Earlier this year… on our usual jaunt to Venice, we stayed at the Villa Mabapa on Venice’s Lido. This was the first time we had stayed on the Lido, and it was a welcoming change to not stay on Venice itself… and I must admit… after staying on the Lido, I would be reluctant now to stay anywhere else, as you can just hop on a bus-boat to Venice anytime, only a short walk away, using the Tourist Transport Passes, which are relatively cheap (50 Euro for 7 days unlimited travel).
We arrived for our week in Venice… however, our luggage did not… we thought at the time we booked, that the transfer between our flights (30 mins) was a little tight… we only just made the transfer… anyway the luggage arrived at the end of day two (Ann was frantic… but we got there lol).
Before we came this year to Venice Lido, I was researching places to go, venues to visit etc. and came across an old abandoned Hospital… the Ospedale al Mare. Built in the early 1900’s as an outstanding and state-of-the-art children’s tuberculosis hospital, this hospital was the pride of Venice, until its demise in the early 2000’s, when the staff, patients and facilities, were simply transferred to a modern hospital further up the Lido.
Abandoned…
The wards and equipment… just left…
A photographers dream…
The hospital, is the size of a small village, with of course all the wards and treatment rooms, but also included is its hydro-therapy pools, shops, visitors accommodation, its own church, a theater to entertain the children and of course direct access to its own beach for recuperation… all this was simply abandoned in 2001… some years later… there was a public outcry when an Italian News Reporter… went into the hospital, only to find 1000’s of medical records stretching far back, along with radiology equipment from the x-ray department, to name but a few items still left…
Empty wards
The derelict hospital wards looking towards the sea
The Hospital Church
Although fenced off from public accesses, the hospital is now the realm of vagrants both young and old, whilst legal teams wrangle as to who actually owns the site, as it would seem the local ‘council’ sold it to a Developer, to build a marina… (but it seems the recession is wider than we thought)… anyway let them get on with it…lol.
One fine aspect that the vagrants, and other visitors leave is… superb wall art and sculptures dotted about the place, sometimes hidden from view, other times in the open… it has to be said… this art would not be out of place in a trendy gallery…
I think its fair to say, that I will be visiting this place again…. (hoping to find the gap in the fence)… but taking Cath with me (Ann can hang out at a local Cafe), just in case one of the floors collapse, whilst I’m exploring… lol.
In Venice again???? omg…lucky you 🙂 Thank you for sharing this story and the photos. Made me kinda sad to see this building just abandoned like this. Such a waste. Would have been a lovely building in it’s day. Looking forward to the next blog 🙂