Thanks to the Web, you should now know more or less everything about the origin of the Redentore feast day, who remembers when Venice was saved from the great plague of 1575.
Now you need just a little advice to really appreciate the unique atmosphere of the festival. There are basically three ways to enjoy the evening: those staying in the center after dinner can reach the best spots to watch the fireworks – from St.Mark’s Square to S.Elena through Riva degli Schiavoni, a beautiful walk, indeed, but the real Venetians tend to choose between the two remaining alternatives, which are equally enticing. The first is to sit down to dinner at one of the hundreds of tables that residents of Giudecca prepare along the banks of the canal of the same name for the entire length of the island, from the Molino Stucky – that is where we are here – to Zitelle. The spirit of Redentore’s all in the spontaneous conviviality of this custom, a kind of collective picnic that residents have only a few meters from home. Of course, all should be prepared well in advance, since the surface of our tiny island is not infinite. Several days before the party, the areas on the fondamentas (banks) are marked with chalk or tape, each with the number of the house of the people who will occupy it. It’s not rare to assist to very heated discussions between locals, each convinced of their right (“This is my place for ten years!!!), but these discussions hardly ever manage to spoil the party.
However, those who don’t long for territorial disputes can opt for the most Venetian way to celebrate Redentore: the dinner on a boat, which doesn’t necessarily have to be a yacht – indeed in most cases it’s really small – aboard on which you’ll place yourself right in San Marco basin. This is certainly the most suggestive way to pass the evening of the Redentore, and maybe the one closest to the spirit of the city, following the local saying “barca xe casa” (“boat is home”) – if you do not fear the smoke from the fireworks, of course…