Venice seems to me, a city of contrasts. A fabulously old place that the sea is fighting to reclaim and Venetians are refusing to let sink. How could they? There is so much invested. I overheard a young person say that it reminds her of Las Vegas, in a foreign language. Except that this is the real thing. The city holds you and releases you as it pleases. We were constantly and happily lost but always found our way out of the maze, never using a map. The waterbuses move you through the canals, once you are walking in the narrow passageways, you become part of the moving sea of people, all capturing images of mostly each other as they walk or ride gondolas. I long for a Venice without the people.
I wake at 4:33 am hoping for a different experience. I catch the first Vaporetto (water buses are for the masses, the chic use only water taxis) to discover a damp, dark, sleepy city. Boats are piled high with bales of newspapers, water rats cleaning the streets, and workers are preparing to feed, house, and transport the waking masses.
Waterborne transportation issues are causing deep divides in the narrow canals. No Grande Navi is a fight to ban the cruise ships from the Lagoon. The argument is tonnage has no place in Venice. Imagine a Godzilla sized ship surrounded by gondolas that are barely two feet out of the water. It is a David & Goliath story. The cruise ships stir up the mud, deepen the lagoon, which loosens the very foundations that these ancient buildings need to keep them from crumbling into the Canals. They say “we have enough tourists in Venice. We don’t need more” (especially since the cruise taxes are sent to Rome) For hundreds of years the Venetians have wanted to be their own city-state. More than the Adriatic separate these two cities. Venice precious and precarious.
Venice Italy September 23rd 2014