Traghetto at Santa Maria del Giglio

photo by Nereo Zane In his book "Across the River and Into the Trees", Ernest Hemingway paints a picture of Venice that has stayed with us since it's publication in 1950.

While it was a different time, it was the same place, and many of the things he shined his light on still exist today. The Gritti Palace and Harry's Bar are two obvious examples.

Heminway also included gondoliers and their boats in his text - sprinkling them here and there. Had the story been true, most of those gondoliers would have come from the traghetto at Santa Maria del Giglio.

On one page, Colonell Cantwell remarks that the church there is "fine, compact, and, yet, ready to be airborn". That church is in the background of the above photo.

Looking at the traghetto, we see a passenger gondola moored to the far left, and a gondola da traghetto on the right. In between the boats is a trademark lantern (you can find these in a lot of places throughout Venice - they usually mark a place where gondolas operate), and a bunch of empty mooring areas. I don't know when Nereo took this photo, but based on the absence of gondolas, it must have been during a busy day.

The casotto (the little kiosk we see at a lot of traghetti) is prominent.
What you really have to strain to see, is the enclosed area behind the casotto - it's a bit of a cross between a private beer-garden and a locker-room, with green partition walls and vines spread overhead.