Rose venexiane ... A Venetian spring rose itinerary

Rose color cremisi: Another post on the Venetian spring color wheel - crimson this is the color connected with roses flowering lavishly now all over Venice, and who knows, this might be the hue from which the rosso veneziano derives from ... Discover private rose gardens in the sestiere di Dorsoduro, protruding from behind the walls, a rose pergola-covered restaurant garden where one could stop for a refreshing lunch, and an exceptional hotel rose garden on a walk from Campo San Rocco to the Accademia bridge. Here, Palazzo Civran Badoer is a garden famous for its formal rose beds, located just next to the Accademia bridge. Along the way, you can discover a boat selling vegetable and flowers as well, anchored next to Campo San Barnabà.

A rose garden on the Grand Canal, next to the Accademia bridge marks the end of this itinerary which I suggest to do now   in mid-June

By mid-May, rose buds abound all over Venice. And Venice has a very special relationship with roses, not only with regard to the boccolo tradition (read my blog post on this traditional gift given to Venetian women on 25 April). But are there certain species, variants, and colors that one meets most often in Venice, so is there a special "rosa venexiana" variant ?? I would say it is crimson for the cultivated varieties, and a pale pink-white for the wild rose bushes (rosa canina) you can find so often in Venetian public gardens... A beautiful wild rose bush with candid white petals can be seen in the Giardini Reali as well ... The colors of these roses might have been a model for the typical color of man Venetian facades, this typcial Venetian red hue (rosso veneziano, as I described in another blog post).

Just behind Campo San Rocco, a flowery part of Venice begins, with crimson-colored roses protruding from behind the walls ... most often, it is the bright crimson variant that abounds in Venice

A close-up of the picture above: roses, and a view of an altana roof terrace (wisteria-wrapped, imagine what that must look like when the wisteria is in bloom ...)

No matter where you go in Venice, you will come across flowering roses by now, sometimes protruding from secret red brick walls, sometimes cascading almost down to reach the waters of a canal flowing by, or in the flower beds of formal gardens in Venice centro-città and the less formal gardens, private gardens on the Lido and the lagoon islands.

Some palms are still blooming, but it is now the roses buds that take to the stage

Just to give you a few examples - here are some of "my" rose bushes that I tend to visit during June, and you will recognize different varieties all over the lagoon. The itinerary covers the three Venetian sestieri of Santa Croce, Dorsoduro and San Marco.

Campo San Rocco, with the Church of San Rocco; the facade of the Frari church next to it is shrouded with pittosporum plants ...

The pictures above were taken on a slargo (square) just behind Campo San Rocco, and we will just turn back, cross Campo San Rocco and walk on into the other direction, pointing towards - San Marco, by the way. On your right-hand side, you cannot miss the entrance of a trattoria, overgrown with American vine, and the first thing you see when you enter the garden is margarite terracotta pots, thriving in the morning sun, half-shaded by the voluminous rose pergola.

Located near Pasticceria Tonolo, on your way towards Campiello San Rocco: Trattoria da Silvio looks very inviting and refreshingly cool on a summer morning, an Amercian vine plant is covering the wall, and you enter here ..

.. to take a look of the garden, with a roof made of roses - that is a pergola of roses under which it must be very pleasant to eat lunch ... 

Wild roses with white and pale-rose colored petals, the typical variant of wild roses growing here in Venice

There is a rose-overgrown trattoria garden, trattoria da Silvio, which is also open if you happen to pass early in the morning, so I walked in and took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet scent of the sprawling rose bushes above me. But this is a wild rose variant, as you can see in the pictures above.
Continue walking towards the University Ca'Foscari and Campo San Barnaba, where the famous vegetable boat is moored, and by the way, not selling only vegetables but also plants ...

Campo San Barnaba is across the rio San Barnaba, and just in front of the bridge you can see the sun shade of the vegetable boat anchored here

On the vegetable boat you can find local produce - of early summer: new potatoes, cauliflower, melons, spring onions, fennel ...

They are selling geranium, and of course vegetables and fine herbs, so I bought a new rosemary plant for our herb terrace

reds for early summer ...

Then continue towards the Accademia bridge, crossing Campo San Barnaba and then walking on until you see another flower hotel garden, towards the Grand Canal, this time it is Pensione Accademia delle Maravegie, before you finally reach the bridge, designed by Eugenio Miozzi and opened in 1933.

Secret rose bushes grow in the gardens of Pensione Accademia, and of course in the typical colors of the cultivated variant red carmesine ...

And this is the view from under the Accademia bridge, spanning the Grand Canal, towards a palazzo garden just across the bank

Another glimpse of the Accademia bridge - from the water's edge - and the rose garden

The rose garden seen from the bridge

Palazzo Civran Badoer: Roses climbing up the walls in a formal garden of a palazzo - by the way, in the rosso veneziano, and another landmark plant of Venice now in full bloom (from mid-May to the beginning of July, the pittosporum)

By the way, we use the buds of our roses growing in the garden to make rose syrup, and rose jam - the recipe of which you can find in my Blog on Traditional Venetian spices and cooking - Le Spezie della Serenissima.
For now, the rose paradise continues - when you step down from the Accademia bridge, and enter Campo San Vidal, you are greeted by yet another pale pink rose variant ...

And finally, these are the roses we make our jam and syrup from ...