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Venice - (Venezia)
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Venice is sheer magic. It's a conglomeration of islands in a saltwater lagoon
threaded together with a system of canals - in the center, the S-shaped famous
Grand Canal. Mussolini built a bridge to one island in Venice from the mainland,
but there one must leave buses behind for boats and good old fashioned walking.
The buildings on the islands are mossy and rotting at their base, because the
waters of Venice rise and fall with the tides. Tourists and tour guides wind
their way through the streets to restaurants with incredible seafood and shops
filled with a dazzling array of hand-blown glass formed into bright and bulbous
shapes. Carnival masks stare out from shop windows, symbols of Venice's version
of Mardi Gras - Carnevale. Locals get about on foot, in water taxis and on water
buses. Mostly only tourists use the expensive gondolas. They're like limosuines
on water, useful only on special occassions. Because tourists must outnumber
local residents, that still means occasional traffic jams in the narrow canals,
when gondoliers must use their long poles against the buildings to push
themselves out of the way.
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A tourism book suggests, and rightly so, if you get lost - and you will, because
every street and canal tends to look alike - to ask "Dov'e San Marco?"
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St. Mark's Cathedral is not at the center of Venice literally, but it is at
Venice's heart. The glorious eastern-influenced Cathedral presides over a long,
rectangular square holding an exact replica of its original clock tower which
collapsed in 1902. Behind the cathedral is a splendid artifact of Venice's power
at its height as a nation-state: the Doge's palace., which served as a courthouse
and offices for the rulers. Its gilded , artistic majesty was meant to inimidate
visitors.
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The square has expensive café's around its perimiter, museums, and shops. It's
packed with tourists, souvenir stands selling gondolier hats, artists selling
watercolors of Venetian scenes, and pigeons. Cyclones of pigeons reluctantly
take off if disturbed, but normally they waddle from tourist to tourist, waiting
for someone to pay 1,000 lire for a bag of corn. Orchestras at the cafes take
turns playing mixtures of pop music - from Queen to Celene Dion - to the more
well-known symphonic works, such as the William Tell Overture, better known as
the Lone Ranger theme.
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At night, the moon reflects on the Grand Canal, as the water creeps up
into the square with high tide,and the enormous weight of San Marco pushes the
island down and the lagoon water up through grates in the square. Tourists,
swept up in the orchestra's music and the romantic moon, spontaneously dance to
the tunes in the square, each pair imagining they are the only ones to think of
doing this.
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Like Pisa's leaning tower, Venice gives visitors the sense that they are
witnessing something transitory, that in the future will be spoken of only as
legend.
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More Photos
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Click on the pictures to see a full size version and caption.
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