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Venice: Italy Beyond The Sea
Everything is different about Venice, Italy, perhaps the most unusual city in the world. Leave your maps at home because there’s little doubt you’ll get lost in the endless maze of back streets and sometimes deserted squares. Leave your car behind as well. The only way to get around is by foot and water.
Venice is a city of canals, bridges and alleys --150 canals, 409 bridges and 2,000 alleys, to be exact. You’ll see police cars, except they are floating; traffic lights, except that they are hanging over water; docking piers that are bus stops; and "driveways" in front of houses that are staked out with poles sticking out of the water.
Even its history is different. You might call it intrepid. It was first settled during the barbarian invasions of the 5th and 6th centuries when people of the Veneto mainland were regularly sacked. By the time Attila the Hun came through, city residents had enough. They built their famous watery villages on rafts of wooden posts driven into the soil, laying the foundations of today’s floating palaces.
Venice was once one of the most powerful cities in the world. In 1300, it was the leading maritime city in Europe, but the Black Plague killed half its citizens and by 1800, Venice’s place in the world started to transform into a tourist attraction. It was here that the celebration of Mardi Gras began and is still celebrated. Today, the city has about 65,000 residents who, mainly because of cost and general difficulties of life in a high-priced city, are dwindling still further. To make it worse, the city is sinking at a rate of perhaps a foot a year.
Love It or Hate It
Many of my well-traveled friends hate this city. It’s hot during the summer and no surprise that it stinks because of the water. You have to share the sidewalks with hordes of people because it’s often very crowded. Do you like pigeons? You’ll find more of this generally nasty bird here than perhaps anywhere else in the world. And the cost of living is generally twice what you would pay anywhere else in Italy.
If that’s not enough to discourage intrepid travelers, consider this: Venice has long been known for its striped shirt-clad gondoliers warbling “O Solo Mio,” but these guys today are more likely to be very high-priced, glum gondoliers talking on the cell phones glued to their ears.
But many visitors remain entranced by this amazing city. My own family came here by train from Rome. We exited the grime-crusted railroad station and walked down huge stone steps to see a startling sight: water is everywhere, boats are everywhere. It was like seeing a medieval European city that had been transplanted onto a huge lake. Giant stone palaces seemed to float on water. Where were the roads? Where were the cars?
It’s easy to envision this city as a romantic getaway, but far harder to imagine it as an attractive place for families. Venice is known for ancient buildings and attractive art, of course. But for families who have only a passing interest in either of those pursuits, the city has other attractions. Sure, families can feed the pigeons at the famous Piazza San Marco, but, note that boats can be rented to take visitors to vast oases of fauna, archeological ruins and even hidden islands.
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