OCTOBER 2013
Eighteenth century upper class twits may have included Venice in their coming-of-age Grand Tour itinerary, but it took me to the ripe old age of 45 to get there. So armed with Jan Morris’ Venice and John Berendt’s City Of Falling Angels, it was time to get us some Renaissance culture.
The Alilaguna boat over to the city is somewhat functional rather than grand. But as it crosses the lagoon then sweeps into the Grand Canal the Venice that we’ve seen on cinema and television is laid out in front of us. The grand palazzos dipping their majestic toes into the green waters. The jumble of red roofs punctuated by basilicas and church steeples. And water everywhere. From the arterial Grand Canal to the myriad canals beckoning you to follow them with the promise of unlocking Venice’s ancient secrets. La serenissima.
No sooner had we deposited our bags at the hotel in San Marco, than we set out to explore our surroundings, which quickly revealed Venice to be rather compact. After only a few minutes we’d seen innumerable canals, statues, squares, palazzos, gondolas and gondoliers, shops, trattorias and osterias, stumbled across La Fenice Opera House and inadvertently found ourselves in St Mark’s Square. So that’s Venice done then eh?
Obviously not, and the following morning began our exploration of Venice not with the main tourist sights but instead with a ramble around the San Polo district. Mind you, you can’t go far in Venice without a significant sight and getting to San Polo involves crossing the famous Rialto Bridge, with its famous arch, balustrades and shops.
You also can’t go far in Venice without encountering some art. Before we’d even reached the Rialto, we stumbled upon a display of modern art in the Palazzo Bembo, part of the much vaunted Arts Biennale. Aside from seeing the inside of a stunning palazzo, the art itself was very modern and pretty damned awesome. An installation of a grandmother clutching a young baby was so lifelike it was disconcerting to touch. At no point did I ever stop thinking she would turn and scowl at me. Gives me goose-bumps even now just to think of it.
Crossing over to San Polo, we spent an hour in a small osteria drinking coffee, feasting on pastries, and marvelling at how the Italians seem to have a glass of wine on the go at all times of day – and naturally enjoy partaking in such custom.
Without any planning whatsoever we stumbled into the 15th century Chiesa di San Polo, the walls of which are adorned with canvasses by Tintoretto, Piazza, Guarana, Veronese, il Giovane and Tiepolo – none of which meant anything at all to me but Venice seems to be all about fine art so I thought I’d better chuck in a reference or two. It seemed a little incongruous that this relatively unremarkable church should be host to such presumably priceless masterpieces. Maybe they’re worthless but there seemed to be sod all security. I resisted the temptation to find out.
A short walk further on is the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, usually (and thankfully) known as i Frari. It is described as one of the greatest churches in the city with the status of a minor basilica – whatever that means. And their collection of art is even more impressive, including Bellini’s Madonna with Child, Longhena’s Doge Pesaro, and Titian’s 1518 Assumption – the latter of which sends the art history graduate who wrote the Lonely Planet into raptures. Admittedly it’s quite moving, but I’m probably only saying that because other people have told me it should be. Give me some Pop-Art any day.
And that more or less concluded our art history exploration of San Polo. Eschewing the over-priced and over-cheesy gondola tourist trap, a traghetto – the poor man’s gondola – took us back across the Grand Canal to San Marco for the princely sum of €2. The late afternoon light caught the palazzos on the west side of the canal in a stunning golden glow.
Maybe we were unlucky or maybe we were ill-informed but dining in Venice proved to be a tricky affair, largely being over-priced and disappointing. Throughout the day we’d pass countless authentic osteria and trattoria in San Polo, but come evening time in San Marco it was a different matter. One ‘highly recommended’ restaurant was abandoned as it stank of fish. Not in a wholesome fresh catch-of-the-day-type way, but in a rotten left-out-of-the-freezer-two-days-ago-type way.
And pubs aren’t ten-a-penny either. We ended up stalking a group of young folk until they unknowingly led us to a couple of cafés, one of which was sufficiently pub-like to earn our custom, and notably lesbian in its orientation.
The following morning was a super-sunny day in Venice, so it was big-tourist-site-day; St Mark’s and everything in the vicinity. As we arrived in St Mark’s Square (which seemed to be sponsored by IWC watches judging from all the advertising hoardings) an American tourist dropped to his knees in front of his girlfriend and proposed. Very romantic I suppose but having such a private moment applauded and photographed by other tourists must have diminished the romance somewhat. So just as my good lady the was about to say “don’t you dare”, I dropped to my knees…
And did up me shoelaces. Visiting the free-to-enter St. Mark’s Basilica requires joining a queue for a wee while, but it would be worth waiting days, if not weeks. It is absolutely magnificent. The Byzantine exterior with its five domes is splendid enough but the real beauty lies inside. Even with the throng of tourists it feels still and quiet. It is beautifully lit to highlight the gold glass tesserae in the mosaics which cover every inch of the interior. And the sheer size and scale of it is staggering…over 4,000 square meters of mosaics. Quite breath-taking.
Also breath-taking, albeit in a different way, would be the Campanile, the Bell Tower, except that it has a lift. 100 metres tall, it is of rather simple, square, red-brick design, but the views from the top are stunning. It’d take too long to list all the landmarks you can see from here (in other words, I don’t know what they all are), but the views over the tiled rooftops of the city, and the islands of the lagoon, are spectacular. I could have stayed there for hours.
We had a gander at the Ducal Palace, but for some inexplicable reason opted against going in. Then the melancholic Bridge of Sighs, which fatefully connects the interrogation rooms of Doge’s Palace to the prison cells. And then followed the Riva Degli Shiavoni, all the way along the waterfront to the Arsenal. Whereupon we got lost. Cutting back into the backstreets of Castello, a few too many left turns left us back on the very same waterfront. Try again. Cut back into the backstreets of Castello, and kept wandering in roughly the right direction until we were back in San Marco. By this time me new boat shoes were giving me blisters and a soak in a hot bath was required.
But sore feet or no sore feet, you can’t lie in a bath indoors when there is still a Venice out there to explore. And we had tickets for the 5.30pm Sightseeing Tour of the Grand Canal. Arrived at the allocated spot only to told that there is no 5.30pm Sightseeing Tour of the Grand Canal, and there hasn’t been for some time. The last one is at 4pm. So why did the unscrupulous travel agent sell us a ticket for it? Go back to the unscrupulous travel agent for a refund, an apology and an explanation. Managed to get the refund, a half-hearted apology, and a shrug of the shoulders. They honestly didn’t seem to give a toss.
Strolling up towards the Rialto Bridge in search of somewhere for dinner one evening, we encountered the Scuola Grande di San Teodoro theatre, which had a Baroque and Opera performance this evening for €25, and thought, why not? When in Rome…
It could be crap, but I’d rather take a punt on a €25 performance than pay top end for La Fenice only to find it insufferable. Not being an opera buff – for me Nessun Dorma is synonymous only with Italia 90 and Gazza’s tears – I’d no idea what we were seeing, but the program included selections from a number of different operas; a greatest hits of opera if you like. The performers were all in period costume, the setting quite grand, and the seating almost full.
And whilst I still don’t think I’ll be paying top end for La Fenice or La Scala, it was quite enjoyable. Not long enough to become painful, and not stuffy in the way you might expect – the performers actually hammed it up for the audience. It’d probably be heresy to make a comparison to pantomime, so I shan’t (but I probably just have). Better than expected and definitely worth the effort given that we are in Venice after all.
We actually made a second visit to the same theatre, for a performance of the Venetian-born Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Now I’m no connoisseur of classical music, and some dude did give a lusty “Bravo!” at the end, but to be honest, it was a little boring. There may just be photo of me with my eyes closed, and whilst I’d claim to be appreciating the virtuosity of the performance, I was, in truth, nodding off. There’s only so much high brow culture a boy from the North East can take.
Street culture is more our vibe so the next day kicked off with a visit to the Rialto Mercanti, a food market full of fruit and veg and fresh fish, and where even the fishmongers are on the vino before noon. Oh, go on then…
We then retraced the route that we took through San Polo a day or so earlier, but continued on into the Dorsoduro sestieri, past a university, the gorgeous Campo San Barnaba, and on to the Gallerie Dell Accademia. Then on to Santa Maria Della Salute, the name of which may be less familiar than its appearance – featuring as it does in so many photos of the Grand Canal. Under normal circumstances the church interior would be impressive, but when you’ve just been to St. Marks…
After a wee bask in the sun and a squint across the water at the island of Giudecca, it was beer o’clock so it was back across Dorsoduro, to find a local boozer for an afternoon snifter, then a traghetto once again to San Marco. Back in our favourite lesbian hang-out, and a better dining option appears to be cicheti (Venetian tapas), generously laid out by bars during happy hour.
For all its beauty, Venice seems to be caught between the dichotomy of preserving its traditional way of life for its local residents and the tourist dollar on which it depends. From the travel agent who sold me a ticket for something that didn’t exist to the exasperated cashier in the train station who insisted I “Speak Italian”, the Venetians are not the friendliest of souls. Maybe it’s a consequence of surrendering your exquisite home to tourists – and it is said that there are days when visitors outnumber locals two-to-one – but without the tourist dollar, the city would probably have sunk into its lagoon long ago.
But these are minor grumbles. The architecture is truly breath-taking, the ubiquitous presence of water both soothing and exhilarating at the same time, and the culture refined, to say the least. You begin to run out of superlatives. Venice has been ranked many times as the most beautiful city in the world, and it would take a better travelled man than I to disagree.