Venice the Menace

Cute title, but Venice was very nice. However that would make a boring title. I admit that, despite a maze of intricate alleys and dead ends, I felt absolutely safe in the city of Venice at all times. The people were reasonably friendly as well, regardless of the constant invasion of barbarian hordes from Germany, America, and especially Asia. Trying to be politically correct, it was somewhat disconcerting to see these huge groups of Japanese and Chinese tourists, often fifty or more at a time, march before a masterpiece, shoot one selfie, and leave en masse in less than ninety seconds to see the next breathtaking treasure - for another ninety seconds. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Then again, the point behind this trip was not to do all of Italy in one week, which usually means two days in Venice, two days in Florence, and three days in Rome. Being a curmudgeon as I advance in age, I usually want to skip any capitol city, finding them repositories of all the evil contained in that nation. That holds as true for Paris and London as for Rome or Washington DC. Unfortunately, that is often where they keep the best of their colonial booty; sometimes you need to visit just to see the good stuff that was stolen in previous generations.

So the wife and I set off for eight days just in Venice; we needed every moment to figure the place out. I grew up in the New York City. My sense of perspective was all wrong; I arrived ready to walk miles, when, in Venice, you only need to walk a fraction of that amount. The entire center city is a half mile by one mile. Yet due to all the canals and bridges, getting from one place to another could be incredibly frustrating. We managed to get lost twice in the first day, and that was with directions.

Venice can best be described as an intricate pocket watch; you find yourself walking around inside constantly curving open spaces. There are no shortcuts, very few straight lines, not to mention straight streets. Parts of the city, such as St. Mark's Square and the Rialto bridge, are incredibly crowded, even in November. I woke up on the second morning determined to be the one rat in this maze who was going to find the cheese.

Maps are plentiful but not terribly useful. Their streets are so short that you can't read the names. The only way to actually navigate was to go from church to church or campo to campo (campo being a small open space), locating these tiny dots on the maps. Google map was less than useless; watching your location move around the map while you are standing still doesn't help. Knowing where you are in relation to a few easy-to-find landmarks and the vaporetto stops is the only way not to become hopelessly lost.

As a city, Venice is a trip, completely foreign to American sensibilities. Not a car to be found, nothing but canals, all commerce moved on boats or by hand cart. Bridges everywhere, built long before the concept of handicap access. When my wife's knee gave out one afternoon, after a peaceful lunch on the outer canal, these realities became a threat. Fortunately, she rallied with the help of lot of pain relievers and a knee wrap, able the next day to carefully maneuver the city, getting better every morning.

Venice is the only major city in all of Italy that was not built on a Roman foundation, either structurally or politically. The Romans didn't bother with the big lagoon, nor did the Germanic and Hun hordes invading from the North. Remnants of the Roman populous went into the big marsh for protection; they received much more. From around 600 until 1798, nearly 1200 years, Venice was the major power in the area.

Venice is all about power, all of it emanating outwards. Not a castle of defensive fortification in sight. The political foundation of the city was strange, a sort-of democracy for the elite, kind of like Frank Herbert's 'Dune'. The Doge's Place is the mammoth seat of power right on the water where the Doge sat, not exactly ruling the city, since there were layers upon layers of bureaucracy keeping any one person from being in charge. But the common person didn't get a say in how things were run, and it was all very clannish.

Venice started out as part of the Eastern Roman empire, looking towards Constantinople more than to Rome. That can be seen most obviously in the architecture, which shows a great deal of Arabic and Moorish influence. Italy was a gaggle of city states back then, not a united country, and Venice was the most powerful of the time. It looked east, first to the seat of the Eastern Roman Empire, then in the time of Marco Polo towards India and China. It traded with everybody, even the Moslems, even during the Crusades.

It paid to have power; Venice was relatively safe for over a millennium, excepting plagues. The Eastern Orthodox Church imposed their iconography on the city, still easily seen today, but politically there was a great rivalry between Venice and Constantinople. Rome and the Vatican wasn't completely absent, but it was nearer the Renaissance for those influences to become dominant. Venice, despite being to the north, was the more colorful place, reflecting the palate of the East, as well as the geometry.

In fact, during the Fourth Crusade, for various reasons too obscure to go into here. the Venetian forces attacked Constantinople instead of Jerusalem, sacking it for three days in 1204, 250 years before the Moslems were able to breech the city. Venice was the major power in the Mediterranean, especially the more volatile Eastern half, at various times claiming Crete, Cypress and Corfu, as well as much of the coastal regions. The Moslems never got anywhere near Venice, instead trying to invade Europe either through Spain, half of which was held by the Moors for centuries, or through the Carpathian Mountains. It was up to El Cid or Vlad the Impaler to fight the Moslem hordes, not the Venetians.

Venice was - still is, for that matter - a gleefully commercial place. It is all about the money; they tolerate the invading tourists, simply fleecing them for the privilege of seeing their magnificent city. It is notoriously expensive, a fact that I will be able to attest to when the credit card bills arrive next month. But they are friendly enough, and the food was excellent, especially the seafood. Wine and coffee was plentiful and cheap, if you know how to order it standing up. They charge you extra for a seat.

I had an agenda for going to Venice, a trip sponsored by my wife. We had been spending all our vacation time and money for the last decade heading to warmer climates, usually Antigua. I was anxious to get to Europe, a place I had only visited once before. Specifically, I wanted to go to Venice to see the Tintoretto paintings. The really impressive ones are too big to move, Godzilla size canvases covering vast stretches of wall space. Even Napoleon couldn't loot them when he invaded in 1798. I will address my unending admiration for Tintoretto in another blog post; suffice to say, he dominates the city.

A thriving and very wealthy city for far longer than any other place in Europe EVER, Venice found itself in hard times after the French army looted the place to pay for Napoleon's aggressions. The gold leaf was literally stripped off most of the walls, any painting or jewel that could be carted away was seized. Lord Byron liked the place and lived there a few times, rhapsodizing about it effectively enough that the Brits felt compelled to build their own version of the Bridge of Sighs in Cambridge. Trust me, the original is less glamourous, a bridge between the Doge's Palace, the seat of power, and the prison next door, those still picturesque, photographed by thousands every day.

William Turner followed in Byron's footsteps, using Venice as a subject for countless oil and watercolor sketches. He always made the place look glamourous; by the time in the 1820s through the 1840s that he actually arrived there, it was a dingy place.

After Napoleon put the hurts to Venice, the Austrian Empire took over for half a century. Visconti made a great movie about the last days of the Austrian occupation, 'Senso', in 1954. It was remade by Venetian Tinto Brass as 'Senso 45', about the last days of the Nazi occupation. I prefer Brass' version, not only for the abundant sex and nudity, but because it returned Brass to tougher thematic territory after a decade of brainless T & A.

As Italy became a modern nation, industrialization became important. That wasn't a good thing for Venice; it is impractically surrounded and controlled by water. Of course, nothing is completely practical in Italy, one of the best things about the place. Venice wound up as a center for craftspeople; glass makers in Murano, lace makers in Burano, the finest velvet in all of the world. It's not enough, but fortunately there is also the constant tourism to keep the place afloat.

It is a wonderful place to visit, exceeding all my expectations in both sites and tastes. Although the city had flooded the week before we went, it dries out fast, only a few wet spots here and there. Black spaghetti, dyed with squid ink, as well as seafood lasagna were among the highlights. Even the street food, mostly pizza and panini, was really good. Finding a slightly off-the-beaten-track place to eat was easy, and the service was also great.

It is obvious to see why Venice has its reputation as a city for romance. It would be a blast to have a honeymoon there, except that I would have found it too interesting to spend much time in the boudoir. My new bride would have felt jealous of the place, and she would have been right. At night, walking between pools of light, or early in the morning, fog and mist making every alley seem mystical, it was a place of magic.

Mention must be made of the Venetian carnival masks; if I hadn't been on a tight budget, there would have been a dozen brought home. Carnival mask shops are all over the place like tee shirt places are in other cities. In truth, the carnival was mostly forgotten from Napoleon's conquest in 1798 until the city authorities brought it back in 1979. Seeing all the incredible masks, all hand decorated by literally thousands of artisans, gave off a creepy 'Eyes Wide Shut' vibe, but they were magnificent. If I ever get back there, some masks are coming home with me.

I got lucky; I really did go to see the Tintorettos, and they were celebrating his 500th anniversary. Maps showed thirty different locations around the city displaying his art. I went to nearly every one, a couple twice. They blew my mind. He painted the tallest canvas in Europe as well as the largest, two separate locations. The Madonna Dell 'Orto, Tintoretto's personal church near his house, where his tomb lays, was probably the best, simply because it was the most out-of-the-way. The paintings are massively overwhelming.

Eight days was a blessing but not nearly long enough. I'd love to get back, but I often say that after visiting someplace special. Venice stole my heart, as well as my wife's, who went there will lesser expectations. She's not quite the art history aficionado that I am, Yet, despite her serious injury, she too felt herself falling in love with the place. I sincerely hope that I do get back there, if for no other reason than I can actually get around the rather confusing place now.

Lastly, I made a brief tribute video of sorts, a music video using my version of the Door's 'Wishful Sinful' as a backdrop. The footage was shot last week, nothing special; I deliberately don't use the many wonderful canal images that I captured, instead mostly simple street scenes, some directly outside our hotel. There will be more music videos with Venice as a backdrop, but this one is my closer, if not my best musical performance. Venice, you stole my heart.