Page 162 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Venice & The Veneto

160  VENICE AREA B Y AREA

stays, features in the novel and
in Visconti’s 1970 film, and is still
a prominent landmark. It has
been converted into private
apartments called Residenze
des Bains.
The Lido is no longer the
prestigious resort it was in the
1930s. Beaches are crowded,
streets busy and ferries packed
with day trippers. Nevertheless
the sands, sea and sporting
facilities provide a welcome
break from city culture. The
backwaters provide a green
respite from the heat of Venice.
Exploring the island
The Lido can be covered by bus
but a popular form of tran sport
is the bicycle. Visitors can hire
one from the shop almost
opposite the vaporetto stop at
Santa Maria Elisabetta.
The east side of the island is
fringed by sandy beaches. For
passengers arriving by ferry at
the main landing stage, these
The grand Residenze des Bains, a famous landmark on the Lido beaches are reac hed by bus, taxi
or on foot along the Gran Viale
0 Lido vaporetti. The fastest of these Santa Maria Elisabetta. This is
(No. 14) takes less than 15 the main shopping street of the
4 Nos 1, 2, 5.1, 5.2 and 6 (summer) to
Santa Maria Elisabetta; No. 17 from minutes to reach its destination Lido. At the end of the Gran
Tronchetto to San Nicolò. from San Zaccaria. Viale, turn left for the beaches of
The Lido’s main season runs San Nicolò or right along the
The Lido is a slender sandbank from June to September, the Lungomare G Marconi, which
12 km (8 miles) long, which most crowded months being boasts the grandest hotels and
forms a natural barrier between July and August. In winter most the best beaches. The hotels
Venice and the open sea. It is hotels are closed. control the beaches in this area,
both a residential suburb of the and levy exorbitant charges
city and – more importantly for The world’s first lido (except to hotel residents) for
tourists – the city’s seaside In the 19th century, before the the use of their beach facilities.
resort. The only island in the Lido was developed, the island The long straight road parallel
lagoon with roads, it is linked to was a favourite haunt of Shelley, to the beach leads southwest to
the Tronchetto island car park Byron and other literary figures.
by car ferry. From Venice, the Byron swam from the Lido to
Lido is served by regular Santa Chiara via the Grand
Canal in under 4 hours.
Bathing establishments were
gradually opened and by the
turn of the century the Lido had
become one of Europe’s most
fashionable seaside resorts,
frequented by royalty, film stars
and leading lights of the literati.
They stayed in the grand hotels,
swam in the sea or sat in
deckchairs on the sands by the
striped cabanas. Life in the
Lido’s heyday was brilliantly
evoked in Thomas Mann’s book
Death in Venice (1912). The
The Lido, away from the glare Hôtel des Bains, where the Cabanas on the Lido beaches, hired out to
of the beaches melancholic Von Aschenbach holidaying Venetians

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