“Hey, you’ve been to Venice, right? What should I do when I get there?”
“Anything you want, just stay away from the tourists.”
Back in the spring when I began to look forward to the start of university, I realized that after my summer job ended there would be a gap of almost six full weeks before school was set to start. The extra money I would end up making over the summer coincided nicely with this gap period, and I resolved to make the most of it.
But what to do, exactly, with this free time? Since I was already heading to Europe for my exchange program, I decided it was high time to start an exploration of the continent so much of American culture seems to stem from. Because I didn’t want to accidentally blow too much cash before the academic year had even begun, I decided I would spend a single week in one of Europe’s more well-known cities, instead of scrambling around the countryside trying to cover as much ground as possible. So, the final question: which city would I choose? I created a list of some of the most clichéd destinations in Western Europe, and after much deliberation made my choice.
As it does with most people, Venice has attracted me for as long as I care to remember. For centuries it has ranked decisively amongst the top travel destinations in the world for obvious reasons; the virtues of Venice’s twisting alleys, vaunted history, and trademark canals have been extolled ad infinitum (ad nauseam). The postcard industry alone has likely made billions off the city whose images are some of the most widely circulated in contemporary western culture. So, after extensively researching flight and lodging options, I gathered every bit of excess cash I could spare and, one week before I was due in Manchester, set out for the City of Masks.
I arrived in Italy on a Thursday afternoon and found a place to sleep in Mestre, a large city that makes up part of Venice’s less famed mainland territory. For those who may be interested, Mestre offers both wickedly cheap accommodation and a railway station with several direct lines into the more historic and iconic heart of Venice. A one-way ticket from Mestre to Venice costs only €1.25, which becomes incredibly easy to scrape together out of the mounds of pocket change you’ll inevitably begin to gather.
After stuffing my bags under the bed and sleeping off the jet lag, I set out for my first morning in Venice proper. Arriving at about eight in the morning, I stepped fresh off the train, wended my way through masses of squabbling families and overloaded backpackers, and exited Venice’s sole train station, Santa Lucia.
Let it be known here and now that Venice knows what it’s about when it comes to first impressions.
View from St. Lucia: the Grand Canal feat. San Simeon Piccolo.
Newcomers to the city are greeted by three sights: the San Simeon Piccolo (one of Venice’s many large cathedrals), a terrific view of the Grand Canal, and immediate access to one of the only four bridges to span said canal, the Ponte degli Scalzi. Since hordes of slow-moving tourists seemed to be making a beeline towards this bridge, I swung a sharp left out of the train station and headed into the northernmost of the Venice’s six districts: Cannaregio. Cannaregio is, like the Kardashians and the state of Ohio, largely famous for not being famous. Stretching from the St. Lucia station to the Rialto Bridge (the halfway point of the Grand Canal), Cannaregio does not hold any notable basilicas, markets, statues, palaces, or any other attraction that camera-toting tourists are so magnetically drawn to. However, the district is the site of the first ever Jewish ghetto, which I suppose makes it an important stop for any roving historians that pass through the area.
Cannaregio also currently serves as home to almost one third of Venice’s 60,000 permanent residents, and is the largest residential district on the island. Making my way between the buildings and lagoon on the northernmost edge of the island, I found ample evidence of daily life: an alley crisscrossed with fully loaded clotheslines, a pair of bright orange, child-sized tricycles propped against a wall, and the sound of some poor soul being berated by a piano teacher from a second-story window. In fact, the Cannaregio district was so obviously home to so many people, and so clearly devoid of other tourists that I realized I was likely intruding upon the people living nearby, and vacated the area as soon as I could find a way out.
Laundry Day in the neighborhood.
Now, before I go further, let it be said, and said loudly with great conviction, that “finding a way” to anywhere from anywhere in Venice is impossible. Upon returning to St. Lucia’s train station, I purchased a detailed map of the city and, fancying myself quite the navigator, set out for the famous St. Mark’s Basilica located on the far side of the island. Because the Grand Canal begins at St. Lucia’s, curves in a backwards “S” across the island, and empties a few hundred yards from St. Mark’s, most tourists will simply purchase a vaporetto (water bus) ticket and cruise from one end of the canal to the other. Quick, cheap, and easy on the feet. I, being ignorant of the wisdom possessed by these travelling sages, held them all in sharp contempt. They were missing the “real” Venice! According to my map, there were about 2 kilometers between myself and the far side of the island, a distance that shouldn’t take more than forty-five minutes at most to cover. And who knows what I’d get to see? The map promised me scores of secret, deserted side alleys and tiny canals with quaint little bridges to cross over on my way to St. Mark’s. Images of tiny, artisan bake shops and tiny old Italian women with big smiles danced in my head and tempted me forward. Delighted with the prospect of such a pleasant stroll ahead of me, I set off into the labyrinth that some idiot decided to call a city.
An hour and a half into my journey, I was thoroughly lost and would’ve given my left hand for a goddamn boat and paddle. The map was useless. Nine out of ten street signs had been chipped away or had eroded over time, and the map turned out to only be partially correct in the placement of those streets whose names were still identifiable. Every random turn led to either another dim alley or straight into a channel of sluggish canal water. The red brick walls, made rough by centuries of flood and erosion, towered above me like the walls of an artificial canyon. At times, there were only the tiniest slivers of daylight to give me solace in this underworld so full of shadows and crude, illegible graffiti. Miniature public squares dotted with cafes would occasionally appear like oases before me and then sink back into the depths of the city as soon as I had rounded the next corner. Passing through these squares was always especially tense, as many of the eateries were haunted by old, hawk-like Italian men who clearly viewed me as potential prey for their overpriced wine menus and authentic (read: microwaved) Italian pasta.
Looking up.
After either days or weeks, God only knows, I crawled out of an alley on Venice’s southeastern peninsula à la Shawshank Redemption. Pausing on the broad, sun-drenched cobblestone path between the buildings and lagoon, I took a moment to find water and to liberally curse the cartographer stupid enough to believe in a navigable map of Venice. The man was either a sadist, or a fool. Possibly both.
Once I had gathered my wits and reassured myself that, yes, the era of Man continued and that human beings still walked the earth, I took stock of my surroundings and noticed that I was within sight of what is perhaps the third or fourth most iconographic structure in all of Venice: the Basilica of Saint Maria of Salute. The Basilica of St. Maria was built as a sign of thanks after, in 1630, a strain of plague wiped out nearly a third of the city’s population (which, considering the proximity of residences, probably is something of a miracle).
Postcard perfect? St. Maria’s Basilica.
Those familiar with the geography of Venice will know that, once across the Grand Canal, St. Mark’s Basilica and the equally famous square it occupies are just a short ten minute walk north of St. Maria’s. Those unfamiliar with the geography of Venice have just been made aware of this particular facet of the city’s layout. Ta-daa!
Like Venice itself, there isn’t much to say about St. Mark’s Square or Basilica that hasn’t been said already. The basilica was large and impressive, and the square was definitely worthy of its many glowing descriptions (even if it did seem more rectangle-ish to my untrained eye). However, truth be told, I didn’t go into the basilica. In fact, I only stayed in the actual square long enough to eat a cup of gelato and stare awe-struck at more pigeons than I’ve ever seen in my short, short life. Now, I’m sure that any fellow travelers reading this probably just groaned aloud and may or may not be disgusted at my lack of enthusiasm for one of the most significant pieces of Venetian culture and history. To them I say: Sue me. I don’t care. Take your judgemental-ness and high horse elsewhere, you’re in my way.
While actually saying it out loud verges on sacrilegious for the devout traveler, the fact is that I can read about the history of St. Mark’s on Wikipedia and take a virtual tour of its interior any day of the week. When actually standing in front of the building and contemplating the three hour wait to get inside, I realized that to me, this was just another beautiful building in a city rife with its ilk. For people of Italian/Venetian heritage, or for someone who is in some other way deeply linked to the building, a trip to St. Mark’s Basilica is probably a profound and moving experience. I don’t see how it couldn’t be. But for me, a mere passerby with no special connection to the building, the basilica is, for all its fame, just another church.
Philosophy time.
To truly appreciate a place, there has to be a driving force behind your journey. If you aren’t traveling for the sake of travel, then the destination must be worth the trip you make. If there isn’t anything to link us as travelers to the places we visit, what’s the point in being there? Just to see it? What does that accomplish? Is there anything I would have gained out of inspecting the inside of St. Mark’s? Doubtless I would’ve learned something more about its historical significance and gotten some killer pictures to boot, but widely accessible information and touristy photographs aren’t why I chose Venice as my destination for this trip. I chose Venice because I was curious what daily life looked like in this unique city, and that goal would not be satisfied while wasting several hours inside a single, over-occupied building. That goal would only be satisfied by staying on the move and taking in as much of the city as I could in the short time I was there. Thus, after saying a quick hello and goodbye to St. Mark’s, I turned my back and slunk once more back into Venice’s convoluted embrace.
Over the next several days I crisscrossed the island and became a veritable sponge for all I saw and heard. I noticed that a surprising amount of Venetians are dog owners, and that it’s extremely rare for anyone to leash his or her canine. I saw teenagers hotshotting through canals on flashy speedboats, throwing large wakes against walls and reminding me of the kids who did doughnuts in the high school parking lot after school. I tried a glass of Prosecco, one of Northern Italy’s signature vintages, and was caught off guard by the way it passed sweetly over my tongue before angrily burning the back of my throat. I tried a traditional Venetian dish consisting of cuttlefish that had been stewed in its own ink and managed to choke it all down without offending my waitress or the chef. I discovered that, because of the density and positioning of the city’s buildings, twenty steps can take you from a market full of fishmongers and customers bickering over the day’s catch to an alley so intensely quiet that each breath you take sounds like a sin against the universe. I rode vaporetti up and down the Grand Canal and stared wide-eyed at the opulent palaces that are a legacy to the expansive merchant-based empire Venice once controlled. I saw a local couple walk into an espresso bar and noticed how the barista dropped everything and ignored several tourists to see that his regulars were well provided for. On my last afternoon I witnessed the Regatta Storica, a massive event featuring races and a parade up the Grand Canal that first took place when the Queen of Cyprus surrendered to Venice in the 14th century – her surrender became the first conquest of the budding Venetian empire and is regarded as the beginning of Venice’s era of power.
Champion’s Race segment of the Regatta Storica on the Grand Canal.
As my airplane departed and the lagoon dropped away and out of view, I had time to reflect. Venice was the first city I have ever visited on my own, and for that I’m thankful. Exploring Venice is about small triumphs and discovery – the endless number of directional choices alone means that one’s curiosity can only be fully sated by following a unique, individual path. Realizing that all those turns you took actually did lead you back to a certain gelato shop, or knowing that your whimsical decision to go right instead of left led you to a courtyard with the coolest view of the Grand Canal is one of the most fulfilling emotions in the emotional spectrum. This experience showed me that, while traveling solo has its downsides (being given a table in the furthest, most dimly lit corner of a restaurant, for instance), it’s also rewarding in a way that traveling with companions can never be. Puzzling out the timetables of a European rail system and figuring out how to work the ticket dispenser for the first time led to an immense sense of satisfaction and did wonders for my initially shaky confidence. Later on, making the decision to hop a train sans ticket after missing my first ride, and then avoiding the conductor and the accompanying €30 fine was proof to me that yes, I can survive on my own. I can even cheat the system for a free ride, just like a real Italian! Among other things, I bargained for lodging with a woman with whom the only linguistic ground I shared was broken Spanish, and befriended a kebab vendor from Pakistan winning a free meal in the process.
About to spend an entire year in a place that isn’t home, this trip was exactly what I needed to know that regardless of what happens in the coming months, I’ll be just fine.
A Wanderer In Training 