If you should happen to hear a loud rasping sound, it’s not a swarm of locusts warming up for mating season. It’s Venetian merchants rubbing their hands together. It’s Carnival time again!
The first weekend has just passed, but it seems to have gotten off to a curiously restrained start. The Gazzettino says there were 75,000 people, which is more than I’d want to spend a weekend with, but fewer than the 100,000 they report from pre-Covid days.
The novelty of an evening boat parade in the Grand Canal , a monster show on what appears to be a disguised dredge being pushed along by motor (the oars were fake — no wait, the oars were real, but the rowers were fake) did not enthuse the Venetians. It was a massive floating Las Vegas.
The boat parade the next morning, by Venetians who were rowing, was shorter than in past years, and there were fewer boats, as well. There were objections and protests about that, too, because truncating the trajectory meant that the mob scene that was so festive in the Cannaregio Canal was reduced to a simple mini-mob in the Erbaria at Rialto. Naturally all the merchants along the Cannaregio Canal have made their voices heard. Their palms are no longer rasping.
The uber-traditional “Flight of the Colombina” over Piazza San Marco was not held. Some explanation about the piazza being all torn up for the high-water-defenses work does not convince me, nor many others, either, but in any case no Colombina flew. Not Las Vegas-y enough? It used to be one of the major draws of the entire festival. Just more things I don’t understand.
No matter. We’ve got Carnival down here in via Garibaldi and environs, and that’s plenty entertaining for me. It’s wonderful how you can dress little kids up as anything and yet they still know exactly who they are. Some of them are pretending, but none of them is as good at it as some adults I know.
My thoughts are going no deeper. You can certainly upholster yourself as Giacomo Casanova, if that’s your thing. My own Carnival is kids, galani and frittelle.
12 Comments
Thank you for sharing this with us. We haven’t heard from you for a while.
oh I love this! I know you feel it as an invasion but in ’92 when we brought musicians to the piazzas pretty Carnivale, Swatch was sponsoring… when we arrived from the airport we were overwhelmed as the city rose up to meet us. Complete novel for us and a whirlwind of fantastic sights, people atmosphere & the fritelle w/ zabaglione & coffee cream & raisins, espresso…we were in heaven! My late wife turned to me & said “I’ve been here before Tim, I’m home.” We tried to fit in but we gawked at everything w/ pure joy…sorry but we were entranced. You’ve conveyed the feelings again. One of our stages was in via Garibaldi & I have a pic somewhere- they loved our American Blues, our spoon-player- Mr Cucchiaio, etc. surprising them from their siesta…liver, fritto misto, polenta, creamed cod…o god and the lovely reserved, slightly chilly attitude w/ deep heart below…thank you Erla & Venezia!
Oh, your comments brought a lump to my throat. How lucky you were to be there, and take part in Carnevale when it was not a Las Vegas affair.
If you went back now, you’d still find a corner of Venice retains the magic, about where your stage in Via Garibaldi was located.
This is the most mouth-watering essay I can remember you writing.
It’s good to hear from you after a while, Erla. I’m so glad you haven’t stopped blogging. What you said about Vegas reminded me of an old film, set in Venice but definitely not filmed there. I’m pretty sure it was filmed in Vegas.
I read your post before breakfast and guess what I wanted to eat. Shame we can’t get frittelle here.
Brava, brava, bravissima Erla! I missed your wit and your true love for Venice! Long live via Garibaldi!
So good to see you in print again, Erla!
I hope your feet are staying dry. This has been a difficult few years there, so I hope all is better in Serenissima .
Lis
Hi Erla,
Great to hear from you again. Carnevale in full swing and San Valentino on top of that. Your pictures of real people, real Venetians, always brightens my day, especially the kids. Here in Sweden everything is a bit hectic as per usual this time of year
All the best from Solna.
Andreas, Jin & Sophia
So good to hear from you again. I’d been quite worried, and even tried to e-mail you – it was then that I found out that after a gap of time not using them, owing to illness, and other concerns, both my “other” e-mail accounts were fouled up, and I could neither sent nor receive! !
Hey-ho, such is life.
A wonderful piece of illustrated writing. I’ve been in Venice over Valentine’s day, but actually avoided Carneval all those years, with complete success. Thank you for showing me what I’ve missed.
Really hope you and “He” are well, and will continue to share more of your Venetian life with us poor deprived folk.
So good to hear from you again
Many thanks and best wishes
So glad to hear from you – my old e-mail address has stopped functioning, I did try to contact you months back, hoping you and Lino both were well.
Never actually been in Venice over Carneval itself – dodged it.
Sorry to year about your email, I hope and trust you’ve got yourself back into e-communication somehow. Meanwhile, a big hello to you via the Comments page!