Il Vogalonga

This afternoon, while downing a gooey and satisfying serving of Amy's GF Mac & Cheeze, I flipped through a magazine I found in my work's bathroom. The magazine was Departures, a grotesquely luxurious magazine devoted to all things grotesquely luxurious and published by American Express for all of their well-heeled clients. This issue in particular was devoted to Venice and spent a good deal of its pages covering food and wine and extravagant accommodations but, toward the back, I found an article about Il Vogalonga. Reading it, I was filled with immediate and nearly unquenchable desire to head for Italy.

Il Vogalonga ("The Long Row") is an annual celebration of the "people of the oar," the people who make their passage without motorized assistance through the canals and waterways of Venice. No motorized vehicles are allowed on the water but any other kind of craft from kayak to scull to more traditional Venetian barcas can have their way with the waves.

Venetian rowing, I learned from Michael Hainey, is done standing up and even an outsider can participate. If you are a rower yourself, you can rent a boat of your choice or you can contact one of the rowing clubs for lessons prior to the event.

I can only imagine what kind of beautiful chaos takes place every summer when 1600 or so boats descend on the waters of Venice. Reading the article, my breath was halted so I would think that the event itself could border on rapturous making this one of the many things on my Travel Wish List.

For more information, Il Vogalonga has a website in Italian and English. Some of the rowing clubs Hainey mentions are:

Querini
Bucintoro

There's still time before this year's event on June 12th. In fact, it's so easy you can even enroll online!

Read more after the jump.