After spending considerable time in Piazza San Marco, where floodwaters provided great reflections of the surrounding buildings, it was on to the famed Rialto fish market hall. We were agog at the vast assortment of fresh fish and seafood in this fish market.
After leaving St. Mark’s Square, Bob and I took a vaporetto, otherwise called a water bus, from San Marco Vallaresso water bus stop. A 28-minute cruise along the Grand Canal to Rialto Bridge would put us at the Fish Market in good time.
The Rialto Pescheria fish market is open most days from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the bountiful selection of fish and seafood sells out quickly. Local chefs and home cooks all come to this market to stock their kitchens.
On a walking tour a day earlier, Bob and I had been too late to see the hustle and bustle of locals vying for the freshest sea food offerings, but it gave us a chance to appreciate the actual building free of tables, vendors and customers.
The pescheria or fish market is comprised of two adjoining structures.
One structure, seen here with the red awnings, fronts Grand Canal and so facilitates delivery of fresh fish and seafood from waiting speedboats before the market opens.
Fisherfolk can handily unload their catches to willing vendors who will then sell the products to local Venetians in the fish market.
This is a view across Grand Canal opposite the fish market.
Bob and I moseyed along Rio de la Becarie adjacent to the fish market. This canal runs perpendicular to the Grand Canal. The second structure comprising the fish market stretches along this narrow canal so we had further views of the open-air porticoed space where the vendors set up to sell their wares. It is the building with the green awnings.
This section of the historical buildings is where the retail fish market sets up. It is called Mercato Del Pesce Al Minuto. The wide loggia on the ground level has been home to the fish market for about 100 years.
Fast forward to the next morning when we arrived at the height of the morning’s market. The transformation was quite remarkable!
It was hard to believe that, in a city of only 70,000 residents, the vast quantities of daily fish and seafood sells out. But for Venetians, seafood is a birthright, an obsession even.
Bob and I relished the sights and sounds within this historic market area.
We were in for a few surprises.
Not sure if this was a Marlin or a Swordfish, but it made for a good photo op. We were grateful for the precautionary styrofoam because it would have been easy to walk right into that “sword”.
The Rialto Fish Market is not huge. Only about 30 fishmongers and their assistants man the tables of glistening fish while the air swirling around beneath the canvas-canopied colonnades is redolent of the salty sea.
The varieties of seafood on offer were mind boggling!
From pyramids of squid to banks of scampi, mounds of shrimp and piles of sole, everything was fresh and local. Artfully displayed on beds of crushed ice within the stalls, it was a seafood lovers heaven.
Venetians have met their daily needs for fresh seafood in the Rialto area of the Grand Canal for at least 500 years, even before the Rialto Fish Market became established in these ancient buildings.
There was lots of haggling going on by the regular customers as well as throngs of tourists marvelling at the abundance of oysters, mussels, sea urchins, octopus, black ink squid, writhing eels and endless types of fish.
The Rialto Fish Market, Pescheria di Rialto, is said to embody the authentic soul of Venice. Between the narrow alleyways, briny scents and animated hawking by the local fishmongers, our unique experience revealed to us the most genuine secrets of the lagoon city.
The ancient art of the fisherfolk and the sale of fish throughout the ages here, near the end of Rialto Island, embodies the importance of fish in the local diet. It was heartening to see that the traditions are being carried on.
The Pescheria has a wooden roof and is the only covered outdoor location in Venice. The marble columns and stone floors of the two loggias make it easy to wash down the space at the end of each market day.
As Bob and I strolled among the stalls, we breathed in the genuine soul of the city. The intense scent of the sea filled our nostrils, while our ears tried to decipher the dialects of the sellers. Together with the bustle of the locals, it all combined into a fragment of a distant era that is renewed every day.
Glancing again at the tables piled high with fruits of the Adriatic Sea, it was hard to imagine that this space would soon be hosed down and made fit for myriad other activities. The two loggias play host to dinner parties, shows and musical entertainment.
Bob and I left this ancient heart of Venice wondering as we walked what stories these canals and walls could tell us about this epicentre of Venice’s mercantile empire.
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