The gondola is certainly the most photographed craft in the world and its image has become, for millions of tourists, the symbol itself of Venice. If the lagoonal city is " unique in the world", likewise it is for the gondola:the unique boat of as much as 11 metres length and 600 kilos weight that can be driven with lightness and easiness by a single man and with a single oar!
But it is unique even for its building characteristics: it is asymmetric, as its left side is larger than the right one by 24 cm and so it always navigates inclined on one side. It has its bottom flat ; this allows it to cross even depth of few cm . For its construction they are used 8 different kinds of wood and it is composed of 280 pieces. The only elements in metal are the characteristic "iron" of the head and the " risso" of the stern.

The iron of The head, was, originally, an element of longitudinal stability, which had to balance the weight of the gondolier. The popular tradition wants that the front "pettini" represent the sestieri (six quarters) in which the city is divided and the back one is Giudecca island; the double "S" bending should simulate the proceeding of "Grand Canal " and the lunette , situated under a stylized dogal horn , Rialto bridge.Until few decades ago it was placed in the centre of gondola a cabin of wood movable called "felze", that helps as protection to the passengers during winter time; today it is almost completely out of order as it obstructs the visibility and then it is little indicated for the tourists.

In a city like Venice, the water ways have always been the most used for transports. The Gondola, for its characteristics of manoeuvrability and speed, has been, till the coming of the motorized means, the boat most suitable to the people transport. It was born as private means for people of a certain class, it was used both to move from a place to another of the city( and to go to the nearest islands), and for the pleasure of moving on the water aboard a comfortable and silent boat. In a Gondola, in fact, one could enjoy the cool in the hot summer nights, showing off one's own elegance, talking with the passengers of the near gondole, beyond doing all a series of uses (and abuses) that made this wonderful boat a private territory functioning as a house but also as a gaming-house, embassy, garconniere and more.

Of course not everyone could have or hire a gondola for these uses: the people, generally, got on it to make himself " ferry"from one part to the other of a canal. For this need, in fact, they were used boats with a plane bottom much similar to the "gondoloni da parada" that are used nowadays to cross the Great Canal. Still now there is a similar distinction: there are Gondole destined to the visit of the city, to the night cool, to the serenades, to the famous "trip in a gondola" ( they are called "charterage gondole", because they are , in practice, hired) and there are gondole "da parada" used for the crossing of canals, for "ferry", that is to say. The first are used generally from tourists, and, but only in some occasions (marriages, for example), even from Venetians, who are continuous boat-goers, for the practical needs of going from one part to the other of the Great Canal.