Row Venice

I’m glad a pic was snapped to prove I didn’t dream this up: There I am, standing on the stern of a boat, oar in hand, rowing in the Venetian lagoon, just like a gondolier.

The boat is called a batellina coda de gambero, shrimp’s tail, because of its curved shape. You’ll see ones just like it in the eighteenth-century paintings of Canaletto. And the light, near dusk, as I stood there and rowed, had that same, soft Canaletto quality.

Row Venice is the organization that offers such an adventure. It was created by a team of women, among them Nan McElroy, an American who fell in love with Venice and now lives near the dock in Cannaregio where we started our lesson. Though she works in Venice as a tour guide and sommelier, it’s turning tourists on to the pleasures of traditional boating that she’s most enjoying at the moment.

Nan gives a rowing technique demo before we start, but my learning comes more as I go along, and it soon becomes a series of thrills. First gliding along the back waterways, flanked by lines of laundry, boats delivering groceries, getting a backstage look at real Venetian life, with Nan calling out to her neighbors on the bridges and up to their windows as we row by. Then out in the expanse of the lagoon, rocking with the current, feeling like a speck amidst water taxis and fading light. As the sun sets, we row back through the narrow side canals, under tiny bridges, attaching a light to the prow as the first stars begin to pop into the sky.

“This is why I live here,” Nan says, as she sees me tilting my head back, taking it in: the quiet swish of the boat, lights flickering on in the palazzos, the moon rising…

Row Venice: Offers lessons all year long. It’s great for families, wonderful at sunset, and Nan can also take you on a cicchetti row, from bacaro to bacaro. (www.rowvenice.org)

Biking on Sant’ Erasmo (The Secret Garden of Venice)

For a break from the canals, vaporetto over to Sant’Erasmo, an island that lies between Burano and Murano. It’s covered with vegetable gardens and orchards that have supplied Venice markets for centuries, and since the soil has a high salt content, the vegetables are especially delicious. If you get there in June, lucky you: there will be fields of purple artichokes in bloom.

The bike loop around the island is a flat three and a half miles, and you may want to join Venetian families at the tiny beach for a swim—this is where the locals come to escape the Lido crowds.

Bike rentals: Lato Azzurro, Via dei Forti 13, 041 523 0642 (www.latoazzurro.it)

Golden Day: Take Vaporetto 13 to the Capannone stop at Sant’Erasmo, about a thirty-minute ride. Take a bike ride, then eat at Ristorante Ca’Vignotto. It’s a treasure of a family-run restaurant, the only one on the island, beloved by locals, where you can enjoy freshly picked fruit and vegetables. (Via Forti, 71 041 244 4000, lunch Tuesday-Sunday, dinner Thursday-Saturday, reservations essential, www.vignotto.com)