Streets & water
Calle
The typical Venetian street: narrow and paved. The most common word for a lane.
Salizada
One of the first streets to be paved (from Venetian salizar, to pave) — once the mark of an important thoroughfare.
Ramo
A short lane branching off a calle, often a dead end.
Sotoportego
A covered passage running beneath a building.
Campo
A Venetian square. Only Piazza San Marco is a piazza — every other is a campo, once a green field.
Campiello
A little campo — small and secluded.
Corte
An enclosed courtyard between the houses, often with a well at its centre.
Fondamenta
The pedestrian walkway running along a canal.
Riva
The bank where boats moor — also a broad quay along the water. Ours is thirty metres from the door.
Rio
A minor inner canal. The palazzo faces the Rio dei Miracoli.
Ponte
A bridge — Venice counts more than four hundred of them.
Masegni
The large grey trachyte slabs that pave the calli and the campi.
The Venetian house
Piano nobile
The palazzo’s principal, most prestigious floor — high ceilings and the finest rooms.
Liagò
A glazed loggia or veranda overlooking the courtyard — a hallmark of the Venetian house.
Altana
The wooden rooftop terrace where Venetian women once lightened their hair in the sun.
Pozzo
The well-cistern at the heart of the courtyard — for centuries the only source of fresh water.
Altinelle
Small Roman bricks from ancient Altino, reused to build Venice. You can still spot them at the base of our walls.
Nizioleto
The white painted wall-signs bearing the street names (literally "little sheet").
Venetian life
Vaporetto
The public water-bus — Venice’s bus, on the water.
Traghetto
The ferry-gondola that crosses the Grand Canal where there is no bridge.
Squero
The boatyard where gondolas are built and repaired.
Bacaro
The traditional Venetian tavern for an ombra and a few cicchetti.
Cicchetti
Small bites eaten with wine, served at the counter.
Ombra
A small glass of wine — said to come from the shade (ombra) of St Mark’s bell-tower, where it was once sold.