Chioggia - Venice (Italy) - Little Venice

Chioggia is an unpretentious fishing town at the southern end of the Venetian lagoon. Like Venice it is built around canals and boats, but otherwise it is very different and makes an interesting excursion from Venice.

Chioggia is in the Veneto region of Italy, a medium-sized fishing port just inside the Venetian lagoon with easy access to the Adriatic. It can be reached by public transport from Venice and makes an unusual day-trip destination. It has several picturesque spots and a slower, more ordinary, pace of life than Venice. The town's morning fish-market is a popular sight, and its seafood restaurants are highly-praised. Chioggia fancies itself as a 'little Venice', but apart from one or two imposing buildings and churches, it is more like an image of what Venice might be had it never discovered the splendid riches of trade.

The historical part of Chioggia is on an island in the lagoon. It's separated from the sea by the lagoon's southernmost rim, a strip of land which is built over with a modern seaside town called Sottomarina. Chioggia's geography is simple: one wide central street, Corso del Popolo, runs the length of the island from north to south. Parallel to this, a block to the east, is a picturesque canal called the Vena. Side-streets run neatly off at right angles, although nearly all the town's most interesting tourist sights lie on the main Corso.