Today I wont to tell you about ‘Redentore festival’, a traditional venetian festival that is celebrated every year in the Saturday before the third Sunday of July.
It is famous because of the fireworks show in the sky in front of St. Mark’s Square; but it is also a religious recurrence, and usually venetian people go and visit the Church of Redentore; it is in the isle of Giudecca (in front of Zattere, near the port) and to help people to go there it is assembled a “votive bridge” built on a row of boats. It is built by the Pontonier Corps of the army and it is very interesting to see; in fact many people stay and watch all the work. They begin to build it about 19.00 (in Saturday evening) and from that moment there are deviations form the path of “Vaporetti” (the typical venetian mean of transport).

About 17.00 many people begin to take place in the canale of Giudecca with their boats and many others take tables and chairs on the bank and begins to lay them for the party waiting for the night with the show of fireworks. Usually they eat quick lunch like sandwiches, and fruits but also traditionally foods by fish, duck, pasta and beans.
Upper the roof of venetian house there are often a kind of wooden roof-terrace called “altane”, and many people adorn them with chinese lamps and have dinner there, in this night and later, watch fireworks from there.

But the best place to do it is from a boat in the dock in front of St. Mark’s Square on in the Channel of Giudecca. Venetian people usually go with their boats in the dock about 19.00 or 20.00 and stand there until the beginning of the show: they have dinner eating traditional venetian foods, singing and chatting with friends. May you imagine the scene? The dock is full of gondolas, and hundreds of great and little boats; and the greatest ones are adorned by lights, festoons and chinese lanterns. Inside the boats there are groups of
people: whole family, adults, children and also teenagers with their little boats. Yes, because in every town teen-agers have a motorbike or a scooter, venetian ones have a little boat. There are also many gondolas, usually they arrive in the dock about 22.00 but they are more little of other boats and they find always good positions.

If you have a venetian friend that owns a boat, I advise you to ask him to invite you for this festival, you’ll have a funny night! Many tourist agency organise parties in motorships or great motorboats moored in the dock where you can have a great dinner with traditional foods, listen music from some live orchestra, dance for all the night, and you can see fireworks form there.

At 23.30, the fireworks show begins and you can see fireworks of every colour and shape until midnight, it is really great! During the show many people play horns of the boat making really a great noise. The show ends at midnight and all people move their boats, many people (especially young ones) go around for the lagoon looking for a place to have bath and spend the night; motorships go away slowly and inside them the party continues until the morning. Many people go home, and sail for “Canal Grande” and the other little channel of the town up to home. If you walk near a canal you can see it full of hundreds of boats with their coloured lights, and chinese lantern, and roads are full of people too, because also who saw the fireworks from the Square have to go home, of course.
Many people living near Venice go there for this festival, and after it come back home, but usually public means of transport are not enough to take all them from St. Mark’s Square to Bus o Train Station; so there are hundreds of people that cross all the town walking and about 3.00 a.m. principal roads are full of walking people again.

The day after, usually venetian people go and visit the Church of Redentore trough the bridge on
the boats, this bridge is disassembled on Sunday evening.