The Rough Guide to Venice and the Veneto

fan, they devote as much attention to players’
ankle problems as most papers would give
to the resignation of a government. News
magazines are also widely read in Italy, from
the similar L’Espresso and Panorama to the
lighter and celeb-obsessed offerings of Gente
and Oggi.
English and US newspapers can be
found for around twice the normal price in
all the larger towns and established resorts,
usually on the day of issue in bigger cities like
Florence and Siena. Pan-European editions
of Britain’s Guardian and Financial Times
and the Rome editions of the International
Herald Tribune and USA Today are also usually
available on the day of publication.
TV and radio
Italy’s three main national TV channels are
RAI 1, 2 and 3. Silvio Berlusconi’s Fininvest
runs three additional nationwide channels:
Canale 5, TG4 and Italia 1. Although all six
are blatantly pro-Berlusconi, the degree of
sycophancy displayed on the TG4 news
has reached such ludicrous heights that
most Italians now tune in solely for a giggle.
The other main channel is Telemontecarlo,
currently reaching seventy percent of the
country. Although the stories of Italian TV’s
stripping housewives are overplayed, the
output is pretty bland across the board,
with the accent on quiz shows, soaps and
plenty of American imports. The RAI channels
carry less advertising and try to mix the
dross with above-average documentaries
and news coverage. Numerous other channels
concentrate on sport; if you want to see
the weekend’s Italian League football action,
settle into a bar from 5pm on a Sunday.
While there are always exceptions, you
shouldn’t expect too much from a hotel TV:
if satellite channels are available at all, English-language
options are generally restricted
to BBC World, CNN and little else.
Radio is highly deregulated in Italy, with
FM so crowded that you continually pick up
new stations whether you want to or not.
There are some good small-scale stations if
you search hard enough, but on the whole
the RAI stations are the most professional
– though even with them daytime listening
is virtually undiluted dance music. The BBC
World Service (wwww.bbc.co.uk) is in
English on 648kHz medium wave most of
the day; they also broadcast continuously
online, as do Voice of America (wwww.voa.
gov) and Radio Canada (wwww.rcinet.ca)
among others.
BASICS
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Travelling with children
Travelling with children
It’s hard to imagine any child not enjoying
Venice hugely, for a few days at least. The
experience of travelling around a city by boat
is a thrill in itself, as is the freedom from roadgoing
traffic. The whole city is a labyrinth,
and kids can explore it with no risk of colliding
with anything more dangerous than a
pedestrian. There are church towers to climb,
stray cats to follow, weird carvings and pictures
to spot. In winter there are some spectacular
puddles to negotiate, and as in any
Italian city you’re only a few minutes away
from a delicious ice cream. In summer you
can nip over to the Lido for a paddle and a
bout of sandcastling. With younger children,
however, you might find that their patience
begins to wear thin quite quickly: it’s easy
for them to get the feeling that Venice is just
one damned church after another. The stone
pavements can be tiring, and Venice has very
few green spaces, with just one playground
of any size, over on the eastern edge of the
city, in the Giardini Pubblici. The city’s museums
aren’t especially kid-friendly either: you’ll
find some moderately diverting objects in
the Correr (such as shoes like stilts), plenty
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