A stroll in the Grand Canal

Let me set the scene: Below is a glimpse of a typical high-season day in the Venice of yore.  Till last year, high season had spread across most of the calendar.

Just a brief refresher on what “normal” used to look like on any summer morning.
A late-summer afternoon in 2016.  When I made this photograph I was concentrating on the gondolino — I was so accustomed to the traffic that only later did I notice how much there was.  Does it seem like there are more taxis every year?  That’s because until 2020, there were more every year.  An undated overview of unscheduled water transport (i.e., not vaporettos) listed 271 taxis and 158 tourist launches.
I’m not sure why Tony Catanzaro decided to give this student a rowing lesson in the maelstrom of the bacino of San Marco, and I’ll never know if she ever came back for another one. But if you’re going to row around here, you have to find a way to deal with all this. It’s like those jungle survival courses.
Enormous tracts of Venetian water are essentially off limits to anyone rowing, unless they know how to handle the waves. It may be counterintuitive, but summer is the worst season of all for going out in a boat with oars.  One can certainly renounce rowing.  But when one suddenly finds the city floating in what amounts to a millpond, the way it has been for a year or so, it’s like a paper-thin silver lining to the rest of life.

Let me state that there is nothing good about the pandemic, so don’t think what I’m about to say is to be taken as positive.  Except that in its tiny little way, it is.

Over the past months, the daily armies of motorized boats of all shapes and purposes and horsepowerage roaring around everywhere — particularly in the Grand Canal — have made a forced retreat.  This is bad (see above), but the side effect has been a Grand Canal liberated from the appalling turmoil that had long since become normal.

Note:  Barges and their cousins are still at work, but what are missing are the approximately 39,210,443 taxis and tourist launches that had claimed the waterways as their own.

Result: Space, tranquility, and calm water for Venetian boats to return to their native habitat, which they have been doing on Saturday and Sunday mornings.  Perhaps also at other times, but I’m not there to see them.

So for anyone who might want to breathe the atmosphere of a watercourse that has been unintentionally restored to many Venetians who had been effectively banished for years, here are some views of our Sunday morning row in our own little boat a week ago.  There were even more on Saturday, because boaty people like to go to the Rialto market, but Sundays had long since been taken over by herds of taxis thundering along one of the world’s most beautiful streets like the migration of the wildebeest in the Serengeti.

Here are some glimpses of what the Grand Canal looks like when there are more Venetians than anybody else.  Enjoy it, because yesterday the Great Reopening began here, and we may have seen the last of this.

Hark! Is that a boat I see on the horizon?
Yes indeed it is, a sandolo rowed by three friends from the DLF Sport Mare rowing club. Odd numbers of rowers are not ideal in Venetian rowing, but maybe somebody couldn’t make it. Or wasn’t invited. Or maybe they just like it this way, because we saw them two days ago as well.
Approaching on the left is a pupparino from the Remiera Canottieri Cannaregio rowing club, while lurking along the right side of the canal is a sandolo from the Associazione Canottieri Giudecca.  Surprising how many clubs have chosen red and white as their colors, though the reds vary.  Even from this distance you’d never confuse the bordeaux tint here with the fire-engine red (not shown here) of the Unione Sportiva Remiera Francescana (full disclosure: we’re members).
Slipping up behind us is a mascareta from the Reale Societa Canottieri Francesco Querini.
I don’t exactly know the man in the bow, but I have had a little run-in with him and it appears that almost every boating person in Venice has encountered him at some point. Let’s just say he can be difficult. (Also, he likes to video  his excursions; note the video cameras set up on the bow and stern of the boat.) Still, he was in a great mood and not only said hello as they went past, but called his partner to execute an alzaremi for us. Too bad their oars weren’t synchronized, and neither was I in time with my camera. But the intention was very nice.

Hark! We meet again.  It’s the three from the DLF Sport Mare, heading upstream on their way back to their boathouse.
DLF Sport Mare  was previously known simply as the “DLF,” Dopo Lavoro Ferroviario, the Railway Workers After-Work club.  Their boathouse is up behind the railway station, of course.
A private s’ciopon being rowed “a la valesana,” with two oars per rower. The man astern is the former president of the Reale Societa’ Canottieri Bucintoro rowing club.
Coming up fast on the inside rail, so to speak, is a gondolino, also from the Bucintoro.
This is a hard boat to row in the throes of the usual Cape Horn waves around Venice, but with water like this it’s really fun.

Catching up with the four-oar guys.
Another mascareta, this time from the Remiera Ponte dei Sartori, has slid down the Cannaregio Canal and has turned left into the Grand Canal.  Seems like everybody had the same idea this morning and I felt somehow that everyone belonged, because of course they do.
Followed by two of their compatriots.
Feeling good. You just know it.
The compatriots again. Usually people row to the end of the Grand Canal and back up it again, or go home another way. It just depends on many factors ranging from the weather, the tide, how much time you’ve got for this, maybe what’s for lunch (rush home, or take the long way back….).
Querini club again. Great to see so many people out today.
Two mascaretas from the Gruppo Sportivo Voga Veneta Mestre club, on the edge of the lagoon at the end of the bridge to the mainland. They are indefatigable, especially on Saturday when batches of them row to the Rialto to check out the fish.

 

We went home by the back roads, so to speak, and found that some gondoliers were making the most of the lack of traffic to help their aspiring students practice rowing. On the gondola hiding just behind the corner was another gondolier with beginner aboard.
The lion is definitely feeling it.

So we have swung between two extremes — the old days entailed lots of work and craziness and also hugely damaging motondoso, then the pandemic period was marked by no work, no craziness, lots of people with no money.  But I will whisper this: I never would have thought I’d have the chance to feel that the city returned somehow to its origins, and it has been beyond wonderful.  Whether some middle ground between the two extremes can be found will be clear only when the pandemic is well and truly over.

Continue Reading

The gondola and Roberto Dei Rossi

Roberto Dei Rossi has been making gondolas for 40 years, one of only four men in Venice capable of this feat.

Yes indeed, it has been several eternities since I have scribbled a post — though I have written many in my mind, as I watched the pages fall off the calendar and blow away in the wind, etc. etc.

I was entangled in the finishing (“ultimating,” in Italian, which is so cool.  They can make verbs out of anything.) of a large and very long-drawn-out project of researching and writing an article on the gondola, and more specifically about Roberto Dei Rossi, who makes them.  I started the research in February, 2019, and there were many stops along the way, especially that long one during the three-month lockdown from March to May.  The story is now online at “Craftsmanship” magazine.

I’m hoping to get back in the groove now with my blog, for any of you who may still be out there waiting to read….

Venice, Gondolas, and Black Magic

The gondola’s fundamental secret is its asymmetry. The boat isn’t straight, but that’s what makes it go straight when rowed by one oar.  Note: Not paddle, not pole, but an oar.
The basic ribs of the gondola, made of three pieces of wood, reveal the inherent shape. The straight bottom piece is made of oak, the side pieces are elm.
The gondola is built from the inside out; what look like the boat’s sides are temporary pieces (“serci”) that resist the pressure of construction until it’s time for the permanent sides to be attached.
It is not falling over. This is the gondola at rest and it’s built this way to make it easier to maneuver through the narrow canals and even to turn on its own axis without any headway (the only boat that can do this).
Most rowing clubs have at least one gondola. This view of a gondola returning to the Remiera Francescana clearly shows the boat’s asymmetry.
Certainly there are standard measurements, but the work is done largely by eye, followed by fingers and experience. You will never be able to build a gondola by working merely from a plan; there are too many adjustments to be made and these are only discovered by practice.
Of course he knows exactly what he’s looking at and either seeing or not seeing. Some infinitesimal change may be at hand; I never asked while he was working. We’d still be there, a year later, if he were to have stopped every time I wanted to know something.
He could have all the tools that were ever made, but this folding metal measuring stick is the one that really counts.
I almost never saw him wearing glasses. It began to obsess me.
It’s strenuous with power tools? It was even harder without them, especially when gondolas were always built with planks of wood instead of marine plywood. Still, a day here can easily wear you out.
Or maybe suffocate you a little, from time to time.
The inner surfaces are now full of the points of screws. Well, it’s inside, you may think, what difference does it make?
It makes enough of a difference that he has to spend some time now cutting off each point, one by one.
Eight different kinds of wood are used to make a gondola.
Dei Rossi doesn’t carve the decoration; a master carver executes the designs according to the gondolier’s request.
Of course he’s happy — after two months of work, the next new gondola is about to be launched.
Continue Reading

Boats and saints

Last Sunday was an unusually entertaining day.  It wasn’t as entertaining as the last Sunday of June typically is, coming at the culmination of five days of festivizing at San Pietro di Castello in honor of the church’s namesake.  But by the time the day was over there had been more diversion than I’d expected.

Let’s start with the festa for Saint Peter.  This year — you know what’s coming — The Virus made it impossible to host the usual large and lively crowds, or execute the expected entertainment and the feeding of at least five thousand.  (Yes, bread and fish are always on the menu, among other things.)

This is the way the festival always looks, give or take a colored spotlight or two. Five evenings straight, going full blast until midnight.  We can hear the music from our house, and we’re not exactly next door.  Depending on the direction of the wind, we can also get wafts of hot greasy things.  This year, nothing.
A lot of people always came from all around Venice, and maybe the mainland too. So technically you could call them “tourists,” though they generally seemed unforeign.  I wish I’d paid more attention to the little boy in the center of the image, who I now see was attempting to climb the large trash-collection bin.  I’d like to have known how that came out.  I don’t recall any ambulances.  Those were great years.

But nobody said we couldn’t have the festal mass, complete with the Patriarch of Venice on his annual visit.  Chairs were set up outside in the campo, correctly distanced, and although the usual supporting players were few (a couple of selected Scouts instead of a whole troop, four trumpeters instead of the band from Sant’ Erasmo), or even non-existent (no Cavalieri di San Marco in their sweeping mantles — soooo hot but sooooo well worth it, I’m sure they believe), there was a fine gathering of the faithful.

And may I say that seeing each other without being separated by layers of tourists has been, and continues to be, a noticeably positive aspect of the quarantine and aftermath.  More about that another time.  But back to the service.

As the Patriarch pointed out in his sermon, the religious aspect is the one essential element of the occasion.  He didn’t specifically say “Don’t feel mournful because there were no barbecued ribs and polenta and live music and horsing around for hours with your friends and the mosquitoes,” though I’m sure he knew that’s what people were missing.  At least they came for him.

To review:  This was the traditional festa:

It’s a bigger campo than most, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be the person responsible for enforcing social distancing on this mob.
And this was the setup for mass, the only event of the entire festival.  Down to the essentials, indeed.
The temporary platform/altar arrangement was very efficient. The backdrop is the Patriarch’s coat of arms, worked by the tireless fingers of the group “Un Filo che Riunisce” (A Thread that Brings Together).
Just a refresher: The crossed-key motif symbolizes Saint Peter.
Except for a few places in the design that called for more complicated handiwork, the fundamental element appeared to be potholders.  Sorry if that seems disrespectful.
Last year’s festa was the first exhibition of the handiwork by “Un Filo che Riunisce” was this arrangement of — if not potholders, then squares to compose some titanic afghan.  The components were sold for a few euros each to benefit the pediatric department of the Ospedale Civile, or city hospital, in Venice.
They struck again last Christmas, with this creation in via Garibaldi. The group, a crocheting class, was formed in January of 2019 at the Salesian convent in calle San Domenico.  The idea was to create something big out of many small pieces.  I like the metaphor, and it certainly cheered up the December night.
The arrival of the Patriarch aboard an elegant balotina is always a great moment (made beautiful as much by the balotina as the passenger, sorry).  This year the Remiera Casteo launched the fleet — I’ve never seen that many boats from the club accompanying the guest of honor.  The caorlina carried four trumpeters, the ones usually seen blasting from the bow of the bissona at the head of the corteo for the festa de la Sensa.  I love the band from Sant’ Erasmo, but these were better, partly because ceremonial fanfares are fabulous in themselves, and because they came under oar-power.  I can tell you from experience that following the motor-barge that carries the band means that you spend 45 minutes inhaling diesel exhaust, so it’s basically like rowing the Patriarch behind an 18-wheeler on the interstate.  Not very poetic.
Behold the brass section.  They sounded as good as they look.
Here the eye moves from the boat and its passengers to the dock onto which the passengers must alight (if one can use that word for a maneuver coming from so far below the objective). Hmmm….
The job description for Patriarch of Venice ought to include “Boats, ability to climb into and out of.” His Eminence Francesco Moraglia has always shown remarkable aplomb in nautical moments that have every potential for disaster.  Perhaps being born in Genoa and former bishop of La Spezia, site of an important naval base, has had some effect.
Nothing easier. And he’s always quite conscientious about showing appreciation to the crew.
A squirt of the semi-obligatory hand sanitizer, then on to greeting the notables, beginning with the woman representing the city government bedecked with the colors of the national flag.  As you see, masks are not obligatory because we are all outside.  But many people are still taking the safe route.

Assorted greetings follow, in this case to a divisional general of the Guardia di Finanza, as he walks toward the church, where he will add some garb and prepare for the mass.

Four priests administered communion from various positions around the area; they were easy to find by a white umbrella held aloft by a Scout.

And then it was time to take everything down.

Some of these ladies may have cataracts and any other sort of visual problem, but there is at least one who still manages to miss nothing. What is she looking at?  She, and nobody else?
A batch of balloons has broken free. Up and away… Of course I have no idea where they’re going, but as for me, I’m off to the races this afternoon.

Sunday afternoon it was time to segue from the sublime to the secular.  Every year, on the last Sunday in June, the city of Venice organizes two races in honor of Saints Giovanni and Paolo.  The reason it isn’t called the race of Saint Peter is because it is held in the water between Murano and the Fondamente Nove, and the finish line is in front of the hospital, which is on the campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo.

The first race involves pairs of men on a boat called a pupparino; the second race is for young men up to age 25, rowing solo on gondolas.  Sound simple?  Of course it is, as long as everything goes well.

But sometimes it doesn’t…..

For both races, the starting line is in front of Murano; the race then follows the path indicated here, and the finish line is in front of the hospital. Until this year, the gondolas lined up in the canal in front of the campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo for a blessing. Hence the name of the regata is the two saints, and not “race of the City Hospital.”  That would always sound sketchy, but these days it would be inconceivable.

The men on pupparinos go first, and go they certainly did.  I’m usually watching from the shore, but this time I was able to follow the race on a friend’s motorboat.

The men on pupparinos are off to a fast start, leaving Murano behind to the left and heading west past the cemetery toward Sant’ Alvise and the first turn.  All the boats, regardless of type, are painted these colors and yes, the two boats in the lead (orange and green) have made an impressive start.  They will pretty much run their own race and finish first and second respectively.  The real race is what transpired in the scrum following them.
This is what we like to see — the boats strung out in an orderly line. Except there are a few issues lurking in the lineup.  Green has left the group and gone left, hoping to find some advantage in the tide (problem: it will soon have to rejoin the group at the first turn).  And there is the pink boat, side by side with white.   I foresee problems because boats arriving at the turn side by side — especially the boat on the inside — are inevitably going to be facing consequences.
The plot is rapidly thickening here as the boats try to get into the best position (as defined by each one) for rounding the first turn, anticlockwise around a piling.
It’s enough just to look at the race judge with the loudspeaker to realize that things are not going well.  Orange has turned and is clean away; blue has just completed its turn, and green has rejoined the pack in third position.  But blue made its turn very close to the piling in order to prevent green from having space to turn (a maneuver that is forbidden for reasons which are already obvious.  The judge would have been justified in disqualifying blue right there, but events have gotten out of control).  So green is now destined to run into the blue boat — destined also by the decision of its stern rower not to swing wide at the last second, which he could have done.  Meanwhile….
Why is blue still here?  It should already be gone, but its calculations went a little screwy and instead it is now stuck, grappling with green, and white and pink are both coming up at high speed to make the turn with two boats essentially standing still in front of them.  Pink was gambling on having room to turn from the inside, even though the rules prohibit putting yourself between the piling and another boat, for reasons which are already obvious.  White could have swung wide here, but for some reason decided not to (probably it doesn’t want to lose time), and right about now they both realize that they have no room at all to avoid the pile-up.  An expert later explained that blue had probably deliberately made the turn closer to the piling than is permitted in the hope of preventing the following boat to sneak past on the inside (also forbidden).  Everybody’s supposed to leave room for at least minimal functioning, but blue decided otherwise.  And so, as the expression now goes, here we are.
Purple and yellow have cut their losses by swinging wide; they lose some seconds of time but at least they can maneuver.  White and pink are still stuck inside, trapped by green and white, and now we have brown coming up on the inside, stuck between the piling and yellow.  Blue has managed to disengage itself and accelerated, speeding away and leaving everybody to deal with the effects of its little duel with green.  Looking good?  There’s still plenty of race to go….
Yellow and purple are fleeing, while brown is trying to stop the boat to avoid running into pink; pink is sitting there because white and green can’t move.  Everyone’s so close there’s no room to work their oars.
The stern rower on pink has actually reached down and is grabbing the metal point on brown’s bow to keep it from colliding.  You can understand the instinct, but it is totally forbidden to touch your adversary’s boat.  So pink could have been disqualified here, but too much is going on.  Blue, bless its heart, probably thinks the day is won and is already envisioning that beautiful white pennant for second place.  But the race is far from over.
Things are starting to look a little better for everybody except for red, who is now hurtling into the mix.  But red manages to make it around without incident, and so everybody’s back on track.  Yellow and purple, out of the frame at the moment, are turning around to get back into contention.  Orange is so far in the lead by now he must be wondering where everybody went.
Well, that was exciting. Now back to normal, here in the back half of the race.
Now what? For some reason the blue boat (remember those few seconds when it seemed like it was zooming away?  The other boats have caught up) has swerved off its trajectory right into white’s path.  The usual term is either “losing” the boat or the boat has “fallen.” You might do it on purpose and pretend it was an accident if you’re willing to sacrifice yourself for the sake of eliminating your rival, but it’s a risk and I’m not saying that happened here because blue had plenty of space to race.  It could be that white got too close to blue and ran over blue’s oar (forbidden!!), a contact that renders the victim helpless, as you see here.

Blue is now trying to get moving again as white speeds away.  Blue’s race seems to not be following whatever wonderful plan was implied at the fateful turn.  So blue decides to chance its arm by abandoning this flight path, to so speak, and heads across the channel to the right to seek some better current (or fewer adversaries).
As you see, blue has disappeared, and now we have a delightfully orderly line of boats.  This is refreshing, we haven’t seen this for quite a while.  Think I’ll look back at what’s happening with the last boats.
Excuse me? Yellow has completely stopped because his partner in the bow has collapsed.
And he’s staying collapsed, too.  Meanwhile, the show — I mean race — must go on. I would never presume to know what goes through racers’ minds, but I’d be willing to bet that after “Holy yikes!” some version of “One less boat!” has flitted through their brains.  No real worries, because the judges’ boat is right there.
There is always an ambulance nearby — the race can’t be held without one. So help is at hand (and the man was resuscitated, though they didn’t finish the race).
So that’s taken care of. How are things going with the race up ahead? The last three boats have peeled off to the right, seeking some advantage with the tide that will put them ahead of the rest of the boats along the line of pilings to the left. I see blue in the lead, followed by purple and red.
But wait!  Why is purple suddenly heading toward the embankment — or more precisely, toward the red boat?
Purple has lost control, has run into red, and they’re both heading straight toward the ponderous white vaporetto moored at the dock.  (Ignore the blue motorboat — it’s not dangerously close.)
It’s every man for himself.  Red swerved right to avoid hitting the white vaporetto, purple managed somehow to swerve left (hidden by the vaporetto), and blue continued on its merry way.
But never say die, they’re still in the race.
We didn’t follow the race beyond this point, but waited near the finish line. The judge’s dock, with the blue awning and gonfalone of San Marco, is moored to the fondamenta on the right.
The anarchy of the after-race half-hour is almost as entertaining as the anarchy of everything else. The mix of boats, people, relatives, and racers in various states of anger or joy is pretty entertaining.  Center stage here is a pupparino from the rowing club of the DLF, or Dopolavoro Ferroviario, the after-work sports club of railway workers.  Coming to see a race is just as good an excuse for amateur rowers to come out on a sunny Sunday afternoon as it is for the families in motorboats.
Speaking of families (or people, anyway) in motorboats, you get used to the fact that everybody in a motorboat is a fan of rowing. I know. Crazy.
The rule — not always observed — is that motorboats aren’t allowed to get out ahead of the race and create waves that would disturb the first boats in the race. The second through ninth boats have to deal with whatever waves come their way.  Yes, I freely recognize that I too am in a motorboat.
If it floats and has a motor, you’ll probably find it at the races. Here we have a better-than-usual assortment of spectator boats.
This is the quintessential summer-Sunday-in-lagoon boat: A classic wooden sampierota (could be rowed, or even sailed with the right rigging), with a tiny motor and lightly toasted family and friends of various shapes and ages.  There’s a cooler (extra points) but no baby or dog (points subtracted).  You could easily see all this on a shiny plastic motorboat, but it wouldn’t be this beautiful.

If anyone is interested, here are the results of the race of the men on pupparinos, from first to last:  Orange, green, pink, white,  brown, blue, purple, red.  (Yellow withdrew, obviously.)

As for the race of the young men on gondolas, I have no strength left to report on it or anything else.  Happily, there is nothing noteworthy to report.  It seems that the day’s double-ration of drama was expended completely on the first race.

Now I’m going to lie down for a while.

 

Continue Reading

“Vogada de la Rinascita”

Reports written the day after said there were 150 (or even 200) boats in this gathering. It was really fun to see everybody out again, not to mention the doctors, etc. on the fondamenta in front of the hospital.

Last Sunday morning there was quite the boating event, after three months without either boats or events.  Everybody was more than ready for it.

Seeing that the city is on the verge of complete reopening after the three-month lockdown, the moment was right for the “Vogada de la Rinascita” (Row of the Rebirth).  The morning afloat was emotional (the worst is over, we hope; the day is glorious; finally we’re all out rowing again) and a tangible way of expressing group gratitude to the medical personnel of the hospital, as well as a gesture of respect to the victims.

The event was organized by the Panathlon Club, Venice chapter (fun fact: Panathlon International, now numbering some 300 chapters scattered across 30 countries, was founded in Venice in 1951), with the collaboration of the Comune.

We were there with two sandolos from the F. Morosini Naval Military School, where Lino teaches Venetian rowing.  Cadets and passengers are looking good on the way from the school to the Arsenal (Lino astern, a friend on the bow). Going with the tide just added to that happy feeling.  (I was on the other boat, obviously.)
The boats began slowly to assemble in the Great Basin of the Arsenal.  Allow me to draw your admiring attention away from the boats for a moment to the enormous  Armstrong Mitchell hydraulic crane, installed here in 1883.  At the end of the 19th century there were nine of these behemoths in the world, but this is the only one left and is designated a historic monument by the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape.  It could lift up to 160 tons of weight, primarily naval artillery and sheets of steel for the cladding of battleships.
At the head of the procession, departing from the Arsenal, was a gondola carrying Luigi Brugnaro, the mayor, in the bow, and making a video amidships is Giovanni Giusto, president of the Coordinating Association of Rowing Clubs as well as the municipal delegate tasked with keeping up with Venetian rowing.  Be cynical if you want to, but seeing the mayor rowing (and he did the whole thing) was unusually cool.
The “local police,” otherwise known as the “vigili,” have their own sandolo Buranello. There was an effort a while ago to reinstate their once-normal patrols of the canals by oar-power, but I think that rapidly faded away.

The corteo departed the Arsenal at 11:00 AM, and we all wended our way toward the hospital, where we stopped and gave the traditional “alzaremi” salute to the assembled doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel gathered on the fondamenta.  Much clapping, many smiles.  Much noontime sun scorching our skulls.

We weren’t practicing social distancing, but it just so happened that we were in an open space at that moment.

After executing the “alzaremi” twice, people just sort of hung around for a minute or so before the corteo got moving again. I’m seated astern with what looks like an oar in my lap. Of course it’s an oar, but I don’t remember it being that close.

Down the Cannaregio Canal, and the Grand Canal, to a pause in front of the basilica of the Salute (dedicated to Our Lady of Health, appropriate in this case), where members of the chorus of La Fenice and musicians of the Benedetto Marcello conservatory performed assorted wonderful pieces.  We didn’t linger — by that point it was almost 1:00 PM and the heat and the hunger were singing their own little duet in our brains: “Shade…food…water…food…shade…”.

Considering how lavishly this was reported in the foreign press — and we were hugely photogenic, it’s true — not only was the corteo lovely to look at, but it conveyed the message that Venice is alive and has come out of its pharmacological coma.  Translation: Get traveling, people.  We’re ready for you.

Gathering at the bottom of the Grand Canal, me still astern, me still dreaming of glaciers and permafrost.

Yes, the row was open to anyone with a boat with oars. So yes, a yellow kayak with a pink inflatable — is that a dinosaur? — had a perfect right to join in. The gondolas were not carrying tourists, as I thought at first.  Each carried a guest of honor: The ambassadors to Italy from the USA, Japan, and France,  The American ambassador reciprocated via an article in the Gazzettino the next day by enthusing about Venice and recommending that all Americans come here forthwith.  It’s not clear when that might be, considering that at the moment Americans aren’t permitted to enter Italy because of the virus.  But let’s be hopeful.
The “people of the oar,” as we are called in a sort of Paleolithic clan nomenclature, come in every sort of shape and size.  Tradition dictates that women wear a white skirt on special boating occasions though, as you see, the definition of “skirt” is open to interpretation.   But whatever you were wearing (or rowing) it was a splendid occasion in every way.
Continue Reading
1 2 3 17