Pellestrina: Bike Hopping Around the Venice Lagoon Islands

We will meet at Santa Maria Elisabetta on Lido Island, where we will rent our bikes and start discovering Lido!

Hotel Ausonia & Hungaria (1913) is a remarkable example of luxury tourism dated back one century ago, thanks to the beautiful ceramic tiles on the main facade, recently renovated.

A former luxury hotel, built in 1900 to attract wealthy tourists, it is remembered for Thomas Mann's stay here in 1911 and the shooting of movies like "Death in Venice" by Visconti (1971) and the English Patient (1996).

The oldest festival in the world is held in late August or early September here and screenings take place in the historic Palazzo del Cinema. The still running Art Nouveau Hotel Excelsior (1908) usually hosts producers and actors during the Festival.

From the beach we will enter this small fisherman village passing over Ponte di Borgo and explore the canals and calli or a less overwhelming lagoon town with just a few churches and a Gothic palazzo, a small miniature of Venice!

After few kilometers we will reach Alberoni beach, right at the western tip of Lido (opposite to San Nicolo). The natural beach of Alberoni has a maritime pine forest which slopes down to the Lido’s wildest most scenic beach. These enchanting dune fields are the stuff of Shelley’s poems and Byron’s early morning rides.
Often this beach is virtually deserted, except a plethora of marine birds and few kite surfers or windsurfers on windy days. We will make a break at this beach before hopping on a ferry to Pellestrina island

The route will be wild as we will bike along the Murazzi, a scenic route following the Adriatic sea.
Murazzi is a remarkable 18th century engineering work: These massive sea walls represent a Herculean work from pre industrial age. Designed to keep high seas from crashing into the lagoon, they remain an effective breakwater even today. Murazzi are built with large blocks of Istrian stone and can be found also on the sister island of Lido.

We will bike along this 7 km long island, stretching south of the Lido and repeating its long, sinuous shape. The island is home of 3 tight-knit fishing communities - San Pietro in Volta, Portosecco and Pellestrina, strung out along the water's edge in jaunty pastel colours.

Chioggia is a miniature version of Venice, and is often called "Little Venice", with a few canals, chief among them the Canale Vena, and the characteristic narrow streets known as calli. Chioggia has several medieval churches, much reworked in the period of its greatest prosperity in the 16th and 17th centuries.
It is also a lively fihing community: what a great place to taste some fresh fish!