By pure coincidence I read an article about Chioggia right the day when I was planning our short trip to northern Italy. From the image I thought they were writing about Venice, and only when I read the title, I realized they were talking about Chioggia. The article and the images captured my attention and I’ve immediately added Chioggia as a stop on our road trip.
Chioggia is located in the southern part of the Venetian lagoon. The city itself is formed from small islands connected by bridges. The landscape is very similar to Venice, with canals, bridges and boats.
A very charming town, a little bit off the beaten path, just right that you avoid the crowds of tourist. It is quite small and for sure one of the cities that you have to discover on foot. Walk along the main street but also enter the canals, and narrow streets with colourful buildings.
We park our car at one of the parking spaces available right on the border of the old town and enter the city from Porta Garibaldi. We made a quick stop at the Chioggia Cathedral and the Refugium Peccatorum.
Then, we’ve taken a walk, or how Italians would say “a passeggiata” along the main street, Coros del Popolo. Very lively street with lot of effervescence, locals and tourist walking, or wondering around on bikes and vespas. We were doing some window shopping and taking a few photos, stopped by for a souvenir, and quite quickly reached the northern square, Piazzetta Vigo.
This is the place where the ferries from Venice arrive or depart. On the right side of the square you will notice a nice bridge that crosses Canal Vena, the most important canal in the City.
On the bridge, there is a small statue of the lion (the symbol of Venice city) that is called “the cat of Chioggia”. There are different stories about this statue and its size. Venetians were saying that is so small because the inhabitants of Chioggia were so stingy that they didn’t want to make a bigger statue. The inhabitants of Chioggia were saying that they made it so small as to mock the Venetian symbol. The thought is, most probably, somewhere in between 😊.
From the Vigo square you have a nice view of the lagoon, and you see “the big sister Venice” on the other side.
We walked along the Canal Vena, and for me it was the nicest part of Chioggia, with bridges, boats parked along the canals, the colourful houses lining along the water and making incredible reflections in the waters.
Of course, we made “a mandatory” stop for aperitivo and small bites (aperitivo and ciccheti). We were relaxing and enjoying the nice atmosphere of late autumn by the sea. It was so nice and inspiring that I wish I had more time in the city…
We visited Chioggia in the morning and had the opportunity to walk through the local fish market, which was great. As Chioggia is in a lagoon, it has a long fishing tradition but also a great selection of daily catch. I was so sad, since we had to go on the same day. I would love to stay in the city for at least one night to have a chance to prepare a nice dinner with some of the delicacies available on the fish market. This is also one of the reasons why I will definitely return to Chioggia in the near future.
Chioggia is well known to European tourist also because of its long beach, Sottomarina. The beach is located “just on the other side” of the bridge, and looking outside to the lagoon. A very big and sandy beach. I presume that gets very crowded in the summer months, offering a lot of facilities (playgrounds, restaurants, bars, sunbeds etc.). It is not the type of the beach that I like, so I guess that I will avoid the area in summer months, but as said already, I will return off-season.
If you have already visited Venice, and if you liked the city, but this time you would like to visit a similar place just much smaller, then I recommend you a stop in Chioggia.
Thanks for reading,
feel free to leave a comment, I will be glad to reply to.
Best regards, @miljo76
