Venice

 It was my extraordinarily good fortune to have a friend invite me along on a quick sojourn to the Gateway to the East:  Venice.

The general opinion was that just in case it was really sinking (and it is, but at a very slow pace), it should be regarded and even enjoyed before it can't be. 

A 3 hour (speedy, really) train trip north from Rome, up to the crook of the back of the knee-high boot, and there we were.  

All the better to arrive in style, courtesy of a water taxi.

Down the Grand Canal we went. 

The first thing you notice, aside from the celadon green water - categorized as 'brackish,' so a mix of salt and fresh - is the number (and types) of bridges spanning the canals.

But because you've been so busy rubbernecking, you temporarily forget that this is a rather nice boat for a water taxi, and it is being commandeered by some pretty cute taxi 'drivers.' 

back to rubbernecking...

Venetian architecture is most assuredly Gothic in feeling, if not outright style.

Once we alighted from our boat, we met our airbnb owner, dropped our bags at the place, and went looking for lunch.

And on the way to said lunch, ran by Peggy's place.

And this was our lunchtime view on a splendid day. Including a gondolier, loafing a bit while waiting for someone to ask for a (80 euros!) ride.

The view from the Accademia bridge, close to the sestiere we were staying in:  Dorsoduro. It's the artsy, Southern side of the conglomeration of islands.

After lunch, we walked.  A lot.  We walked even more than we should have, because Googlemaps is actually not really useful in the city I've always thought was THE #1 place in which to get lost.

For whatever reasons - probably cell tower positioning and little narrow streets - you're not terribly place-able, GPS-wise.  You can watch your little pin jump all over the neighborhood you're walking in, and you've only walked in a straight line.

We made it to the Rialto bridge...which I intended to visit in part because I knew that I could buy a special quince mustard somewhere near there.  Problem was, store location and hours of availability.  Navigations, poor directions, irritable Venetians...all those things aside, wouldja look at this view!

In Rome, you find Madonnas at almost every street corner (expect a future blog post about them). Here, you find all sorts of other architectural embellishments at street corners and also on doors.

The next morning, before we set off on our 'Secrets of Venice' walking tour, I took a little tour of my own:  to the southern-most tip of Dorsoduro.  This might well be my favorite image of all.

I decided to pop into Santa Maria della Salute (Saint Mary of Health).  This is a central plan church built in recognition of Venice's delivery from a vicious bout with the plague.  

Every November 21st, Venetians pay homage to this historic event by making a pilgrimage across the Grand Canal - by walking carefully over a bridge made of Venetian boats.  They visit this church on the Feste della Salute, give thanks for the collective health of the city, buy small gifts of candy for the children, and feast at home.

I walked around the tip of Dorsoduro, and along the southern side.  

So this is how you get your little boat up and out of the water. 

Across the larger body of water is Giudecca, a slightly more distant part of Venice.

As a friend of mine has often said - and he travels a LOT for a living - Venice offers a special kind of exertion for visitors.  Flat, sure, and fairly smooth surfaces...but bridges.  So many bridges.  409, to be precise.  And those are for traversing the 118 islands that make up the city.

An old, noteworthy palazzo undergoing restoration.  Look at the original, elaborate chimney tops.

I suppose that people are guilty of talking loudly on the phone everywhere, and I just happen to notice more how I'm privy to people's one-sided conversations in such intimate places. 

We call this motif the Man of Sorrows- Christ half in and half out of the tomb - which in this case is a little more than symbolic for the charity collection box. 

Street names in Venice are different from others in other parts of Italy.  'Calle' is a common street term. 'Rio terra' is a former canal that has been filled in with earth.

St. George?

Santa Maria of the Rosary, of course. Biggest one I've ever seen.

A workshop/garage for gondoliers.

Yes, they wear the straw hats and striped shirts.  So it turns out that this profession is lucrative (I had previously suspected that it was just another part of the - rather resented - tourist trade work) People who successfully get through years of training - both in gondola preparation and navigation as well as information about the city so that they can operate as tour guides - do very well here.
  Only one woman has ever joined the profession's ranks.

Come with us on our gondola ride....

"I'm hungry.  Is it time for pranzo?"

Note the artist situated on the bridge, under his little umbrella.  Venice has always been well-regarded for its unique light.

"Pronto!"
"Mama - I'm working right now!"

I've come to this city several times.  And the gondoliers always just brush past the undersides of these bridges.

Beautiful and ruinous

I imagine stress-dreams for gondoliers (is that weird?) involving gondolas too large for little bridges...or passengers too large for the gondolas.

"Ciao, friend in the window!"

And back out to the Grand Canal we go...

The Guggenheim (what I formerly called 'Peggy's place'). Not too shabby, having a palazzo on the Grand Canal.  It is now a museum that holds Peggy's collection of mid-century modern art.  She managed to obtain permission to be buried (Venetians are not buried in the city, typically) in the adjoining garden - alongside her beloved dogs.

That would be an Alexander Calder sculpture on the left (we're still looking at Peggy's place).

A sample mosaic from the exterior of the building featured in the previous shot

Venice - particularly in the era of the late Renaissance, with its strange surplus of convents, painted ladies and resulting sumptuary laws (designed to restrict overly luxurious conduct and attire) - was, and is!, a place to not only see but also be seen.

Lunch with a lady and her French bulldog. Snoozing away.

Spaghetti all sepia (cuttlefish ink) - a favorite of mine

And a spontaneous visit to St. Moise, with its elaborate sculpture of Moses with the Tablets on Mount Sinai

And as the day wore on, the rain clouds rolled in.

Inside St. Marks...snuck a couple of shots...a priest in some nice lighting conditions

Impressive floor pavement

Outside, more reliefs here and there, such as the Madonna of the Misericordia (Mercy)

And inside the now defunct church Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, a few masterpieces, such as Titian's Assumption of the Virgin

Elaborate choir stall

(Sorry my Madonna of the Pesaro Family photo didn't make the cut...too blurry under such low light conditions!..here she is)

Antonio Canova's tomb - crafted by his students

And off to the legendary Harry's Bar for a Bellini...or champagne.

The Bellini cocktail - prosecco, peach nectar, a little sparkling water - was invented here. I imagine the dapper Don and white-gloved Betty Draper in this bar.

The vaporetto (water taxi) back to the train station...Crowded!

On our walking tour of Dorsoduro, a visitor asked our native-born Venetian guide whether Venetians hate tourists.

This is a tricky question, as tourism is the main source of revenue for the city, and the main irritant for residents.  Imagine trying to go about your daily business - in a city where you can really only walk! - and experiencing the crush of over 25,000 visitors per day.  Our savvy tour guide navigated that delicate issue well by saying that while tourism is indeed a necessary component (and guess which nationality comprises the greatest portion of that crowd?  Americans) of living in a city like Venice, the situation for a rapidly declining native population would be eased considerably by imposed regulations on the number of daily visitors.  Most tourists are 'day-players,' who stay on the mainland or have a cruise ship or bus drop them off for a single day's visit to the city.  So, in both large and small crowds, they see sights, they consume resources, they buy souvenirs and they leave.

We were asked if we were day-players.  Fortunately, we weren't.  So as true visitors who stay for a bit, we were contributing something - however minor - by paying taxes on our air b&b.  While this is a positive, it bears mentioning that locals who truly live full-time in the city also resent the rather large proportion of property owners who rent their properties to tourists most or all of the year.  Such practices create a different kind of impact on structures and infrastructure.

That reality is distinctly felt, as you walk the little winding streets of Venice.  It is already an eerily quiet place because there is no motorized traffic save for the occasional vaporetto or similar water conveyance.  But it is, I think, additionally quiet during weekdays when other cities would have quite a bit of locally manifested foot traffic of residents conducting daily errands and shopping.  You can walk off the beaten paths between Piazza San Marco and the Rialto bridge, and explore very, very empty streets and even whole piazzas.  The residential population of Venice is dwindling; in the last 65 years, it has shrunken by over two thirds, from 171,000 to 55,000.

The question of whether Venice is sinking is less of a concern than the question of whether Venice is disappearing.  Will it become like Disney World some day:  an entire simulacrum?  Will it merely be a contrivance of what once was a major city with power and prestige?  Will there only be 'stunt residents' who actually live elsewhere in their real - and not performative for the sake of gawking tourists - lives?

Our tour guide was surprised to learn that I have visited her fair city about 4 times.  To her, that is three times more than most visitors, who take the established trails from big attraction to big attraction, take the token gondola ride, and take home pictures of this city of impossibilities.  To me, it is endlessly fascinating, and I am already scheming ways to revisit so I can see the parts I haven't.

It is a challenge to reconcile that wish with the knowledge that I - and so many others - are not especially welcome.

I want to visit the Venice that is off the beaten paths, and I want to tread lightly, so that she neither sinks nor diminishes for want of value or lack of investment.