Creative Venice: artisan excellence and craftsmen workshops | La Vacanza Travel

Creative Venice: artisan excellence and craftsmen workshops

Duration: 3 hours
Destination: Italy, Veneto, Venice
from
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  • 3 hours
  • Venice
  • E-Voucher
  • Lowest Price
  • Not-Cancellable

Overview

Shop through botteghe and tiny shops and find artisanal souvenir and objects 100% made in Italy, listening to the story of these businesses often started by family members who transmitted their knowledge to others with passion and love for their work. Venice, in addition to being a city of art, has always been a city of artisan excellence and creative talent. For more than 1,000 years the hands of masterful Venetian craftsmen have been creating precious and refined objects: mosaics, glassware, fabrics, jewellery and perfumes. Even today, Venice is brimming with ancient know-how that cannot be found elsewhere in the world. Innovative boutiques and concept stores are flanked by artisan studios, where masterpieces in glassware, pearl, gold, paper, and leather are created; there are even ateliers of historic masks and costumes, artistic kilns, antique tailoring and weaving workshops, woodworking shops and printing studios, graphic design studios where unique products can be found.

Itinerary
This is a typical itinerary for this product

Stop At: Campo San Giacomo di Rialto, Campo S. Giacomo di Rialto, 30125 Venezia VE, Italy

We will start our tour in the very center of Venice, in front of a church, traditionally considered to be the oldest in town.

Duration: 15 minutes

Stop At: Mercato del Pesce al Minuto, Campo de la Pescaria, 30125 Venice Italy

The market place in Venice is Rialto: its fish market is noisy, raw, authentic and full of true venetian life. Fish is artfully arranged on stalls covered with deep layers of crushed ice, seagulls wander among the fishmongers calling out today's catch, local people purposefully browse the stalls scattered in the two halls of the "Pescheria", as generations of venetians have been doing so in the last 800 years!

Duration: 15 minutes

Stop At: San Polo, San Polo, Veneto

We will visit a local artisan who creates traditional rural products, using typical materials and manufacturing techniques which nowadays have been lost in the industrial production. These products are linked to values and traditions such as spending time with family and friends around the table, preparing and celebrating food, drink and events at home. These ceramics are made in Italy with bright colours, lively patterns and quality materials; hand crafted in a time honoured fashion to create a rustic, warm, refined, elegant and yet informal atmosphere.

Duration: 15 minutes

Stop At: Ponte di Rialto, Ruga degli Orefici (Rialto) San Polo, 30125 Venice Italy

The next stop will be in a traditional shoe shop. The necessity and ability to exploit everything available, born from the deep bond between man and nature, blended with the wise and already advanced culture of recycling, which today speaks to a world which is under fire from huge ecological issues. The old bicycle tyres were used as waterproof and hardwearing soles; the canvases of jute sacks, from the transport of seeds and grains, were transformed into excellent linings; the fabrics, even rags from old clothes, were transformed into the uppers. Thus necessity became a virtue. These shoes are made in the true manner, there are now new generations of shoe-slippers, like the "Veneziane", inspired by the eighteenth-century splendour of the Serenissima republic, embellished with velvet or bright oriental silks, all guaranteed hand-sewn. All of this exploiting a craftsmanship which is handed down over generations, and which is already looking to the future.

Duration: 15 minutes

Stop At: Campo Manin, 30124 Venezia VE, Italy

Giuliana's is a local stylist and her tiny shop is brimming with hats: Panama hats, gondolier's hats, hats for the carnevale, waterproof hats, woolly hats and even wedding hats!

Since 1980 Giuliana has imported her Panama hats directly from Ecuador.

The shop is officially recognized as a historic place of the Veneto Region.

Duration: 15 minutes

Stop At: Campo Santo Stefano, San Marco District, 30124 Venice Italy

we will meet a "maestro marmorizzatore", a master papermaker. Maestro means in Italian an expert, also a teacher, but it is also a word Venetians use in their dialect when greeting an elderly person in a respectful way (buon giorno maestro!). This maestro is specialized in ancient paper techniques which lives again in this production in Venice. This magic city, suspended between sky and water, cross-road of different cultures, northern gateway of the Orient, has been the inspired muse of this shop.
The water of the Lagoon takes on, during the different times of the day, shades of colors, that only these technique are able to reproduce. Some of these remarkable works are fascinating sheets of paper with the theme of flowers (tulips, roses and trees).
Absolutely original is the series of fish that smile: captured in the liquid element, they are petrified on paper as if they were fossils embedded in primordial seas.

Duration: 15 minutes

Stop At: Chiesa di San Salvador, Sestiere San Marco 4835, 30124 Venice Italy

In the heart of Venice, between Rialto Bridge and St. Marco square, in their precious and cozy atelier, since 2007 a couple of artists encourage with their creations the intimate relationship between the object and the viewer.
We will admire rare collections of original sculptures and jewelry, a world made of delicate glass flowers, dreamlike shapes of cut iron, reborn trees from wood, nomadic landscapes, and sights from the abyss.

Duration: 15 minutes

Stop At: Ponte di Rialto, Ruga degli Orefici (Rialto) San Polo, 30125 Venice Italy

We will visit a shop producing jewellery in Murano glass, executed entirely by hand using the most refined techniques of the venetian tradition. All the beads we will see are hand made by little local workshops with several years’ proven experience in Murano glass making, glass blowing and lamp-working techniques.

Duration: 15 minutes

Stop At: Cannaregio, 30121 Venice, Metropolitan City of Venice, Italy

We will visit a textile company producing fine fabrics for furnishing and hgh fashion: velvets, damasks, lampases, brocatelles and the special "soprarizzo" velvet, which is still hand made. All fabrics are here created with ancient techniques and skills: "soprarizzo" production is for instance still carried out by and on 18 looms of the 18th century, which previoulsy belonged to the sillk guild of the Republic of Venice.

Duration: 15 minutes

Inclusions
  • Licensed Tour Guide

Exclusions
  • gratuities
  • Service animals allowed
  • Near public transportation
  • Stroller accessible
  • Most travelers can participate
  • Not wheelchair accessible
  • This is a private tour/activity. Only your group will participate
  • Confirmation will be received at time of booking
Departure Point

Campo San Giacomo di Rialto, Campo S. Giacomo di Rialto, 30125 Venezia VE, Italy
Traveler pickup is offered
Personalized pick-up is possible only if you book a private group.
In case you did not book a shared tour in a small group but a private tour, please let me know if you wish to get picked up at any location in the historical center of Venice.
Otherwise, meet your guide at the general meeting point in Campo San Giacomo di Rialto, n front of the church near the fountain in the middle of the square.


Return Details

Zattere, 30133 Venice, Metropolitan City of Venice, Italy

Voucher info

You can present either a paper or an electronic voucher for this activity.

Duration

3 hours


User's Reviews

lynnelN4577ZG

22 Jun, 2023

Valerio was very knowledgeable and showed us so much that we would never have found on our own. Fantastic tour at a leisurely pace- never felt rushed. He was very personable as well!

Coastal47161627215

23 May, 2022

Valerio hand guided us to a places not open to the general public. We talked to the artists and got a peek into their shops. A very cool tour. Do it!

Hendrik56988

18 Dec, 2022

Grazie a Valerio abbiamo scoperto delle botteghe artigiane e un laboratorio del legno che non avremmo mai trovato. Ci è sembrato che il tour fosse adattato di volta in volta in base ai partecipanti. Inoltre era chiaro che la guida ci mostrasse le varie realtà senza secondi fini e non era assolutamente previsto un acquisto obbligatorio o pressioni di tipo commerciale

paulette792013

17 Sep, 2022

mi è piaciuto conoscere Venezia attraverso i suoi artigiani, non avrei mai saputo trovarli da sola senza una guida! Valerio è davvero simpatico e disponibile

User's Picture Gallery

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Personal attention and a behind the scenes look at the art of working with glass.

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