Post by Owen on Sept 23, 2020 0:44:06 GMT
1 ~~~ What It's Like to Tour Venice's 14th-Century Quarantine Island ~ Conde Nast Traveler ~~~
www.cntraveler.com/story/what-its-like-to-tour-venices-14th-century-quarantine-island ~ 18 September 2020 ~
Visiting the place where today's anti-contagion practices began feels more timely than ever.
“Shoot,” says Marco Paladini, our guide, to a woman holding a temperature gauge, as we file through the thick-walled entry of the Lazzaretto Nuovo. “Go on, shoot.” She lifts the device to the first in line’s forehead, and presses the trigger. There's a communal breath out as he’s waved through.
Tensions are running high because this is Venice’s "quarantine island," which reopened for guided tours starting September 12. A 14-acre island in the Venetian lagoon, roughly two miles northeast of the city center, the Lazzaretto Nuovo is where public health measures that combat epidemics were born. Quarantine, social distancing, even disinfecting our groceries—they may be new concepts to us, but the Venetians were doing it 700 years ago.
www.cntraveler.com/story/what-its-like-to-tour-venices-14th-century-quarantine-island ~ 18 September 2020 ~