Onward!
Much as I love Florence, all good things must come to an end. And so it was this morning that I dragged my luggage down the four flights of stairs from my little AirBnB garret, trudged them through the streets to the train station, and boarded the Frecciarossa to my next destination: Venice.
I’d heard from friends and acquaintances that Venice is magical. It’s a like a city from a dream. It’s so romantic. It’s a little like a theme park, but you just can’t help but love it.
Which to me sounds dreadful; like a Las Vegas version of Italy. This is why I rolled my eyes and only scheduled two nights in the place. When I eventually got to Venice, I manhandled my luggage to the AirBnb, and went for a stroll around the city to confirm my suspicions.
And it’s magical, like a city from a dream, and it’s so romantic, I can’t help but love it. Dammit!
The innumerable canals are Venice’s most defining feature, but they tend to fall into the background as you wander around. With the exception of tourists being shuttled around in gondolas, the canals are primarily used for commercial or civic purposes: public bus boats, garbage collecting boats, ambulance boats, police boats, cement-mixer boats, DHL boats overflowing with Amazon packages, and so on. For private purposes for which most Westerners would use a car – nipping down to the supermarket, taking the dog to the park, meeting friends for coffee – the Venetians don’t really have a choice but to walk. The narrowness of the streets and the steps on the bridges mean that they can’t even ride bikes or skateboards.
As such, the streets aren’t really “streets” as we know them elsewhere, since they were never designed for any sort of wheeled traffic, even in the days of horses and carriages. It’s more a city of public passages and rooms linking private passages and rooms, like a gargantuan open-air mansion with half a million people living in it.
At night, the lack of mechanised traffic and the noise dampening effect of the many buildings mean that a calm, relaxing quiet settles over the city. The foot traffic is spread across hundreds of tiny alleys and passages, so you meet surprisingly few other pedestrians as you wander about, making the city feel as if it’s full of secrets and mystery. The Venetians also deviate from the normal Italian practice of dining late and staying up - many restaurants close by 10pm, which would be unthinkable in Rome or Florence. As a result, however, the streets clear out at a surprisingly early hour, leaving anyone wandering about in the later evening feeling like the only person in the city. With the people gone and the noise reduced to the sound of water lapping against stone, it feels unreal, like you’ve wandered onto a very ambitious movie set.
Maybe this is why people perceive it as a bit of a theme park. It’s true that there are a lot more shops selling Murano glass fountain pens than selling office supplies or pet food, and the city is almost alarmingly clean, but that’s true of Florence as well. Venice is still a real city, just a scrupulously tidy one with a very specific retail profile. The buildings are worn, there are random air conditioners jutting out of walls, there’s graffiti on the shop shutters and people’s underpants are drying on washing lines outside upper storey windows. It’s no more theme parky than Florence, or Capri, or F*cking Siena.
I’d heard from friends and acquaintances that Venice is magical. It’s a like a city from a dream. It’s so romantic. It’s a little like a theme park, but you just can’t help but love it.
Which to me sounds dreadful; like a Las Vegas version of Italy. This is why I rolled my eyes and only scheduled two nights in the place. When I eventually got to Venice, I manhandled my luggage to the AirBnb, and went for a stroll around the city to confirm my suspicions.
And it’s magical, like a city from a dream, and it’s so romantic, I can’t help but love it. Dammit!
The innumerable canals are Venice’s most defining feature, but they tend to fall into the background as you wander around. With the exception of tourists being shuttled around in gondolas, the canals are primarily used for commercial or civic purposes: public bus boats, garbage collecting boats, ambulance boats, police boats, cement-mixer boats, DHL boats overflowing with Amazon packages, and so on. For private purposes for which most Westerners would use a car – nipping down to the supermarket, taking the dog to the park, meeting friends for coffee – the Venetians don’t really have a choice but to walk. The narrowness of the streets and the steps on the bridges mean that they can’t even ride bikes or skateboards.
As such, the streets aren’t really “streets” as we know them elsewhere, since they were never designed for any sort of wheeled traffic, even in the days of horses and carriages. It’s more a city of public passages and rooms linking private passages and rooms, like a gargantuan open-air mansion with half a million people living in it.
At night, the lack of mechanised traffic and the noise dampening effect of the many buildings mean that a calm, relaxing quiet settles over the city. The foot traffic is spread across hundreds of tiny alleys and passages, so you meet surprisingly few other pedestrians as you wander about, making the city feel as if it’s full of secrets and mystery. The Venetians also deviate from the normal Italian practice of dining late and staying up - many restaurants close by 10pm, which would be unthinkable in Rome or Florence. As a result, however, the streets clear out at a surprisingly early hour, leaving anyone wandering about in the later evening feeling like the only person in the city. With the people gone and the noise reduced to the sound of water lapping against stone, it feels unreal, like you’ve wandered onto a very ambitious movie set.
Maybe this is why people perceive it as a bit of a theme park. It’s true that there are a lot more shops selling Murano glass fountain pens than selling office supplies or pet food, and the city is almost alarmingly clean, but that’s true of Florence as well. Venice is still a real city, just a scrupulously tidy one with a very specific retail profile. The buildings are worn, there are random air conditioners jutting out of walls, there’s graffiti on the shop shutters and people’s underpants are drying on washing lines outside upper storey windows. It’s no more theme parky than Florence, or Capri, or F*cking Siena.
posted by Blandwagon at 11:28 PM
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