Along the
Rio di San Trovaso you might find interesting to see how a gondola is made, stopping by the Squero (Venetian for small ship yard) across the canal near San Trovaso Church. It's one of the few still in business in town. With some luck, you'll see some gondole through various manufacturing steps (note that gondole are not straight to counter-balance the gondoliere push).
Equipped with a slide that facilitates the boats hauling operations, has a covered area for the actual construction of the gondolas, where on a particular model called dima, prepares the backbone of boat, keeping the particular measures that the Gondola currently has, which are the sum of the experiences of hundreds of years of boat building more representative of Venice.
The
boatyard of San Trovaso, located in a particularly good position to be observed, photographed, painted, because the foundations of
Rio di San Trovaso is likely to be a natural audience for a space that seems to have stopped in time.
Just at sites like this one can admire the particularities of the
Gondola as its longitudinal asymmetry that allows a single driver to maneuver it while standing on the transom (hence the name of the Venetian gondoliers called precisely
Pope ), with special devices, by means of
Forcola, the rowlock with which you do all the maneuvers required in the conduct of the vessel, we proceed forward, turn left and right, braking and also it recedes all placing the oar in a special way for each maneuver.
Particularly interesting is also the dimastrazione the flat bottom of the
Gondola, which allows it to be light on the water, but also to be particolaemente difficle to maneuver in strong wind, which, having almost all superficiefuori water, to because of the drift, it is dragged by the wind gusts.
