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photo credit: Jen
Is it proper to walk upon this pier in Cavallino Treporti on February 26? Probably not. |
This last example is one of the first (of countless) beach rules one learns when one starts to go to the Lido during the summer with Venetians. But yesterday Jen learned another.
It was a mild sunny day and Jen and Sandro spent much of it on Lido. Sandro met a girl of his own age there and they played together for quite a while. She was there with her grandfather, a friendly man, and good with kids, as many older Italian men seem to be. But he looked a little less conventional than the average Italian grandfather, Jen said. His gray hair was long, he wore camouflage pants and a black T-shirt, he smoked cigarettes. He looked a bit like a very tidy biker, a bit like a sculptor. He pointed out sea gulls to his grand-daughter and Sandro. He looked on pleasantly as they ran around and played in the sand with sticks, but when his grand-daughter began to dig in the sand with the plastic beach shovel Sandro had brought he gently took it away from her, telling her in Italian that it was not the right season for sand shovels and buckets.
Inevitably, in the course of their play she succumbed a few more times to the temptation to use the shovel and each time he took it away from her again and calmly explained once more that it was not yet time to use such things. It's only February, after all. He held up a hand to her and counted off on his fingers the number of months until the proper time will arrive: one, two, three. Late May or the beginning of June, depending on how you want to calculate it. Then, and only then, will it be time to use sand shovels at the beach. At least according to Venetian rules.
Will we ever live long enough to absorb all of the written and unwritten rules/regulations/laws in Italy? I will certainly tuck this new one away, and try to restrain my sand digging with anything but sticks, until the correct time. One never knows ...
ReplyDeleteNow, the 3 hours before swimming one. How in heck did that come into being? I wouldn't care to be the one to suggest a controlled experiment to test the validity, though!
A short answer to your first question: No. Life spans will have to be extended greatly for any hope of that.
DeleteTo your second, the threat is fatal congestione. Like so many popular Italian notions of health the issue centers upon the belly. I quote, as best I can, how it was once explained to me: After one has eaten, all of one's blood goes to the belly to aid digestion. If one enters the sea prior to 3 hrs after eating, the cold water is a shock to the system and abruptly & disastrously draws the blood to the extremities, leaving one susceptible to heart attack. Or something like that. I have been assured that there are articles on this written by prominent medical authorities. In Italian, of course.
You may be interested to learn, however, that I have met one Australian who subscribes to these notions. She has been married to a Venetian for many years.
The conventional wisdom I grew up with was to wait 1 hour after eating before swimming..... 3 hours for hot children on a beach in Australia would cause riots!
ReplyDelete1 hour is also what I grew up with in California. The way Venetians avoid bambini riots is, you may not be surprised to learn, through mandating certain customary activities that one always does after lunch.
DeleteThe most prominent of these is what is called either "mercantini" or, more often, "baby market" (the English is used). It's kind of like an impromptu bazaar, putting Venetian kids back in touch with their commercial past, in which each kid lays out a blanket upon which he arranges--always very carefully, as these are Italian kids we're talking about--used toys of his or hers that she or he would like to sell. This is usually done in the shade of trees along the sidewalk that runs the length of the beach, not too far from the road. You can usually find good bargains. But not always.
I am just now discovering your blog...and (as I leave Venice one more time and thus, seem so much MORE attuned to the world of Venezia in so many aspects) the rhythm of your tales and where your eye turns to see them to tell just makes me smile and smile and think of a morning walk as the Venetian world wakes up. I know these are not comments specifically to this days musing but it has just struck me, w/ this day's musing how much I find this so.
ReplyDeleteGrazie mille
Thank you so much for your very kind remarks, I'm happy you've enjoyed what you've read. As you know, there's so much to see here, and so much of it so compelling that I'm always worried that I'm not able to really get it, or describe it as it deserves. So it's nice to know that what I've written at least evokes for you a Venice you know for yourself, even if you aren't able to be here at the moment.
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