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Sottomarina (Venezia province)

A town of SE Veneto: 45°13N, 12°18E. Altitude: sea-level. Population in 2004: 20,500.

Trabocchi (fishing huts) on the S. Felice mole of Sottomarina.
The mole extends half a mile into the Adriatic and marks the S end of the Venice lagoon.

Sottomarina is a frazione of Chioggia on a sand bar 22 km S of Venice, at the S confines of the famous lagoon. Though in the 14‑17c the island nearly disappeared, it was stabilized in the 18c by the building of the Murazzo, a long seawall of large cut stone blocks; then when in the 1930's the mole was built that you see above, Sottomarina started gaining about 3 meters a year on the sea. The island is now 5½ km long; its greatest width is about 300 meters.

Most of the town is a beach resort, with over 60 hotels, a similar number of beach establishments, and 17 campgrounds; but the old core of the town includes several medieval churches.

With its twenty thousand inhabitants, Sottomarina is a very large town to be a frazione, and is larger than many comuni, in the Veneto and elsewhere: but though a strong movement is afoot to gain it independence from Chioggia, so far it has not prevailed.

A small website will eventually appear here, since I spent a day and a half in Sottomarina and Chioggia, 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 of my diary for May 19, 2004, which includes 4 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 Chioggia page.

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