Chioggia (Venezia province)

Chioggia proper is a town built on 4 small islands 24 km S of Venice, at the S confines of the famous lagoon; the outlying areas of the township include the large town of Sottomarina, with a population of over 20,000. Both towns are very old, dating back to Roman times at least, since Pliny mentions them as the fossa Clodia (NH III.xvi.121); in the Middle Ages they were known respectively as Clugia maior and Clugia minor.

The busy fishing port of Chioggia has had little time for antiquarianism, though, and constant change has given it a feel of indeterminate age; there are several medieval churches, however, and one interesting Roman inscription can be seen on an outer wall of the Duomo.

For now, I've put online only that inscription; but a small website will eventually appear here, since I spent a day and a half in Chioggia and Sottomarina, and would love to go back for a bit longer stay. In the meanwhile, you will almost certainly find it useful to read the rather long entry in my diary for May 19, 2004, which includes 2 more photos. For more complete and detailed information, you should see the websites below, of course; as well as those in the similar navigation bar on my Sottomarina page, since that town has a clear identity of its own, to the point of nearly having succeeded in forming a separate comune, and there are still many who would have it so.

Frazioni

Most of the comuni in Italy include in their territories some smaller towns and hamlets, of a few hundred inhabitants if that, with a certain administrative identity of their own: as elsewhere in Italy, these are referred to as the frazioni of the comune (singular: frazione, literally a "fraction"): a list of them follows, possibly only partial. I've been to Sottomarina, the 800‑pound gorilla as it were, but to none of the others, for which any links will be offsite.

Brondolo • Cà Bianca • Cà Lino • Cavanella d' Adige • Isola Verde • Sant' Anna • Sottomarina