Postcard from Venice: Please Have Your Entry Ticket Ready

Some people — perhaps who haven’t been there – tend to speak of Venice with disdain.  “Anymore, it’s just a theme park,” they say, as if going there were not a proper foreign vacation.  They want to experience a foreign culture as “the locals” do (assuming that’s even remotely possible for an American traveling abroad as a tourist, unaccompanied by any local.)  So rubbing shoulders with other tourists is kin to cavorting with lepers.

If it's Monday, April 18th, it must be Venice.

In some ways, the comparison to a theme park is apt:  Venice is host to 18 million tourists annually; just about the same as Disney World or Disneyland.  And as you wander through the narrow, cobbled streets — jostling for space with hundreds of other tourists like yourself or dodging gaggles of poorly chaperoned groups of adolescents on school trips — you just might feel as though you’ve entered the Italy Pavilion in the World Showcase part of Epcot Center.

The ridiculous and historically ignorant part of this dismissal of Venice is the “anymore” bit, as if only recently did Venice acquire tourist-central status.  I feel compelled to set the record straight.

Venice reached its geo-political and economic zenith sometime in the 1400′s.  Two events at the end of that century planted the seeds for the beginning of its eventual decline as a maritime trading power.

In 1492, Columbus “discovered” the New World, paving the way for the Atlantic-facing powers — England, France, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands — to exploit its natural resources to their enrichment and aggrandisement.  And between 1497 and 1499, Vasco da Gama made his way to India and back, opening up another trade route for goods from the East, which previously had been Venice’s near-monopoly as the dominant power in the eastern Mediterranean.

Neptune, God of the Sea, Doge's Palace, April 2011

By the 1700′s — the last century of Venice’s independence as a city-state — Venice had become the Las Vegas of its day, at least for Europe’s aristocracy.  It was the vice and pleasure capital of Europe, frequented for the liberal availability of gambling and prostitution.  Carnival lasted as much as six months, and the nobility wore masks year-round, just for the illicit fun of it.

Today, Venice caters to other vices for the decidedly more middle-class.  Sure, you can get a bit of a frisson from the endless array of paintings of hunky martyrs.  (Sebastian is practically the patron saint of gay men: who doesn’t love a pretty boy with his hands bound and a few arrows  in him?)

Detail of St. Sebastian, Altarpiece of St. Ambrose, Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice

And then, of course, there is gelato.  Twice daily is barely sufficient.  (Incomprehensibly, it’s not served on the breakfast buffet.)  I say, go for three anyway.  You can always atone for it with a brisk self-flagellation in your hotel room afterwards.

But for all it’s Disneyesque, theme park qualities, Venice lacks that most desirable of Disney traits — fierce but smiling efficiency.  The Italians are, of course, infamous for their overly complex and utterly inefficient bureaucracy.  (Sorry, miei amici, but it’s true.)

I won’t get into the incomprehensible vaporetto system (getting onto it is challenge enough.)  But if ever there were a transportation system that actually encouraged scofflaw fare-beaters, this is it.

Vaporetti on the Grand Canal, April 2011

My favorite example from our trip, however, was our first attempt to see the Basilica di San Marco, arguably the one sight that everyone who visits Venice sees and has seen for at least the past few centuries — plenty of time to work out a reliable system.  (You’ll notice the word attempt – as in “unsuccessful result” — in that last sentence.)

We thought we’d be smart and hit it early in the morning before the line became obnoxiously long.  So shortly after 9:00am, we hustled to the Piazza San Marco.  Even at that hour, a line had already formed, as it does every single day.  We happily joined it.

We waited perhaps 15-20 minutes, and then the line began to move, slowly but steadily.  We approached the building.  We marveled at the mosaics above the exterior archways. We entered the covered arcade and snaked down the length of it.  Looking ahead, it seemed that the line was moving toward what appeared to be a gift shop.  I kept looking to see where we branched off into the Basilica itself.

We didn’t.   When we reached the head of the line, we were standing in front of the gift shop with the handful of other confused tourists who’d been waiting in front of us.  A lone security guard — who seemed surprised and annoyed that people would pepper him with questions — abstractedly explained that the church was closed that morning for services until about noon.

I guess that was the first time in the past nine hundred years since the Basilica was built that it had been closed at a time it was normally open.

Queuing for the Gift Shop at Basilica di San Marco, April 2011

Despite this addled operations management, we tourists come in throngs:  55,000 tourists on average each day, meaning quite a few more on peak days.  The number becomes quite meaningful in the light of one recent government announcement.

In June of this year, the permanent resident population of the islands of the historic city dropped to below 60,000 — 59,984 to be precise.  That’s the lowest count since sometime before 1171 AD when, with 66,000 souls, Venice was one of the three most populous cities in Europe.

For context, that puts Venice on a par with such burgeoning metropolises as Petaluma, CA (59,958); Salisbury, MD (59,426); and ironically — Rome.  That’s Rome, GA at 58,287.  It’s also about the size of West Palm Beach, Florida when my family moved there in 1962.

The population of Venice reached its peak in the late 15th to 16th centuries at around 180,000.  It was drastically reduced by plagues on several occasions after that.  It hovered around 140,000 well into modern days.  As late as 1951, it had returned to above 170,000.

In 1966, the year of the great flood, there were 120,000 inhabitants, and the population has continued to decline ever since.  Rising rents juxtaposed with better-paying, more diversified career opportunities on the mainland are the primary culprits: the economics of being a “local” in Venice no longer make much sense.

I make light of Veniceland, tourist attraction par excellence.  But its peril is real and rises not just with the rising waters of the Venetian lagoon.  Having built their city originally as a haven from barbarian hordes and protected by its shallow surrounding waters, today the natives are besieged daily by tourist hordes who arrive by train, bus, car, vaporetto and private water taxi to eat gelato in the Piazza San Marco, ride in a gondola, buy glass and carnival masks, and take in some cultchah.

If global warming doesn’t drown it, how will Venice survive as a living city, if it will?

No one seems to know.

Venezia, La Serenissima, April 2011

Postcard from Venice: The iPhone Tour

For years, I’ve traveled with two cameras.  I have a hulking Canon EOS 20D that, honestly, I don’t really know how to use.  It seems to make me look like I know how to use it, however.  Once, at the Great Wall in China, a young couple asked me to take a picture of them with their camera, “because you’ll take a good one,” they said, acknowledging the 20D dangling around my neck like an albatross.

The there’s my little Canon Powershot 550.  It’s great for hiking when minimal gear is essential and also for those times when you’d like to be less conspicuously a tourist: it straps to your belt, so you can wear it on the side of your hip.  Unfortunately, you look  like an IT guy from the 90s with a pager ready to be drawn at a moment’s beep.  There are times when even the Powershot is an encumbrance.

My iPhone, with its rudimentary camera, solves the issue.  It’s in my front pocket anyway, supposedly dashing my hopes of producing a family (had I any such desires.)  But thanks to it, I no longer have those moments when, glad not to be carting around a camera, I regret losing a shot that presents itself.  In other words, it prevents progeny, but preserves memories.

So I came back from Venice with three sets of photos.  They’re sitting on my hard drive in separate, cleverly-named folders — Venice 20D (which sounds like a really intense, super-IMAX version of the movie), Venice 550 (which could be a long run over every calle in Venice at least three times) and Venice iPhone, which is just what it is.

Though I never actually describe a whole trip in these Postcards, I like the idea of the Venice iPhone Tour –  the collection of iPhone-enabled memories I might not have in photos for want of a camera otherwise.  In some cases, I did have another camera with me, but it was simply easier to pull out the iPhone for a quick shot.

So put on your virtual walking shoes, leave your cameras in your luggage, and let’s go on a trip – Venice by iPhone.

You know the thrill coming to New York when you get your first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty or being in Paris and seeing the Eiffel Tower along the Seine for the first time?  In Venice, it has to be the Rialto Bridge over the Grand Canal.  All the more thrilling, if you’re standing up in the back of an open-air water taxi to your hotel with the wind whipping through your hair.

The Grand Canal and the Rialto Bridge, 4/17/11

On the evening of our first full day in Venice, we went to hear a string quartet at Teatro La Fenice.  The theater lives up to its name, which in English is The Phoenix.  It burned down completely (for the second time!) in 1996, to be rebuilt “dov’era e com’era” as the Venetians famously said.  “Where it was, and as it was.”  (This was the same phrase used when the belltower, the Campanile in Piazza San Marco, collapsed into a heap of rubble in 1902.)

Teatro La Fenice, 4/18/11

During a pre-concert dinner at a restaurant next to La Fenice (appropriately named Al Teatro), my 16-year old god-daughter Nora, who plays the cello, spotted a young man in jeans and t-shirt carrying one.  “If he’s the cellist,” she said, “I’m really going to enjoy this concert.”

I strained my neck to catch a glimpse and had to say I concurred.  16-year old girls and middle-aged gay men embarrassingly share some attractions.  But given the young man’s casual attire, I doubted he was  the performer.

When the quartet walked on stage, however, Nora’s face lit up like the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, and she shot me a grin as wide as the Grand Canal.  It was the very same boy, changed into the requisite black pants and shirt.

The concert had been rescheduled from an earlier date.  Our program, which was for the original date, listed a different cellist than the one shown on a placard in the front of the theatre.  Assuming the placard had the right information, we wanted, of course, to remember the young man’s name.  iPhone camera to the rescue.

Our seats were in the very first row of the orchestra.  So we had a close-up view of the musicians — and all their facial expressions and body movements.  Nora thought Luca’s expressions as he played made him seem a bit “disturbed,” I think she said.  I thought he was just delightfully intense.  For any of you whose curiosity has been piqued (and you know who you are), I attach a publicity photo I found on the web. (I was a bit too self-conscious or compliant to attempt an iPhone stealth shot at such close range and  with photography “strictly forbidden.”

You can be the judge on Luca.

Luca Magariello

The Basilica of San Marco is, of course, Venice’s primary must-see.  Nowhere is the influence of the Byzantine Empire on Venice more strongly seen than here.  The gold mosaics covering the walls and ceilings make it feel more like an Eastern Orthodox church than a Roman Catholic one.  It’s worth the four Euros to gain entrance to the upstairs gallery, where you can see some mosaics up close.

Given the abundance of religious art in Venice, Nora and I kept playing Name that Saint on the basis of their iconography.  This is a mosaic of the archangel Michael, slaying Satan in the form of a dragon.  Photography was strictly forbidden in the Basilica as well, though that didn’t seem to stop anyone from doing it.

Basilica di San Marco, 4/21/11

The Basilica is also famous for four life-size bronze horses looted from Constantinople and brought to Venice in 1204.  Made somewhere between the 4th century BC and the 2nd AD, they graced the facade of the Basilica from 1254 to 1797, when Napoleon hauled them off to Paris.  Returned in 1815,  they were removed from the terrace for their preservation in 1979 and replaced with replicas.  The originals can be seen in the upstairs gallery as well.  They’re impressive not just for their antiquity, but for their grace and majesty.  I like this shot of three of them, which captures the movement in their composition.

Basilica di San Marco, 4/21/11

The Basilica anchors the Piazza San Marco at its northern edge.  Napoleon called the Piazza ”the finest drawing room in Europe.”  Today, it’s probably more aptly called “Tourist Central.”  However, it still fulfills the function of a drawing room — a place to which guests “withdraw” to be entertained.

We enjoyed sitting in the sunlight at a table at the Caffé Lavena, having sandwiches and gelato, guessing the nationalities of our neighbors, and listening to the band.  The white-gloved and -coated waiters — laden with silver trays, exaggerated cortesia and a surfeit of personality — were themselves part of the entertainment.

Caffé Lavena and the Basilica, Piazza San Marco, 4/21/11

Each evening, we’d leave our hotel and wander until we found a restaurant  that suited our fancy.  If we walked from our hotel directly up the Calle dei Fabbri, we’d hit the Grand Canal just below the Rialto Bridge.  It’s the other major tourist nexus in Venice, but dinner at a table next to the Canal still has a special romance to it.

Rialto Bridge at Night, 4/21/11

Venice was known for intrigue.  In its heyday, everyone was spying on everyone else and reporting them to somebody.  In the Doge’s Palace, you can still see one of the bocca di leone or lion’s mouths (the winged lion being the symbol of the Venetian state) — where you could drop a letter anonymously denouncing someone.  As we went out one morning sightseeing, we were glad to see that the practice continues to this day, though the venue has changed.

Denunzie Segrete di Venezia, 4/23/11

There is a clever little wordplay going on here that doesn’t really make it into English.  Stronzo is a word Italians would use as an insult, just as we’d call someone an asshole.  But literally, the word means turd.  So this handwritten sign, encased in a plastic sleeve for its preservation and taped to a wall in a narrow alley near our hotel, reads something ike this:

HEADLINE:      The dog takes the crap.  The owner is the asshole.

COPY:      Clean up your business or expose yourself to the denunciation you deserve.  P.S. I wish you a shitty day for every piece of shit you leave behind.

We have this issue in New York, so I’m thinking of starting a bocca di leone a la veneziana on West 16th Street.

From my pre-trip readings, I got the impression the Venetian state took itself quite seriously.  Its leaders, the Doges, were often very old men, elected from and by a patriarchal oligarchy of noble families.  The Doges’ crown, however, was a silly little affair.  I was glad to see it put in proper perspective in a shop window we passed on the way to the Accademia Bridge.  The caption of this photo could be a pun that Nora’s dad, my friend Larry, was fond of making.

I do love a good pun.  This plays off the offending canine above, but is a wry comment  on the relentless mercantilism of Venice — “How much is that doge in the window?”

Shop Window, Campo Santo Stefano, 4/23/11

Another famous Venetian landmark is the Bridge of Sighs.  This is an elevated passageway between the Doge’s Palace and the notorious prisons opposite the Palace across a narrow canal.  It’s name comes from the sighs of prisoners, getting their last glimpse of freedom from the windows of the enclosed bridge — a quite lovely view across the water of the Bacino di San Marco to the island of Giudecca.

During our visit, the back of the Doge’s Palace and the Prisons were undergoing some preservation.  Scaffolding covered them, and material was stretched over the scaffolding.  But the Bridge itself — in deference to its iconic tourist status — was left in view.  In true mercantile Venetian spirit, the canvas of the material covering the scaffolding had been sold for advertising.

Bridge of Sighs, 4/23/11

Scavolini is a designer of Italian kitchen cabinetry and fixtures — Solo italiana.  Orgogliosamente italiana.  Purely Italian.  Proudly Italian. — as their slogan proclaims.  Even for an advertising guy, what Scavolini cooked up here was a little hard to swallow.  I made a sigh of a different kind as we passed by on an evening stroll.

Our last full day in Venice was Easter Sunday.  We took a boat across the northern lagoon to the islands of Burano and Torcello.  It’s on the lagoon that you see the interplay of light on sky and water that creates such varied atmospheres in Venice and that adds to its romance and magic.

It’s the Lagoon that defines Venice; that is its element.  That created Venice, but at times threatens to destroy it.  It’s a fitting last stop on our tour.  Even the rudimentary iPhone camera captures a bit of the Lagoon’s ephemeral charm.  Enough to make you long just a bit to return.

Arrivederci, Venezia.

Laguna di Venezia, Easter Sunday Morning, 4/24/11

Postcard from Venice: Accommodations

Being an old ad guy, thinking of things in terms of their “brands” is an occupational hazard.  Obama’s “brand” has gotten a big lift with the assassination of Bin Laden.  What’s America’s “brand perception” in the
world today?  What’s my personal “brand” worth in the world of marketing and advertising?  These are things I think about.

Venice, where I recently vacationed with my goddaughter Nora and her Dad, my friend Larry, has a distinctive brand. When you say you’re going on vacation to Venice, you get a remarkably consistent response: people groan with envy or moan in ecstasy.  “I love Venice,” they exclaim emphatically, in the same way people enthuse over chocolate truffles or Glee or Impressionist painters.

These are Venice’s brand attributes: a surfeit of beauty; an atmosphere of romance; a fairy-tale experience of narrow, labyrinthine streets where your footsteps echo off the stone walls of crumbling palazzi, and you end up charmed and disoriented on the same bridge over the same canal that you started from fifteen minutes previously; a watery paradise where handsome gondoliers ferry you about, propelling you into a slightly excited state resembling the effects of foreplay.

OK.  Maybe “you” in that last sentence is more “me.”  But you get the picture.

The Grand Canal, Venice, April 2011

Truman Capote supposedly said, “Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.”   In my case, on this my second visit to Venice, I suffered not from a surfeit of beauty, romance or sensuality, but from overindulgence in history.  To the point that it colored my every experience of being there.

I read three books before our trip.  Each told the history of Venice, but from very
different perspectives.

The imaginatively titled “A History of Venice,” by Lord John Julius Norwich, is billed as the definitive history of Venice in English.  Over the course of 640 pages of small type, Lord Norwich gives a Doge-by-Doge political and military history of the Republic up to its capitulation to Napoleon in 1797.  I doggedly slogged through to the final page, almost welcoming Bonaparte, just to have an end to it.  But in the end, I had an unshakeable grasp on the geo-political storyline of Venice.

The Doge's Palace and the Piazetta, Venice, April 2011

Peter Ackroyd’s “Venice. Pure City” is a lyrical love letter to the city called la Serenissima.  Each era of Venice’s history is presented through a theme, and Ackroyd regales us as much with tales of Venetian society and daily life as political and military events.  Each chapter is one of Capote’s chocolate liqueurs.

But it was James McGregor’s “Venice from the Ground Up” that most intrigued me.  The same history is related, but here through buildings that are representative of each era with a sidebar interest in the peculiarities of Venetian culture and the life that went on in those buildings.  McGregor, more than the other two authors, seems to grasp the quirkiness of all things Venetian, born of  the city’s precarious position on what were really just tidal salt marshes in the shallow lagoon behind barrier islands facing the Adriatic.  This was an environment fundamentally inhospitable to human habitation in its most basic requirements: for example, there was no source of fresh water, reachable by technology of the day, other than the rain on any of the islands.

Why would anyone choose to live in such a place?

In the 5^th and 6^th centuries, the northern areas of Italy – known today as the Veneto – were invaded by tribes from Northern Europe, most notably the Lombards in 568.  Many of the Veneti, as the inhabitants of the towns and cities of the Veneto were called, fled their homes and sought refuge on the islands of the salt marshes of the Venetian lagoon.  What started as temporary refuge eventually developed into permanent habitation.  And the Venetians adapted their lives to their peculiar, watery environment.

One of the most astounding accommodations concerns the softness and compressive-ness of the marshy “land” on which the city is built.  It was incapable of supporting the weight of any substantial buildings.  So the Venetians sunk millions of wooden tree trunks, harvested from across the Adriatic in modern-day Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro, into the marshy
soil to reach a harder layer of compressed clay below to serve as a base for
the wooden piles.  Now petrified, these wooden piles still support the stone and brick buildings of Venice.  And the lands across the Adriatic that supplied the timber bear the scars of their deforestation today.

The almost unreasonable accommodation of daily living in Venice to its unique environment is constantly in evidence.  Deliverymen strain hoisting boxes of goods on  handcarts up the steps of stone bridges over canals and then gingerly lower the  handcart step by step down the other side of the bridge.  They may repeat that process several times before reaching their destination.  More
urgently, “ambulanza” boats are moored diagonally for easy exit from the docks of the local hospitals.

When we leave, we take a water taxi from the entrance to our hotel directly to the airport on the mainland. It’s a trip both bizarrely unreal and tremendously appealing.

Taxi to the Airport, Venice, April 2011