In this episode of Venice Talks, Monica Cesarato sits down with Elena Bozza, Head of Digital at Linkness and one of the voices of Face To Face, the program produced by a local television channel based in the Venice area that tells stories from Venice and the Veneto region.

Together they explore how Venice is communicated today: not only as a beautiful postcard, but as a living, working, changing city made of people, businesses, creativity, innovation and local voices.

Elena brings her experience in digital strategy, social media, community management, video content and media communication to a conversation about what it really means to tell a place like Venice in the digital age. How can local businesses communicate online without losing their soul? How can technology, television, podcasts and social media work together? And how can AI become a tool without replacing the human voice behind every meaningful story?

This episode looks at Venice beyond clichés, beyond likes, beyond the algorithm: a Venice that still has many stories to tell, if we learn how to listen.

• Who Elena Bozza is and her role as Head of Digital at Linkness
• Why local media still matters
• The idea behind Face To Face and the importance of public conversations
• How to tell a more real, modern and living Venice
• Why Venice must be communicated as more than a postcard
• What local entrepreneurs, creators and professionals reveal about the energy of Venice and the Veneto today
• The future of local storytelling across TV, podcasts, YouTube, Spotify and social media
• How Venetian businesses can use digital communication without losing authenticity
• The most common mistakes small businesses make online
• Why social media should not be the only place where a brand exists
• How AI can help communication without making it cold, fake or soulless
• Why community management, listening and human connection matter
• How to create content about Venice that still feels fresh and meaningful
• The importance of showing the people behind a brand
• What kind of communication Venice needs for the future

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Venice Talks, follow the podcast on your favourite platform, and leave a review. It helps more people discover the real Venice: not only the one seen in photographs, but the one made of voices, stories, work, creativity and everyday life.

You can also follow Monica Cesarato and Venice Talks for more conversations about Venice, its people, its food, its traditions, its artisans and the many stories that keep the city alive.

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in.

✨ Credits:

Hosted by Monica Cesarato

Produced by Monica Cesarato, Sentire Media

Guest: Elena Bozza for Linkness

If you love hearing the voices of Venice, subscribe and leave a review — it helps others discover these stories too.

💌 Want to share your own Venice?

Send me a short audio clip (1 minutes max) telling me what you loved most about the city — at info@monicacesarato.com.

In this episode of Venice Talks, Monica Cesarato welcomes back the story of Women for Freedom, an organisation dedicated to supporting women, girls and children living in situations of poverty, violence, exploitation and fragility.

After the first conversation in 2023, this new episode takes the story forward with Sara Memo, part of Women for Freedom, to understand what has changed, what has grown, and what still needs to be done.

The conversation begins with the heart of the organisation itself: dignity, protection, freedom, and the concrete projects that help turn compassion into real action. From there, Monica and Sara move into one of the most powerful cultural expressions of this mission: Women for Freedom in Jazz, the Venetian festival founded by Elena Ferrarese, now celebrating 10 years of music, solidarity and women’s voices in Venice.

This is an episode about listening. Listening to stories that are difficult but necessary. Listening to women whose voices deserve space. Listening to jazz as a language of freedom, resilience and connection.

Because in Venice, sometimes freedom does not arrive as a speech. Sometimes, it arrives as a song.

Show keynotes

• What Women for Freedom does and who the organisation supports
• Sara Memo’s connection with the mission of Women for Freedom
• What has changed since the 2023 Venice Talks interview
• How to speak about poverty, violence and exploitation while protecting dignity
• The difference between charity and true solidarity
• How emotion can become concrete action
• The role of culture in raising awareness
• Women for Freedom in Jazz and the vision of its founder, Elena Ferrarese
• Why jazz is such a powerful language for women, freedom and resilience
• The 10th anniversary of Women for Freedom in Jazz in Venice
• Venice as more than a backdrop: a city that listens, hosts and amplifies stories
• The future of Women for Freedom and the next chapter of the festival

If this conversation moved you, please subscribe to Venice Talks, leave a review, and share the episode with someone who believes that culture can still make a difference.

You can follow Venice Talks for more stories about Venice, its people, its voices, its hidden layers, and the projects that keep the city alive in ways visitors do not always see.

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in.

✨ Credits:

Hosted by Monica Cesarato

Produced by Monica Cesarato, Sentire Media

Guest: Sara Memo for Women for Freedom

If you love hearing the voices of Venice, subscribe and leave a review — it helps others discover these stories too.

💌 Want to share your own Venice?

Send me a short audio clip (1 minutes max) telling me what you loved most about the city — at info@monicacesarato.com.

In this episode of Venice Talks, Monica speaks with Laura from Maranteghe, a vintage and second-hand shop in Cannaregio where fashion becomes memory, identity and a small act of resistance.

Founded by Miriam, Sara and Laura, Maranteghe was born during the pandemic, among wardrobes to reinvent, forgotten clothes to rescue and the desire to create something with meaning. What began as a shared passion between friends became, in spring 2024, a physical shop in Venice: a “covo”, a little den, filled with pieces that carry stories, character and soul.

But Maranteghe is not just about vintage fashion. It is about giving clothes a second life, celebrating Made in Italy, listening to the stories hidden in Venetian wardrobes, and pushing back against fast consumption and the sameness of mass tourism. In a city too often reduced to souvenirs and quick visits, Maranteghe offers something slower, stranger, more personal, and beautifully Venetian.

Together Monica and Laura talk about friendship, style, sustainability, female energy, old clothes with new destinies, and the wonderfully ironic meaning of the word “marantega”, rooted in Venetian dialect and linked to witches, old women, sacred female figures and a touch of glorious mischief.

In this episode, Monica and Laura discuss:

• How Maranteghe was born during the pandemic from friendship, wine and wardrobe reinvention
• Why vintage fashion can be emotional, cultural and sustainable at the same time
• The meaning of the Venetian word “marantega” and why it became the perfect name
• How Miriam, Sara and Laura choose the pieces that enter the shop
• The stories hidden inside the wardrobes of Venetian women
• Why second-hand fashion can be a form of resistance against waste and mass-produced style
• How Venice inspires style, theatricality and personal expression
• Why Maranteghe stands against the “mordi e fuggi” tourist economy
• The playful Venetian detail behind their logo: a lion sticking out its tongue, inspired by a medieval bas-relief in the Archivio di Stato di Venezia

Listen to the new episode of Venice Talks and step inside a shop where clothes are never just clothes. They are fragments of lives, whispers from wardrobes, and tiny spells stitched into fabric.

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in.

✨ Credits:

Hosted by Monica Cesarato

Produced by Monica Cesarato, Sentire Media

Guest: Laura Gamba from Maranteghe

If you love hearing the voices of Venice, subscribe and leave a review — it helps others discover these stories too.

💌 Want to share your own Venice?

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Venice is a city that moves on water.

Every day, thousands of residents, workers, students and visitors step onto a vaporetto without always thinking about what happens behind that simple act of getting from one stop to another.

But in Venice, public transport is not a road, a bus lane or an underground line. It is the lagoon. It is the Grand Canal. It is tides, fog, wind, night shifts, crowded landing stages, sudden changes in weather, wave motion, and the constant responsibility of moving people safely through one of the most delicate cities in the world.

In this episode of Venice Talks, Monica speaks with Lorenzo Boscolo, President of the Associazione Capitani Navigazione Lagunare, and Agostino Benvegnù, Vice President of the association, to explore the world of Venice’s public water transport commanders.

Together, they discuss what it really means to command a vessel in the lagoon, the difference between a captain and a commander, the training and skills required for this profession, and the unique challenges of keeping Venice moving 24 hours a day.

This conversation also looks at some of the most important issues facing the city today: wave motion, overtourism, respect for public transport, safety on board, and the need to understand that a vaporetto is not just a scenic ride. It is an essential service for the people who live and work in Venice.

Through their words, we discover Venice from a different point of view: not from a postcard, not from a tourist map, but from the cabin of those who navigate its waters every day.

In this episode we talk about:

• What the Associazione Capitani Navigazione Lagunare is and why it matters in Venice today
• The difference between a captain and a commander
• The path and training needed to become a commander in Venice’s public water transport system
• Why navigating a public transport vessel in Venice requires far more than simply knowing how to steer a boat
• The most delicate areas of the lagoon and the city from a navigation point of view
• Why Venice’s public transport system is unlike buses, metros or trams in any other city
• What it means to be responsible for a vessel full of passengers in a city where the “road” is made of water
• The beauty and the hidden difficulties of life as a commander
• The importance of remembering that vaporetti are an essential service for residents, workers and students
• What it means to guarantee public transport 24 hours a day, through fog, rain, high tides, events and tourist peaks
• Why wave motion is such a serious issue for Venice
• The impact of wave motion on safety, boats, landing stages, embankments and the city itself
• How overtourism affects the daily work of commanders
• The future of this profession and whether young people are interested in becoming part of it
• Which tourist behaviours make the service more difficult, and which ones would help everyone

This episode is an invitation to look at Venice differently.

The next time you step onto a vaporetto, you may notice the city in another way: the movement of the water, the precision of an arrival, the patience behind a crowded stop, the responsibility carried by those who keep Venice moving every day.

Listen to the full episode of Venice Talks and subscribe to the podcast to discover more stories from the people, places and voices that make Venice extraordinary.

Because Venice is not only a city to visit.

It is a city to understand.

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in.

✨ Credits:

Hosted by Monica Cesarato

Produced by Monica Cesarato, Sentire Media

Guest: Lorenzo Boscolo & Agostino Benvegnù from ACNL

If you love hearing the voices of Venice, subscribe and leave a review — it helps others discover these stories too.

💌 Want to share your own Venice?

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What does Venice smell like?

In this episode of Venice Talks, Monica sits down with Joan Giacomin, Brand Ambassador for The Merchant of Venice, for a journey into the fragrant history of Venice. Together they explore how the city became a crossroads for rare ingredients, refined beauty, and perfume culture, and how scent offers a unique way to understand Venice beyond what we see.

This conversation moves through history, trade, daily life, and memory, showing how perfume was woven into the story of the Serenissima and how that legacy still lives on today.

Show key notes

• Meet Joan Giacomin of The Merchant of Venice
• Venice and its historic role in the world of perfume
• The trade routes, spices, and precious raw materials that passed through the city
• Rare ingredients, trade, and the global reach of the Serenissima
• Fragrance in Venetian beauty, ritual, and daily life
• The scents that best capture historic Venice
• The Merchant of Venice and perfume heritage today
• Why scent is such a powerful storyteller

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in.

✨ Credits:

Hosted by Monica Cesarato

Produced by Monica Cesarato, Sentire Media

Guest: Joan Giacomin Brand Ambassador for The Merchant of Venice

If you love hearing the voices of Venice, subscribe and leave a review — it helps others discover these stories too.

💌 Want to share your own Venice?

Send me a short audio clip (1 minutes max) telling me what you loved most about the city — at info@monicacesarato.com.

In this episode of Venice Talks, Monica meets Shanti Ganesha, founder of Meracu, a contemporary leather workshop in Venice.

We talk about the first moment leather felt like a language, the leap that led to opening a workshop in 2022, and how living between Venice and India shapes a design identity that feels built into every piece, not added on.

From material to method, we explore how a hide is chosen, what certified vegetable tanned leather changes over time, and why some steps cannot be rushed. We also get into the unseen side of independent craft: refusing serial production, learning to say no, and answering the question every artisan hears sooner or later, “Can you make it exactly the same?”

A conversation about hands, time, and integrity, with Venice as a living backdrop where making still means something.

1. Shanti Ganesha, founder of Meracu, on building a leather workshop in Venice (2022)
2. Between Venice and India: how heritage becomes structure, not decoration
3. Choosing a hide, reading grain and scars, and working with certified vegetable tanned leather
4. The slow step you cannot rush and the signature gesture that reveals the maker
5. Refusing serial production, learning to say no, and answering “Can you make it identical?”
6. Looking ahead: collaborations, apprentices, and a five year vision for the workshop

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in.

✨ Credits:

Hosted by Monica Cesarato

Produced by Monica Cesarato, Sentire Media

Guest: Shanti Ganesha from Meracu

If you love hearing the voices of Venice, subscribe and leave a review — it helps others discover these stories too.

💌 Want to share your own Venice?

Send me a short audio clip (1 minutes max) telling me what you loved most about the city — at info@monicacesarato.com.

In this episode of Venice Talks, Monica sits down with Bryan Brazeau, Academic Director of the Warwick Venice Centre, to talk about what happens when a university and a city begin to think together.

We explore Venice not as a setting, but as a working intellectual environment, and Warwick not simply as an institution abroad, but as a way of approaching knowledge through place, daily life, and lived experience.

Episode key notes:

1. What Warwick and Venice genuinely have in common beneath the surface
2. Why Venice works as a living classroom rather than a historical backdrop
3. How place shapes academic thinking, research, and teaching
4. The experience of studying and teaching with the city, not around it
5. The dual identity of the Warwick Venice Centre, both local and international
6. What students carry with them after living and learning in Venice
7. A shared love for Venetian cuisine, and how food becomes another way of understanding the city
8. Why eating, cooking, and sharing meals are part of truly living Venice
9. The value of intellectual distance, and why studying elsewhere matters
10. Looking ahead: the future of the Warwick Venice Centre and place-based education

A conversation about learning, location, and culture, where ideas, flavours, and stories move slowly and stay longer.

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in.

✨ Credits:

Hosted by Monica Cesarato

Produced by Monica Cesarato, Sentire Media

Guest: Prof. Bryan Brazeau from Warwick Venice Centre

If you love hearing the voices of Venice, subscribe and leave a review — it helps others discover these stories too.

💌 Want to share your own Venice?

Send me a short audio clip (1 minutes max) telling me what you loved most about the city — at info@monicacesarato.com.

In this episode of Venice Talks, Monica speaks with Sergio Vidal of Atelier Martina Vidal Venezia, a family atelier that has safeguarded the art of Burano lace for four generations.

They talk about patience as a creative act, about heritage that does not live in museums but in the hands of artisans, and about the quiet strength required to carry an ancient craft into the present without losing its soul.

This conversation moves through memory, responsibility, beauty, and the fragile power of thread that, stitch after stitch, still tells the story of Venice.

Listen slowly. Venice is speaking softly.

1. The Vidal family history and the roots of their lace tradition in Burano
2. What it truly means to preserve a craft that cannot be rushed
3. The balance between tradition and innovation inside the atelier
4. The role of artisans in keeping Venice culturally alive
5. Why Burano lace is far more than decoration or souvenir
6. The human and emotional side of working with a centuries old technique
7. The future of lace and why younger generations should care

If you love Venice, craftsmanship, and the stories behind the hands that make beauty possible, this episode is for you.

🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you tune in.

✨ Credits:

Hosted by Monica Cesarato

Produced by Monica Cesarato, Sentire Media

Guest: Sergio Vidal from Atelier Martina Vidal

If you love hearing the voices of Venice, subscribe and leave a review — it helps others discover these stories too.

💌 Want to share your own Venice?

Send me a short audio clip (1 minutes max) telling me what you loved most about the city — at info@monicacesarato.com.