ages. And the gondola you are on has been there since the beginning, one could say the ever present actor on the Venetian stage. Because Venice is really an open theatre, and the Grand Canal is the centre of it, where Venetian noblemen and ladies would indulge in amorous or promiscuous gondola escapades, or, why not, enjoy flirting with one another from across the water in different gondolas.
It is often said that Venice’s history is intimately linked to Cupid, and it is surely a place where both eroticism and romanticism run wild. If Casanova’s pleasure-seeking tales lean on the erotic side, it is also true that Venetians still choose a romantic gondola ride on their wedding day, the only time they will be seen on one in fact.
