Venecia

"Venecia (en italiano: Venezia [venia] y en véneto: Venessia o Venesia [vensia]) es una ciudad ubicada en el noreste de Italia. Es también la capital de la región véneta y de la provincia de Venecia. Su centro histórico, declarado Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la Unesco, está situado en un conjunto de islas en la laguna de Venecia, en el norte del mar Adriático. La ciudad está construida sobre un archipiélago de 118 pequeñas islas unidas entre sí por 455 puentes, si incluimos las islas de Murano y Burano. Se llega a Venecia desde tierra firme por el Puente de la Libertad, que desde la vecina ciudad de Mestre accede al Piazzale Roma. En el interior de la ciudad no hay tráfico rodado, siendo, a excepción de la navegación por los canales que separan a las islas, una ciudad totalmente peatonal. El transporte colectivo se realiza mediante embarcaciones transbordadoras conocidas como vaporettos. Están a cargo de la empresa municipal ACTV. Sus canales componen un gran entramado a modo de calles que parten del Gran Canal, gran vía por donde discurren multitud de embarcaciones, grandes y pequeñas, las más conocidas de las cuales son las llamadas góndolas."

"Venice (English /vns/ VEN-iss; Italian: Venezia [venttsja] ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is situated across a group of 117 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by bridges. These are located in the shallow Venetian Lagoon which stretches along the shoreline, between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, and artwork. The lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a World Heritage Site. In 2009, 270,098 people resided in Venice's comune (the population estimate of 272,000 inhabitants includes the population of the whole Comune of Venezia; of whom around 60,000 live in the historic city of Venice (Centro storico); 176,000 in Terraferma (the mainland), mostly in the large frazioni (roughly equivalent to "parishes" or "wards" in other countries) of Mestre and Marghera; and 31,000 on other islands in the lagoon). Together with Padua and Treviso, the city is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), with a total population of 2,600,000. PATREVE is only a statistical metropolitan area without any degree of autonomy. The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC. The city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice. Venice has been known as the "La Dominante," "Serenissima," "Queen of the Adriatic," "City of Water," "City of Masks," "City of Bridges," "The Floating City," and "City of Canals." The Republic of Venice was a major financial and maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and a staging area for the Crusades and the Battle of Lepanto, as well as a very important center of commerce (especially silk, grain, and spice) and art in the 13th century up to the end of the 17th century. The City State of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center which gradually emerged from the 9th century to its peak in the 14th century. This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. It is also known for its several important artistic movements, especially the Renaissance period. After the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, the Republic was annexed by the Austrian Empire, until it became part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1866, following a referendum held as a result of the Third Italian War of Independence. Venice has played an important role in the history of symphonic and operatic music, and it is the birthplace of Antonio Vivaldi."