Today, 21 May, Venice relives the "Marriage with the sea" on the occasion of the Sensa festival. It is the feast of the Ascension, the traditional appointment with which the lagoon city celebrates the anniversary linked to the history of the Serenissima Republic. The day in which the city seals its intimate relationship with water. This year Longarone (Belluno) will receive the dogal ring of the Adriatic twinning. The ring is returned by the Ukrainian city of Odessa which kept it in the last edition of 2022.
The twinning with Longarone
The twinning with the Venetian city was born primarily for the bond that unites Venice to The Dolomites, the place from which the Zattieri del Piave. They are the men who for centuries have brought from the mountains to the lagoon the tree trunks on which the Serenissima built the city and its naval fleet inside the Arsenale. Longarone was also chosen because this year marks the 60th anniversary of the Vajont disaster. On 9 October 1963, in fact, the terrible flood caused the death of 1.917 people, including 487 among children under the age of 15.
Feast of Sensa
The Sensa party starts from the Royal Gardens a Saint Mark, where the beginning of the twinning ceremony is expected, with the exchange of the ring between the mayor Luigi Brugnaro and that of Longarone, Roberto Padrin. The water procession will then leave towards the Lido, where the mayor of Venice and the Patriarch Francesco Moraglia and Admiral Andrea Petroni will renew the rite of the marriage of the sea. In this regard, a laurel wreath will be launched for all the fallen of the sea; then there will be the launch of the dogal ring by the mayor. In addition to the procession, during the morning, the "Regatta della Sensa" are also held along the same route. Men on 4-oared gondolas, women on 2-oared “mascarete” and very young people on 2-oared “pupparini”. La Sensa is confirmed as a moment of great aggregation, of valorisation of local history and traditions. An appointment that the Venetians do not give up by celebrating a sumptuous wedding with the sea every year.
(Photo archive italiani.it)
