Squero Padovano

In Venice squero is the boatyard for the building, maintenance and shelter for traditional boats such as the sandolo, mascareta, puparin, and, of course, the most popular gondola. Even in Padua, city of waters, as in Venice, there were once squeri overlooking the waterways.
Within the walls of the ancient city, in a hidden place to rediscover, we have improvised our squero. Here we're trying to share a story that has been lost over fifty years ago.

Saturday 11 April 2020

The romantic lagoon.


In the paintings of Guglielmo Ciardi and Pietro Fragiacomo, two of the greatest Venetian landscape painters of the nineteenth century, we find the light, the colors and the extraordinary romantic atmosphere of the lagoon.


Sunday 1 March 2020

Barcariol

The name sàndolo in Venice indicates a series of boats belonging to the same family (the mascareta, the sampierota and the s-ciopon belong to the sàndoli family)
It seems that the name derives from sandalium, sandal, the flat shoe (just like the bottom of the boat) suitable for walking on the waterways of Venice.
The Sandolo da Barcariol is a black boat that can be seen in some places in Venice intended for the transport of tourists and which is therefore also confused with the gondola.
In reality, the (sàndolo da) barcariol is shorter and more massive than the gondola, slower, but more stable than the gondola and in any case easy to handle, it can be carried by one or two rowers.
In July 2018 we recovered an old battered barcariol in Venice. After a restoration, in which we also made some modifications to adapt it to our river transport needs, we finally put it back on the water on September 22, 2019.
Our barcariol has a length of about 9.28 meters and a width of 1.64 meters.