Rio Terá dei Nomboli

20 September 2020

Lost and Found and Lost, or, Good-bye to Venice's "Secret Routes"

Will we remember simply the map on our screen and notice little beyond it? (17 July 2024)

It used to be that most maps of Venice, both the old paper ones and the early ones offered on screens, left much of the city uncharted or inaccurately depicted. And if you were a resident of Venice, as I was for nearly 11 years, this was a very good thing.

For the limitations of those maps left inviolate the obscure alternate routes used by residents to avoid the tourist throngs on the city's main thoroughfares, allowing a resident to zip from, say, Piazza San Marco to the Rialto Bridge, or from the Rialto Market to Campo San Polo, along a series of narrow calli rarely penetrated by either the sun or, thankfully, tourists. The only people I used to see on such routes were other residents hurrying along on their errands.

Last summer, however, I discovered that this is no longer the case.

The "secret" resident routes that played no small part in assuring that a certain minimal quality of life persisted just beyond the reaches of mass tourism have now been mapped and the days of breezing through those once obscure calli are over. Time and again I'd turn and corner and find myself completely blocked by tourists no less lost than they ever were, but now being directed by a computer voice, their eyes glued to their screens, in places I'd never seen them before. 

No need to go into how happy it made me to find that every last millimeter of the city has now been made accessible to tourists--the vast majority of whom are just in town for a few hours and contribute almost nothing to local businesses. After all, this has always been the city's non-resident mayor's chief aim--and it doesn't stop in the city itself. His goal is to turn the entire lagoon into one vast amusement park, constantly traversed by a variety of "rides"--one for every possible taste.

But what about those using the apps to get around the historic center? I wondered about what would be the effect on their experience of Venice, and on their memories of it. 

Tourists have long been advised by those who offer advice on such matters that the best way to enjoy Venice is to "Get lost!" Forget about maps and just see where you end up. 

This was probably helpful advice in the days of paper maps and I suspect it might be even better advice in our new age of apps. For I doubt that many people used to use paper maps as a daily part of their regular lives back home, so to do so in Venice already set the experience apart from the ordinary, might even have given it a bit of a treasure hunt feel. 

But cell phones have become a constant presence in most people's lives. A widely-reported study back in 2016 claimed the average cell phone user touched their phones 2,600 times per day(!) and there's no reason to think that number has declined in the past 8 years as more and more aspects of daily life, work, school, health care, etc demand one use a cell phone to receive/access information. 

So what do we lose when we depend once more on our all-too-familiar little device to literally direct us around Venice? What do we actually see, how much can we take in, what will we remember? 

The experience of Venice (of anyplace, really, but especially Venice) is a full body one: it offers unfamiliar experiences to all of one's five senses, not just one's eyes. (Which, if you'll allow me to plug my children's picture book published by Abrams, is one of the main themes of Ciao, Sandro!) 

You don't, for example, get the feel of the city just through your hands but through your feet (eg, while walking the uneven, I'm tempted to say gently billowing floor of the Basilica of San Marco). 

The map apps, like so many if not all apps, reduce us largely however to a disembodied brain. 

I doubt that this is a good thing in ordinary life, but I can assure you this is a very bad thing in Venice. 

 

A Study in Skepticism

4 June 2019

Rio & Laundry in Late Afternoon Autumn Light

24 October 2018

Daily News, Via Garibaldi

13 November 2013

Traghetto in the Fog

11 October 2017

Somewhere in Venice (Rio de San Zanirovo)

16 October 2015 (And as the title suggests, I don't recall at the moment where I took this)

 

Fascism Obliterated (and Reborn)

St. Mark's lion and his open book on one side of the flag pole base in Campo San Polo.

As America's Republican Party has now gone fully fascistic in his embrace of eugenics, scapegoating of ethnic minorities, threats of violence, promises of retribution and imprisonment of political opponents and all those it declares its enemies, censorship, and relentless dissemination of known lies (both big and small), it seemed like a good time to share something a friend of mine pointed to me out about the recessed blank circles you can find carved around Venice and always paired paired with a second circle of the same size with a relief of St Mark's symbol inside it. 

Sometimes, as in the example below, the surface within the circle will have been ground smooth. Other times the surface within the circle will be rough, showing clear evidence of something having been chipped off.

In either case, what was once carved into the stone, and what was subsequently obliterated, was the fascio (or bundle of rods) symbol of the Fascist Party, my friend told told me. As such these now-empty circles, along with the pietre d'inciampo or brass "stumbling stones" set into the pavement before the doors of those Jewish Venetians whom the Nazis deported and murdered, serve as reminders of one of the darkest periods of Venetian and European history. They are very easy to miss, but worth keeping an eye out for, as a reminder that Venice is not merely a theme park, or a touristic or aesthetic fantasy land. As a reminder, too, of the vigilance needed to forestall the recurrence of such criminal parties and the violence they inevitably commit against humanity. 

A vigilance, however, that seems to be largely lacking in both America and Italy these days, where both Trump's fascists and Meloni's neo-fascists threaten to reawaken the kind of horrors that World War II was supposedly fought to vanquish.

The other side of the flag pole base, in which the fascio (or bundle of rods) symbol of the Fascist Party has been obliterated (both images from 2 August 2024).

Life's a Beach, They Used to Say (Though Venice Is Not)

With autumn now full upon us I find myself longing for summer, even its dog days, like the one on which this couple with dog were photographed (17 July 2024)

Ending on a High Note

As the gondolier approaches the end of his route in Bacino Orseolo the hired singer in the front of the gondola hits his final note while playing to passersby on the fondamenta (17 July 2024)

A Delicate Balance, or, Fall Equinox Celebration in Front of Church of San Giovanni in Bragora

21 September 2013

 

Gondola Bacino Orseolo

3 August 2024

From the Top Floor of the Procuratie Vecchie

3 August 2024

Calle de la Chiesa

23 July 2024

Hidden Courtyard

If ever I imagine I've seen, at least in passing, all there is to see of Venice, there's always a calle I stumble upon that leads to someplace, like the above, that proves me wrong (and this one just a stone's throw from Campo San Polo). 17 July 2024

Not Quite Plumb

2 August 2024

Figures On Canvas and Off, Galleria dell'Accademia

20 July 2024

Light and Shadow, Basilica Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari

Taken while easing into the city after a trans-atlantic ovenight flight: watching afternoon sunlight pass steadily over the long-immobile figures and false firmament of the 14th century Monumento ad Arnoldo d'Este (16 July 2024)

Chiesa della Santa Selfie, or, Church of the Holy Selfie

23 July 2024

Viewed from afar within the vast space of the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo the object looked liked a  rectangular wood dining room table suitable for a party of eight, its top surface tilted at a 45 degree angle in the direction of the church's stained glass window. Only when I got closer could I see that it was actually a wood-framed mirror, mobile and adjustable like a larger version of the full-length mirrors people use to look at home to check their outfits.

This mirror hadn't been in the church when we moved from Venice years ago, and at first I thought it must have been put there for a similar reason that square-framed hand-held mirrors are available in the Great Hall of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco: so that one admire one of the feature's of the place without straining one's neck. In the case of San Rocco it's the refection of the ornate ceiling high overhead that you study in the mirror (if you're not snorting a line off it, as Geoff Dyer's protagonist does in Jeff in Venice); in Giovanni and Paolo I assumed it would be the stained glass window.

But I quickly realized there was no advantage to looking at the mirror's reflection, as I could easily study the window straight-on with no undue strain on my neck or eyes.

Then I noticed the blue label in one corner of the mirror--just like the one you see above (though that one is reflecting a ceiling painting by Veronese in a side chapel)--and noted how the height of the mirror was such that I could readily position myself before it to take, yes, the perfect selfie. 

Me--nearly all of me!--centered and foregrounded against a brilliant colorful background of stained glass, its sacred subjects reduced to compositional elements and a filtered backlighting that really popped!

But I didn't take that shot. Nor one in the mirror captured above that offered me the chance to appear in a celestial scene with Mary Herself. 

Instead I found myself wondering about a lot of things that I won't bore you with here. If you haven't been in the church yourself lately the news of these selfie mirrors might make you wonder some things of your own. I didn't see them in other churches, but, then, I didn't go into many other churches last month. Perhaps they're in a lot of churches now. 

It was one of the stranger differences I encountered in this new old Venice I returned to after being away for three years--a Venice that had been my family's home for over a decade but wasn't/isn't anymore. Perhaps I can get to some of the other differences soon.  

Across the Giudecca Canal on the Temporary Redentore Bridge

21 July 2024

Scuola Grande di San Rocco (Rear Portico Facade)

5 August 2024

Punta della Dogana (at the Start of a Hot Day)

19 July 2024

Light, Dark, and Spritz (Yesterday)

What's New on Sant'Erasmo

Ristogastronomia La Baracca is the name of a very new restaurant on the island of Sant'Erasmo in the north lagoon, at which we ate on one of our first nights back in Venice in mid-July. I thought their fritto misto was excellent, and, as you can see from the image below, one need not know any Italian to recognize that that's no ordinary hamburger patty in their Panino di Polpo.

Much more information on the new dining establishment and the larger project of which it is a part can be found here.

Panino di Polpo

Lido Mise en Abyme (Last Week)

Men At Work, With View (Last Week)

Late Afternoon Light, Stairway of Ca' Rezzonico

This has always been one of my favorite interior spaces in which to find myself in the late afternoon: this image is from just a couple of days ago. But Ca' Rezzonico is always worth a visit, even at a time like this, when it features an exhibition by one of the most consistently awful artists regularly shown (and even celebrated!) in Venice over the last 15 years or so. That's a topic for a later discussion, when I return back to the US, but my gosh, this particular artist might be a wonderful human being, with many admirable qualities (besides having a very famous father), but what always strikes me--even staggers me (sometimes with actual laughter)--is how his work is inevitably and irredeemably unimaginative and vapid--regardless of scale or materials used. I suppose this might be considered something of an achievement in itself: such persistent and indefatigable (though self-important) dullness. He doesn't so much seem to come up with an idea as simply stub his toe against one or another well-worn and widely-and-cheaply-available commodity, as a near-sighted person would bump into one or another mass-produced item in a dimly-lit warehouse packed with Ikea furniture. 

SS Giovanni e Paolo, Today

 

La Capitana, Ieri Sera (San Toma)

If one must wait for public transportation, is there any better place to do it than on the Grand Canal (when it's not crowded with others waiting, that is)?

 

Campo Sant'Agnese, This Morning

Chiaroscuro: Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, This Afternoon

We're back in Venice for the first time since we moved (regrettably) almost exactly 3 years ago today, after having lived here full-time for nearly 11. Operating on very little sleep, but wanted to post something. More to follow.

Venice in July

9 July 2017

Camogli, Liguria

I always enjoy the 4th of July holiday best when I am far outside of the US when it occurs, as I was 9 years ago when this image was taken. (5 July 2015)

Chiaroscuro: San Fruttuoso, Liguria

I think I've posted a slightly different version of this image years ago, but the scene continues to remind me a little of Caravaggio, a little of Rembrandt, though it's simply a family of bathers escaping the heat beneath the Abbey of San Fruttuoso. (5 July 2015)

Sunset Row, Grand Canal

22 June 2020

Evening Clouds Over the Grand Canal

22 June 2020

Two on the Fantail

I've posted this image before, but I like these two, relaxing 11 years ago today in the rear seating area of a number 1 line vaporetto down the Grand Canal. (19 June 2013)

Towed Homeward Toward a New Life

Our friend's larger heavier sanpierota tows our new boat homeward yesterday evening, with our six-year-old son (barely visible behind the 9.9 hp engine) driving. (11 July 2014)

NOTE: I came upon the above image today and didn't remember if I'd ever posted it before. It turns out that I had, almost exactly a decade ago, and I re-post below the original text I put up with it back then.

Our neighbor, a native Venetian, saw me on the street last week and greeted me with a smile and a handshake and congratulations, saying "It will change your life." From his manner he could have been responding to the news that we were expecting a second child but, in fact, he'd heard that we'd agreed to buy a boat.

Jen and I had been thinking about it for at least two years, as I've written about here before, and almost exclusively in terms of what we'd been told was the most practical and inexpensive of boats to buy: a cofano. A cofano is usually about 5 meters long, usually made of fiberglass (which requires much less maintenance than wood), and there's no shortage of used ones around for sale at reasonable prices.

And yet after all those months of envisioning our practical fiberglass cofano, it is a wood sanpierota that we ended up buying yesterday and towing from a sailing club in Mestre, where its very kind owner had used it, to Venice proper. A sanpierota is also a traditional Venetian craft, but unlike the typical contemporary fiberglass cofano, it can be rowed or used with a sail--rather than just an outboard motor. Ours measures 5.8 meters in length, and is made of compensato marino (or plywood), which means it's very light. It came with a pair of forcole (oarlocks) and remi (oars), which we do know how to use, and a sail, which we do not (yet). A 6 horsepower engine will be arriving for it next week, which is plenty large for such a light boat.

Of course there is nothing very practical in general about living in Venice--not in the opinion of many visitors, at least a couple of whom have told me outright that it strikes them as simply the most impossible inconvenient place they've ever seen. Perhaps this was an argument in favor the more practical choice of a cofano, and yet it was the possibility of rowing and sailing the boat that made it impossible for Jen and I to resist, regardless of any other considerations. For the way we hope to use the boat, only a sanpierota would do.

But I'm afraid I don't even have the time to shape this post into any final form, there's still much to do with the boat--tonight--the details of which I'll spare you. Instead I'll close with something I jotted down in a notebook in April as I watched, as I like to do, boats returning from a day out on the lagoon, something I'm sure contributed largely to my sense that the sanpierota is what we wanted:

"... a group of no fewer than ten people, of all different ages, in a beautifully-painted (red and white) large old underpowered wooden sanpierota. Looks to be about a 6 horsepower engine on it, an ancient one that sounds like a mosquito, and the boat plows slowly, uncertainly among the waves--wavers its way through the waves, you might say, so unsteady and tentative and almost plaintive its lack of power renders it, as it leaves the calm of the Canale di San Pietro and turns into the deep busy waterway of vaporetti and car carriers and big ships leading toward Piazza San Marco.

A woman onboard looks a little sheepish at the quality of their progress and waves vaguely in my direction where I sit on the bench quayside watching, a gesture motivated it seems more by embarrassment than friendliness or recognition, as it's no one I know. As if the gesture will distract my attention from how the boat lopes and loops and sidles and almost waddles its way along. But she has nothing to be embarrassed about. I stare enviously at the beautiful boat, full of family and/or friends, with its four kids sprawled across its foredeck, blissfully at home in the late warm sun, the soft breeze, the amniotic movement."

The Less Serene Side of "La Serenissima"

Five years ago today the police and carabinieri were out in full force (and riot gear) to keep a huge protest against cruise ships in the Venetian lagoon from taking place in Piazza San Marco. At some point after this it would be declared that cruise ships would no longer pass through the basin of San Marco (right past the Doge's Palace and Piazza San Marco). But, of course, this had been declared years earlier, to international acclaim, and yet the cruise ships had continued on the same route. As of spring 2023, however, it seems the largest ships have been forbidden from making this passage--but not from entering the lagoon. The damage that massive ships cause to the lagoon, both in themselves and because of the deep water channels which have been (and will be) dredged to allow their passage, is well-documented. But a real and complete ban of them has consistently been resisted, and protests against them subjected to sometimes perilous degrees of intimidation (as when police boats and helicopters intentionally menaced protesters rowing small traditional flat-bottomed Venetian boats, threatening to overturn them). (photos: 8 June 2019)

 

 

A Small Place Apart

I no longer remember where in the historical center I came upon this little seat and table behind a wrought iron gate, but I remember it as being a scene that nothing in its surroundings had prepared me to find. (24 June 2013)

Upon the Second Bridge of Sighs

This is the time of year when the Ponte della Paglia--the bridge from which one views the Bridge of Sighs--is likely to provoke as many expressive exhalations of distress from those crossing it as the famous landmark bridge was said to have elicited from condemned prisoners crossing it. But in the case of the Ponte della Paglia, the sighs are of the frustrated rather than mournful variety, as one tries to find a path across the crowded span. But in the above image, taken on 16 June 2013, traffic is moving nicely and shutterbugs are only one deep along the balustrade.

Anything In There? (On Sant'Elena)

18 May 2014

Clam Diggers, North Lagoon

22 May 2016

Reflections of Ca' Fornoni in 3 Crops

An old Murano vase in a color I haven't seen much of before: black (but with an almost purplish tinge in person). If I remember correctly I found it in the nice little shop Ambrus Antichità Venezia on Calle dei Cristi off of Campo San Cassian and paid, at most, 40 euro. But that shop also has, among other things, some very fine vintage pieces of Murano glass. It's worth stopping in.