ITALIAN DIARIES PART III- FROM VENICE, WITH LOVE

The last of a trilogy...must be fit for a finale! So I have saved the best for the last!

Welcome aboard the Frecciargento as we head from Florence to Venice, the last stop in our itinerary. Just to prepare you for what you are about to witness, keep looking out of the window...the scene changes dramatically from the serene Tuscan countryside to the blue waters of the Adriatic as you approach Venice’s St. Lucia train terminal. You just step out of the station and the sights and sounds of the floating city are waiting for you.

Venezia

"A realist in Venice, would become a romantic by mere faithfulness to what he saw before him"

Venice is unique in every possible way. It is composed of 118 islands and 384 bridges! Wow, right? Public transport includes buses and taxis...all running on water. They are all boats. The buses are called Vaporretti, cruising over the Grand Canal, ferrying tourists from one station to the other across Venice. The water taxis are motorised boats that can carry about 4-6 people. And then there are the private boats and Gondolas. Cruise liners also make up the skyline of the city along the Grand Canal. There are traffic jams of course...but on the canals! There are virtually no motor vehicles on the roads of Venice. The only wheels you see are on the boards of the little scooties on which the kids make their way to the schools!

“You need not own a boat in Venice...but you must have a pair of good shoes to live here,” Elizabeth, the guide, told our Mother-Daughter duo during the walking tour of Venice. “Our children come home from schools, drop their bags and go off to play in the Campos (Squares) present in every block. The mothers take turns to keep an eye on the younger ones while the older ones play football in another part of the square. As people come to fill water from the water fountains here, they meet each other. So here, everybody knows everybody! We teach one thing to our children from the time they start walking, stay along the wall...for on the other side is water. Our kids have fun, go out, drink, come home...but we don’t have to worry because they will not be driving! As long as they walk along the wall, they’ll come home safely...we just stay up to hear the door opening!” She continued.

Everything comes from and goes to the mainland. So work starts early morning. People keep their garbage out in carefully labelled plastic bags, separate for recyclable, metallic and organic waste. It is collected from each house, taken to the dock on foot, loaded on to boats and taken to the mainland for disposal. Laundry of hotels, food, fruits and vegetables all come from the mainland. That is why Venice is slightly more expensive than other cities in Italy.

You must walk around Venice, away from the main St. Mark’s Square and tourist places to get the actual feel of the city. The houses are old, the alleys are narrow. The city is sinking slowly, constantly. So they keep paving  it regularly and that is why some doors may seem small or some ceilings may appear low...because the ground is being raised from time to time. The water in the canal rises and ebbs with the tide. The city is flooded regularly and the salt water has eroded many doors. As you make your way through the cobbled lanes along the canals, you’ll find boats parked in front of houses, balconies with bright flower pots smiling at you, moss covered stone walls interspersed with sunlight streaming down to comfort you. ‘Life will find a way’...patches of green grass can be seen, growing out from the moist soil underneath the paving, at places where feet seldom tread. Houses are connected across the streets by Sotoportego or a roof above the road. Their kindergarten used to be a palace before! You might end up at Marco Polo’s family square, named after his book on his various travel expeditions across the globe, Milion. All this is waiting for you only if you choose to venture out. Of course you will end up getting lost the first few days. But that itself is an adventure, part of the memories that you will take back. After all, not all those who wander are lost.

Venetian language is different from the Italian language spoken across the country. So if you plan to stay for some time here, best to buy an English to Italian and Italian to Venetian dictionary!

Venice is best described as a fairytale city. It is as if you are transported to a different planet all together. Most of the hotels here have carpeted floors, damask upholstered walls and gilded headrests and dressers, so typical of Venice, which seem to be coming from a princess’ palace! You can laze around in St. Mark’s Square, admire the myriad of Venetian masks in the shops, buy a variety of things in the markets around Rialto bridge, from Murano glassware to colourful ceramic plates to paper mache or leather masks. You can enjoy the afternoon sun sitting in an outdoor cafe along the Grand Canal and listening to the violins being played in many restaurants! Or you can just drift away into the sunset on a gondola!

Contrary to popular belief, Venice attracts not only the newlyweds and much-in-love young couples but also families on vacation, boys and girls travelling alone with backpacks and maps, going where the road takes them and several old people whose spirit to live and enjoy changes your perspective of life. Why, there was a group of six elderly women on the walking tour that our Mother and Daughter had taken. One of them had a fractured wrist still in plaster, one had had her knee replacement surgery done and yet they were so enthusiastic while visiting the Doge’s palace and St. Mark’s Basilica that they even climbed up the winding steps to the top of the basilica and the Scala d’Oro (Golden Staircase) in the Doge’s Palace.

To satisfy the foodie grumbling in you after a long walk there are lots of food joints. Venice is famous for its seafood delicacies, golden oval shaped cookies called Baicoli and S-shaped shortbreads, Bussolai. Our duo recommended the restaurant Rossopomodoro. The charcoal baked pizza here is the best that they had ever tasted!

The must sees in Venice-

Gondola Ride- it is an experience by itself. A gondola is a boat made from eight types of wood and it is made in such a way that it naturally tilts to the right to balance the gondolier who stands on the left side of the stern and rows with one oar on the right. Be serenaded by a swashbuckling gondolier in his black striped t-shirt as he takes you along the various small canals, under the bridges whose walls, capturing the light reflected from the waters, seem to be rippling with the gentle waves and then into the famous Grand Canal of Venice as you watch the cathedrals and palaces drift by. It is honestly huge to be called a canal! Watching the row of ferro di prua (iron on the prow) on the gondolas parked on one side bobbing up and down with the waves is a beautiful sight indeed!

St. Mark’s Cathedral and Square- Here lies the bones of St. Mark that were smuggled from Alexandria hidden in a casket carrying pork from right under the nose of the Turks who did not inspect it and turned away from the smell! The walls are covered with mosaics made of gold. The gold leaf is pressed between two slides of glass and has survived all these years. They say that the very air you breathe in this cathedral has gold dust and you come out several times richer! While at the entrance on the east, the ceiling has mosaics depicting the creation of the world, the sun sets on the other side depicting the Last Judgement. Do climb up to the top of the Basilica, you get an outstanding view of the nave and the mosaic on the floor. The original four lifelike horses of St. Mark are housed here, restored in their full glory. Their robust, muscular frame is in contrast to their eyes which are gentle and at the same time sad as if trying to tell their story, of being shipped from Constantinople, exhibited on top of the Basilica (today, there stand the replicas of the horses outside), being stolen by Napoleon to prance out from atop the Arc de Triumph and then being brought back to Venice...not to mention having their heads cut off to fit them into crates while being shipped (the consensus varies on which trip this happened!)

Out on the terrace you get a magnificent view of the Square, the Grand Canal and the clock tower whose mechanised bronze statues still ring the bell every hour! The symbol of Venice, the winged lion is perched on top of the three columns in front of the Basilica and also towards the Canal along with St. Theodore and the dragon he slew.

St. Mark’s Square probably hosts the maximum number of tourists in the world annually. You can find tourists clicking pictures of the basilica or selfies, with sticks being sold almost at every tourist spot, or children feeding the pigeons, people strolling around or a couple just sitting down cross-legged, facing each other with a gelato each!

The Doge’s Palace- It is the best example of the wealth and splendour of Venice. It is adorned with paintings, many of them depicting Venice as a woman to whom an old man (the Doge) is kneeling. Another room has painting of each Doge. One square on the wall is painted black to erase the memory of a doge who was beheaded because he stopped serving Venice and took undue advantage of the powers vested in him. An interesting thing about the city-state of Venice is that it has always been a republic except when it was conquered by Napoleon, till it became part of Unified Italy. The Venetians were mainly traders who collected the wealth for the State. The Doge was elected to oversee the administration. A doge was usually a very old person so that his tenure did not last for very long and there was no concept of the title running in a family for successive generations. Grievances were addressed, trials held, justice given in the doge’s palace. There were complaint boxes (shaped like lions’ mouths) where one could give a complaint in writing but it would not be taken up for  consideration if it was unsigned or anonymous. The Bridge of Sighs, so named because it echoes with the sighs of the prisoners, connects the Palace with the Prisons. The famous Casanova was once held captive in these prisons.

The Islands of Murano, Burano and Torcello- A day trip to these three islands should definitely be a part of your itinerary. The journey on a catamaran to these islands across the azure waters of Adriatic, the salty splashes seem to infuse you with new life, almost like being baptised! Murano is an island where all the glass furnaces were shifted to avoid the danger of fire in the main city. You can see the entire process in any glass blowing factory that you visit. Their creations can form a museum!!! Everything that your mind can ever imagine has been created with glass here. There are the fishes you saw when you went deep sea diving, the birds you had seen in Singapore zoo, chandeliers fit for palaces and vases to challenge the beauty of fresh flowers!

Burano is a small fishing village with colourful houses that reminds you of Noddy’s Toy Land. It is famous for its lacework. The handcrafted products are sure to steal your heart and your pockets!

Torcello is the island where Ernest Hemmingway spent many days, writing his book ‘Across the River and into the Woods’. This beauty of this quaint island is untouched by human hands. Your every footstep seems to disturb the peace here. Do visit the 9^th century Byzantine Church on this island.

Well folks, we come to the end of our series. Hope you enjoyed yourselves! I think I have given you more than a 100 reasons to visit Italy. So, what are you waiting for? Book your tickets, pack your bags and head off per Italia!

"Travelling- it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller"- Ibn Battuta

Ciao!!!

MS