4 Foggy Scenes of the Season, This Evening

Ponte Rielo, This Evening

In contrast to Campiello de la Cason, which I posted about last week, Ponte Rielo can be fairly said to lie "off the beaten track", located as it is far from the popular routes between the Rialto Bridge and Piazza San Marco, and tucked away among the more inconspicuous and enclosed pockets of calli (and locals) in Castello. 

Of course to many of the Venice lovers who visit websites devoted to the city the bridge is likely to be well-known--I have no hope of surprising the cognoscenti!--but it's easy enough to never pass this way even if you live in Castello. Though not far off one end of a major thoroughfare, it still requires a conscious effort to be found--I lived here a year before I happened upon it--which I leave to those with the time and inclination to do so. I think it's worth it.

A view from the other side of the bridge

Bringing a Christmas Tree Home, This Evening

Campiello de la Cason, This Afternoon

Campiello de la Cason is not really off the beaten track--as it's just a short way from the bustling start of the Strada Nuova in Campo dei Santi Apostoli--yet every time I happen through it I'm struck once more by its air of being a singular place apart from the rest of the city.

Today, as we walked home from his school, Sandro and I found that repair work on a nearby bridge has turned the campiello into a cul de sac rather than the through-way it usually is. Which seemed to give me license to linger, while Sandro attentively watched two men repairing the low roof on the yellow building at the left of the above photo.

But as Yoga Berra used to say, it gets late early around here these days, and as the sun meekly retired and a cold harsh wind punched in not even the campiello's charm or any work left to do on the roof could keep us or the workman around. 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, as the song says--at least in the upper windows of this palazzo

Faith, Motorboats and T-shirts

If you pay much attention to the smaller private motorboats of Venice--or if, like me, you have your attention directed toward such motor boats on a regular basis by a very interested family member (my son, in my case)--you can't help but notice that a lot of the outboard motors go about casually clothed. In ill-fitting T-shirts, usually, as for example, in the photo above. Though I've also seen one in the Canareggio canal wearing a Lazio soccer jersey.

About a year ago I read an explanation of this phenomenon on a blog, but it wasn't very convincing. In fact, even the author of the blog seemed skeptical of his source, who told him that boat owners dressed up their motors in this way to deter theft. If I remember correctly, the blogger wondered understandably enough how much obstacle a thin T-shirt would present to someone who, according to his source, was intent on opening up the outer shell of a motor to remove some valuable part from inside.

Recently, in the course of a jouncing heaving ride home from my son's school, I asked the Venetian father of one of Sandro's classmates about the T-shirt worn by the outboard motor on his own small craft. He offered three explanations:

1. Its purpose is to protect the motor from scratches and the elements.

He offered this explanation as we were just getting underway on our trip homeward, with the kind of vaguely embarrassed smile that suggested to me that he himself seriously doubted its validity. He explained it as an agnostic might explain a minor act of faith in which he essentially had no belief but continued to perform out of habit--just in case it might somehow, magically, offer some benefit.

Perhaps because I looked as unconvinced as he himself, he offered a second:

2. It is to deter theft.

But not in the sense of acting as an obstacle to anyone wishing to open the casing of the motor, but in the simpler sense of concealing the make and size of the motor. Thieves, he said, had particular types of motors they were looking for. They also, understandably enough, did not have the luxury of perusing their potential targets at leisure. The T-shirt prevented the thieves from seeing at a glance--as, for example, they cruised past in their own boat--if the motor on this or that moored boat was what they were looking for.

Now we were well underway on our trip, in the broad busy canal running alongside the Fondamente Nove and my interlocutor could really open it up here, in spite of the traffic and its countless wakes, and he did--much to the delight of our sons, who roared and guffawed as spray flew and so did we.

He then offered a third explanation, entirely in keeping with the piratical spirit of the moment:

3. It is to prevent police from identifying the boat.

The T-shirt conceals all identifying marks on the motor--model, horsepower and anything else printed by the manufacturer--and this, he said, makes it harder for the authorities responsible for enforcing speed limits in the the lagoon to ticket you for exceeding them.

He immediately added, as if to forestall any possible disapproval,"And it's not even legal the way they catch you!"

They use radar guns, he explained, which are forbidden to be used outside of zones where their use is clearly posted. But they break the law and use them everywhere in the lagoon, wherever they want. They take a photo of the speeding boat and then one day its owner, with no warning, finds a ticket and a fine waiting for him in his mailbox at home.

But obviously, I objected, they're identifying the boat by the license number each boat is required to wear on its side, not by the type of motor.

Yes, yes, he conceded, but sometimes that license number doesn't show up so clearly in the photo, and if that's the only thing they have to go on (because you've concealed all identifying marks on your motor), you can argue that the boat is not yours at all, that they've made a mistake, and get out of the ticket.

I found it hard to believe you'd get very far with what seemed to me like a pretty lame argument, but he looked so pleased with the idea of its success that I said nothing. After all, what do I know about the Italian legal system, aside from the highest profile cases in which people clearly convicted of the most serious crimes--for example, former Social Democrat Prime Minister Andreotti--escape their penalty because the statute of limitations has conveniently expired?

Besides, he added, if the cops are breaking the law, using radar when they're not supposed to, then we have to do whatever we can to try to get an even break.

And my source--who was no sly pompous gondolier or taxi driver (professions notorious in Venice for skirting the law), but a slender soft-spoken 30-something Venetian who'd spent years in India studying Tantra--smiled with a certain boyish air of helpless innocence, and I found it impossible to offer another objection or say anything else that might undermine his tenuous, perhaps far-fetched, but persistent faith in his own ingenuity, which in the tricky seas of Italy (and elsewhere) is sometimes the only thing that keeps any of us afloat.

2 Snaps from the Trip to School This Morning

Babbo Natale leads the way

When the cold clear days of winter reveal the snow-covered Dolomiti, Venice seems to become another city than the one you thought you knew, and the lagoon itself seems altered

Another World

Sandro pauses to check out the bassa marea (low tide) on his way home from school recently. A way home from school that bears no resemblance to the one I took growing up in California, that his mother took in Iowa, or that he would have taken in his birthplace of Asheville, NC or in our previous home in Brooklyn, NY.

The fact that after two years here such surroundings as these have all become so natural and normal to him only serves to make them even stranger to me.