Row a Venetian boat standing up

Venetians row standing up, facing the way they are going, one oar each. The style has its own name, voga alla veneta, and it is nothing like rowing sitting down and looking backward.

The lesson is a morning on the canals in a flat-bottomed wooden boat, with a Venetian teaching. A small circle comes first. It is the traditional way to start.

After that the boat starts going where it is pointed, and the city looks different from water level. Fewer than 50,000 people still live in the old city, and from a boat in the morning it can feel as if most of them have been waved at.

The historic center counted 48,489 residents at the end of 2024, and the number is still falling.