Italy Venice's cemetery island within walking distance
Many tourists only know it from afar - and with a slight sense of unease: Venice's cemetery island of San Michele. Now it is also accessible on foot. The island with its red brick walls, which is home to several thousand graves, is temporarily connected to the main island via a 400-metre-long bridge made of floating pontoons.
03.11.2025, 20:45
SDA
Tourists have also been allowed to use the path across the lagoon since Monday. However, the bridge will be dismantled again at the end of the week.
The lagoon city on the Adriatic has thus revived an age-old tradition. Until the 1950s, on All Souls' Day - November 2 - a bridge was built from interconnected boats covered with gangplanks and anchored to the bottom of the lagoon. This was to make it easier for Venetians to visit their dead. However, the tradition was discontinued because the island was easy to reach thanks to regular water buses.
Prominent foreigners also buried on the island
In 2019, a floating bridge was erected again for a few days for the first time. However, this was then canceled again due to the coronavirus pandemic. Now this is to become a tradition again.
San Michele has been the city's most important cemetery since the beginning of the 19th century. Only Venetians are actually buried on the "island of the dead". In the meantime, some prominent foreigners have also found their final resting place there, such as the composer Igor Stravinsky or the writers Joseph Brodsky and Ezra Pound.
The island can also be seen in many cinema and television films. The most memorable scenes are dark ones of a black gondola with a coffin gliding across the lagoon to San Michele.
