Torcello ★★

Glittering mosaics, breathtaking views, and a marshy proto-Venice in the Venetian Northern Lagoon

Before there was a "Venice," there was Torcello.

Grassy, semi-deserted Torcello is pretty much a one-trick pony: glittering Byzantine mosaics in a cathedral oddly stranded in the middle of a desolate, largely abandoned mud island. There's a reason for that.

Venice 1.0

Torcello was Venice 1.0, the first of the lagoon islands to be called home by a mainland population fleeing the Barbarian hordes that overran the Italian peninsula during the Dark Ages.

Its marshy badlands give you the best feeling for what Venice looked like when people first started settling there.

Torcello was a thriving center of some 20,000 souls from the 7th to 11th centuries. It was from here that settlers first started moving to the area around the Rialto Bridge to build what we now know as Venice.

Starting in the 11th and 12th centuries, however, malaria and competition from the upstart community of La Serenissima set in and quickly depopulated the isle.

Venice scavenged the ruins for building materials, so most of its buildings and palaces have now utterly vanished.

Torcello now runs on a skeleton crew of 75 inhabitants (though that's up from 20 just a few decades ago).

Today Torcello consists of little more than one long canal leading from the ferry landing past sad-sack vineyards to a clump of buildings around a sun-bleached dirt-and-gravel square at its center.

The Devil's Bridge

From the ferry dock, follow the long main canal on a 10-minute stroll to the main piazza.

Along the way, you'll pass the storied Cipriani (one of Venice's finest restaurants in the oddest location for one; see below) and a side canal branching off to the right.

Notice the wooden pilings hammered into the edges of the muddy bank. Atop such pilings all the stone palazzi of Venice itself are built. The anaerobic atmospehre down in the mud keeps the wood from rotting—but does nothing to keep the weight of all that stone from pressing them slowly farther into the mud while, simultaneously, the levels of the Adriatic Sea rise imperceptibly, sinking the city of Venice ever so slowly into the lagoon.

A bit farther along you'll pass a lithe, wafer-thin span of brick-and-stone without railings nicknamed "The Devil's Bridge." it was built in the 15th century (and restored in 2008), and its name—Ponte del Diavolo—is most likely merely a fun corruption of "Diavoli," the name of a local family.

The legend, though, is far more fun.

The Cathedral of Torcello

On the main (only) square in town are two churches: the more elaborate-looking (but only on the outside) church of Santa Fosca (more on that in a moment), and the plain-jane brick facade of Venice's oldest monument and one of the prettiest churches in all of Greater Venice: the Cattedrale di Torcello (Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta), whose foundation dates to AD 639—though the current edition was built in 1008.

The cathedral is famous for its outstanding 11th- to 12th-century Byzantine mosaics—a Madonna and Child in the apse and a Last Judgment on the west wall—glowing walls of gold-flecked art to rival those of Ravenna and of St. Mark's Basilica itself.

(Technically, it's no longer a cathedral since there's no bishop on Torcello, but everyone still calls it that.)

The cathedral (tel. +39-041-730-119 or +39-041-296-0630) is open daily Mar-Oct 10:30am to 5:30pm; Nov-Feb 10am–5pm. (Adm).

Santa Fosca

Next door to the cathedral is the simple, spare 11th-century Greek cross church dedicated to St. Fosca, a martyr from Ravenna who was buried here alongside her nurse and fellow martyr, St. Maura.

The octagonal columned portico and russet drum of its center look impressive, but the inside is nearly bare—though in a lovely way, with Byzantine capitals on the marble columns and a conical wooden ceiling.

Santa Fosca (tel. +39-041-730-084) is open daily 10am to 4:30pm. Admission is free.

The small Archaeological Museum of Torcello

Across the dusty square from the pair of churches is Torcello's dinky, yet grandly named, Museo Archeologico della Provincia di Venezia di Torcello (tel. +39-041-296-0630; sbmp.provincia.venezia.it).

The tidy collection is split between archaeological fragments and the remains of some 10 other churches that once sprinkled Torcello's landscape. (Believe it or not, at its height Torcello supported 16 parishes.)

The Torcello museum open Tuesday to Sunday: Mar-Oct 10am–5:30pm; Nov-Feb 10am–5pm. (Adm).

The rest of Torcello

Aside from a lone, tipsy campanile (bell tower) you can climb for some really nice views (last entry: 5pm Mar-Oct, 4pm in winter; closed in 2008 for restoration work; check to see if it has reopened at tel. +39-041-296-0630), the rest of the island is given over to one scraggly vineyard and several swampy canals outlined by logs hammered into the muddy banks (again, a glimpse at how Venice looked before the stone palazzi were built).

Oh, and there's also a world-famous restaurant.

Locanda Cipriani: A famous restaurant in the middle of nowhere

Somewhat incongruously, the island is also home to a world-famous restaurant (famous because Hemingway loved it) called Locanda Cipriani (www.locandacipriani.com). Yes, that Cipriani, of various "Ciprianis" around the world—not to mention Harry's Bar in downtown Venice (the original Cipriani's first name was Arrigo, which is Italian for "Harry.") Book ahead for a meal.

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