My husband and I arrived in Italy at the end of the Venice Carnival – an absolutely terrible idea. We soon planned to avoid the tourist crowds by heading to Burano, an island known for its colorful houses. But when fog rolled in on the day of our trip, we immediately hopped on a second water bus to venture even deeper into the Venetian Lagoon. Torcello was the next stop and we had a vague idea of its status as a ghost island near Venice.
No one else disembarked there and no one greeted us at the dock.
“When you look at pictures from a hundred years ago or today, you just notice that the image quality has improved,” says local resident Francesco Mottaz. “The place is the same.”
Mottaz, a partner in a small software company, and his wife Béatrice – along with their Parson Russell Terrier named Mosca – fell in love with the lagoon years ago on a houseboat tour. In fact, they liked it so much that they spent nearly a decade restoring a 16th-century house on Torcello and eventually moved there from Switzerland.
Now they are among perhaps twelve people who live permanently on the island, although the exact number depends on who you ask. What is certain is that these residents do not want their beloved home to go the way of Venice, a city that has become synonymous with overtourism.
But some of these people may not mind few this special Venetian sauce. Again, it all depends on who you ask.
“Like Venice, the island is gradually losing its soul because the local population is decreasing and fewer and fewer people live there,” says Martino Rizzi, a Venice tour guide from the nearby island of Lido who has lived part-time on Torcello since 2013.
Torcello was new to us, but historians know it as one of the first settlements in the Venetian Lagoon. Some say it was The firstly, but it is difficult to say. Many possible cradles of Venetian civilization no longer exist.
Nevertheless, it is widely known that Torcello was first settled in 452 AD. Diego Calaon, associate professor at the Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, describes in his book “Water, Wood and Labour: The Archaeology of Venice Before Venice” how a growing interest in salt and fish farming created the need for infrastructure to accommodate the people working in these industries.
At that time, the settlements functioned as separate entities. But Torcello developed into a kind of pre-Venice, its success dependent on the economic conditions of fishing, trade, salt and water transport. It reached its peak between the 10th and 11th centuries, when about 3,000 people lived and prospered along the busy canals. In the 14th century, housing construction slowed as traders moved elsewhere. Fishermen settled in nearby Burano. Eventually, the rivers that made such a desirable trading post began to attract sandbars. The canals became even more difficult to navigate, leading to a slow descent into ghost island.
Thousands became hundreds, despite visits to the island by personalities such as Queen Elizabeth II and Ernest Hemingway, who wrote Across the river and into the trees while staying at the Locanda Cipriani, a restaurant and inn currently undergoing extensive renovations. A few dedicated islanders stayed to farm and tend small vineyards or take care of the maintenance of the island’s monasteries and convents, but as my husband and I wandered around the island, we encountered many more ducks than people.
We crossed the Ponte del Diavolo, the Devil’s Bridge, the scene of an island legend involving a local girl, an Austrian soldier and a pact with the devil. We also explored Torcello’s most impressive site, the 7th-century Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta, Torcello’s cathedral, where no photos are allowed inside. There we resisted the urge to photograph the 11th-century Byzantine mosaics, although we saw no one to admonish us. In the local churches we spotted only a single shopkeeper and a few employees. Many of the restaurants were also closed.
“The island is left to itself,” says Pier Zane, owner of the Villa 600 restaurant.
As a local business owner, the seafood lover would like to see more efforts made to promote the island to visitors interested in its unique blend of history and nature. This could include hiking trails through the marshland for birdwatchers or historical tours that end at sunset to showcase the site at magic hour.
But it is a fine line.
In the summer months, Zane says, water buses drop off tourists who are parked “for half a day, screaming and making noise” at the few spots marked on their map apps. But they are not as much of a nuisance as those who come with their own boats and are surprised that the island does not have the infrastructure to dock so many at once, creating a chaotic scene of watercraft trying to dock. It is hard to imagine attracting more visitors to an island already overburdened by the few who venture there.
Stefano Vianello, who has run Osteria al Ponte Del Diavolo, another Torello eatery, since the 1980s, wants to see responsible tourism that also takes into account the challenges locals face in staying here. That would mean more access to water bus lines, currently aimed at nearby islands such as Burano or Murano, affordable shops or even better internet connection. Vianello himself commutes to work on Torcello from Jesolo, a 40-minute journey by car and boat.
The commute is worth it; it is simply too difficult to get everything you need on the island and mobility is a challenge for residents. To go shopping, you have to check the tides and the weather. To simply change your surroundings, you have to call a water bus in advance.
On the other hand, most of those who stayed are simply too old to move.
“They were born on the island and almost all of them are older,” says Vianello. “They will understand that it is not easy to leave the place where you were born and have lived all your life.”
On days like ours, with thick fog that never lifted, we were lucky to get a boat back to Burano and then to Murano, Torcello’s closest neighbor. But maybe that’s part of the appeal. Rizzi, the tour guide, spent time here during the pandemic, living like a hermit in the middle of a place where nature was his only source of entertainment, watching bees buzzing around their hives in what he called a “spectacle of nature.” The island is also home to a growing population of pink flamingos, which forage in the shallow marshes during the increasingly temperate winters.
That’s why those who stay there are determined to stay, despite the challenges, the isolation and the changing fabric of this atmospheric place. It may change and age, but there is no place as magical on the lagoon – or even in all of Italy.
“Today I describe Torcello as wonderful as ever,” said Vianello. “She is like a beautiful woman, with a few more wrinkles, but still fascinating.”
Want more Thrillist? Follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Þjórsárdalur, on facebook., PinterestAnd YouTube.
