Redentore Preserved (Services Cut)

Tables, flags, and paper lanterns just after noon today on Riva degli Schiavoni

The threats to cancel La Festa del Redentore due to lack of city funds seem to have been political posturing after all, as the whole shebang is taking place this weekend as usual. Of course the headlines of all today's local papers are all about cuts to Venice's nursery schools, public services, and garbage collection. Is this, one wonders, where the funds needed for Redentore were "discovered"? Well, at least we Venice residents have been left (for the time being) with what my physician here likes to describe bitterly as our "half a hospital."

In any case, preparations for this evening's dinner and celebrations and fireworks began before noon today with tables being set up, or places claimed for tables yet to come, along watersides all around the city. There are new regulations this year governing which kinds of boats can anchor where around the basin of San Marco; though, of course, last July it was on land, in Piazza San Marco, not on the water, that things got out of control.

As I type this with my window open I can already hear the insistent disco thump of a party boat on the lagoon. 

Here's hoping for a safe and sane Redentore this year.