A perfect example of this brief moment between seasons: Bruscandoli (wild hops) in the basket (spring!) and the cardi on the right (a winter relative of the artichoke that soon will be on its way out). Speaking of artichokes, do not be lured by the little sign saying “castraure.” The implication, I think, is that they are the first flower off the extraordinary local plant, the “violet artichoke of Sant’ Erasmo.” If these are castraure (cas-trah-OO-reh) they are most certainly not from Sant’ Erasmo. Supposing these morsels came from Sant’ Erasmo (which they haven’t), they would be botoi (BOH-toh-ee), which are good, but are the second-growing edible flower on the artichoke plant. True castraure of the violet artichoke are tiny, much smaller than these robust characters. Also: It’s far too early for artichokes here anyway — what is on sale comes from hothouses elsewhere. Some vendors label them correctly as botoi, but people have somehow become obsessed by castraure. Eat whatever they’re called these days, by all means, but imagining a true castraura in Venice at the end of March is to imagine the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.This is a castraura. When it is cut, the plant will produce a number of botoi, the somewhat larger artichokes on sale in the market in the photo above. Here you can just barely make out the baby botolo beneath the castraura.Simple design to show what the artichoke plant brings forth (taken from a little book written by a farmer on Sant’ Erasmo). “Botoi” is the plural of “botolo.” To look at the abundance of “castraure” on sale during the season, there would have to be fields here the size of Nebraska. Or one Nebraska and two Leichtensteins.If all goes well, the “violet artichoke of Sant’ Erasmo” begins to appear in May. Grab them while you can. Watch out for the stabby pointy bit at the tip of each leaf.Another grinding of culinary gears: Asparagus and melons. The local asparagus has just begun to arrive, but the melons are coming from somewhere probably not in Italy. Their moment in northern Italy, and Venice, is July/August. Note that many labels say “Italia,” but don’t name any more particular location. My main question is not where it comes from, but why you would want to eat a melon in April? Not being sarcastic. Your winter mouth wants pears and oranges. Don’t confuse it.
People sometimes ask us where you can eat well and not pay a fortune. To which Lino always replies: “Your house.”
It’s not as much of a pleasantry as it might seem. Unhappily, I am always struck by how routine, predictable, unimaginative, so many of the restaurant offerings are here. Also expensive, especially when you’re looking at the price/value index. Hence Lino’s risposte.
I am sorry that this situation persists, because anyone who has access to a kitchen and the Rialto market can eat like freaking kings. There are so many delectable, unsung, seasonal products on sale that although I realize you do not intend to spend your priceless Venetian vacation toiling in the kitchen, you really ought to be able to try some of these things somehow. And your kitchen seems to be the only option.
Just now is a wonderfully delicate moment in the vegetable realm. We are balanced perfectly between the old winter-long standbys (looking at you, cauliflower), and the glittering spring offerings. This moment of culinary equipoise is even lovelier because, like spring flowers, you know you don’t have much time to enjoy them. I’m forced to say that seasonal food is being elbowed to one side by an ever-increasing number of out-of-season comestibles, which I ignore. Cherries in January? Nope. Melons in March? WHY?
Before we leave winter behind, here are a few delights that are not cauliflower:
If you like slightly bitter radicchio, reach for these little blossoms. They’re generally called “field radicchio,” but these are cultivated, not wild. In any case they are wonderful.The little green tufts are definitely cultivated, and are also sold independently of their red cousins. They are a special item that are famously grown in the fields near Roncade (a few miles from Treviso). They are known as the ‘verdon di Roncade” (the big green from Roncade). They have a sort of generic lettuce-y flavor, and the leaves are slightly thick. Not so much crunchy as chewy. Really good if you’ve had enough cabbage by now.This shows up briefly in February. The “cavolo” is not literally a cabbage; its more correct name is “broccolo fiolaro” because you eat the tender parts of the plant they call “fioi” (children) in Venetian. Creazzo is in the province of Vicenza. Nothing against spinach, but this is better. Toothier.This mass of greenery appears briefly now. They didn’t even bother to write its name — “rosolina” — perhaps because its stay is so brief. I was told that this is the poppy plant before it flowers. My source said that when the blooms begin to appear May-ish), the leaves become too bitter to eat. Meanwhile, they have a charming little nutty undertone. Note to purists: There is a plant known as rosolina, defined as an “evergreen shrub with white flowers.” That’s somebody else’s rosolina. I could have devoted quite a lot of time to researching this, but have stopped for now.I suppose anyone who has been to Venice in the winter knows the “late” (tardivo) radicchio from Treviso. Delicately bitter, it makes a divine risotto (among other things). In January we went to the Festival of Radicchio in Mirano, near Venice, where the students at the agricultural school “8 Marzo Konrad Lorenz” showed us each step of the production process. I thought it just came out of the ground like this. So very wrong….The plant grows in the field till harvest time, then is brought to the school to be prepared for sale. The water has to be changed several times while the boxes are waiting for the next step. Yes, it looks like this, a mass of botanical clumps run amok. But hidden inside is the radicchio we want.You see the delicate white and red leaves inside the other leaves.The crates are brought indoors where the students demonstrated essentially how you butcher them.At this point they still look pretty grotty.Just slice all that rootage away and trim the stem.A good rinse and they’re just about ready to be boxed and sent to your trusty vegetable vendor. Whatever the price may be, I’d say it’s justifiable.
There are always a few pushy items that want to be considered spring treats, but have anticipated their cue by several acts. They aren’t local, obviously.
I have no idea where these radishes came from, but while they are trying to impress me with their multicolored marvelousness, they’re still here too early.Even the normal red radishes are upstarts, as are the peas in the crate next to them. We’ll be seeing local peas in May, when we will gorge on that trusty Venetian standby, “risi e bisi” (rice and peas).This is the first time I have ever seen morel mushrooms here in Venice. They are known as a spring mushroom, I discover, unlike the others that come out in the fall. They can be cultivated, but I can’t say that’s the case here. A minor mystery which I will not pursue much.
And the dependable heralds of spring:
Not a plant, but I couldn’t resist adding this. An April Fool’s Day prank here is called “pesce d’aprile”,” or April fish. I will get to the bottom of this expression some other time, but meanwhile, the wags at the pasticceria Rosa Salva in Calle Fiubera (San Marco) have created just the sort of fish everybody can enjoy. No bones. Too bad they’re not made all year. A tiny note that makes me smile: They bothered putting on eyes. And white eyes. Which technically ought to mean that they’re cooked, because when you boil or grill a fish, you know it’s done when the eyes turn white. Well, I thought it was funny, anyway.Bruscandoli (wild hops) on the left, and carletti on the right.Carletti (Silene rigonfia or Silene vulgaris) are the leaves of a pinkish-whiteish flower that doesn’t take long to appear. These have an almost imperceptible flavor (I’m going to delete “almost”). Lino used to go out and collect them along the Lido shoreline, then throw them into a risotto. I’m all for eating wild but unless they contain some fabulous antioxidant properties I can’t see the point of bothering. Still, man does not live by radicchio alone.Chives, or “barba del frate” (friar’s beard) are usually the first to show up. It used also to be called “sultan’s beard,” but that reference evidently has been retired.This work of culinary art was in the window of the pastificio Serenissima on the Salizzada dei Greci. Fresh pasta is always a delight, and there are fewer and fewer shops making it. They recently were making truffle tagliatelle. We had to imprison the pasta in a covered glass container on the windowsill, otherwise the entire refrigerator would have reeked of truffle. Truffle milk? Why has nobody thought of this?
What a beautiful post, I can almost taste the market! I can’t wait to visit Venice for the first time this summer and cook something in the kitchen I’ll have access to!
“Culinary equipoise”…you’re the best, Erla, a true writers’ writer.
When I was a kid, we had culinary equipoise on Saturday nights:
beans and franks.
Can’t you string together these wonderful observations and emerge
with the best book about Venice in a long, long time?
It’s only because I have readers like you that I can write what I want to. A word like that would have been killed in its cradle by almost every editor I’ve worked with. And yes, this may be the year I take up your suggestion/question. It will never surpass your memoir, “Circe and the Centaur.” I mention that so that anyone reading this will undertake a totally fruitless search for one of the best books ever written.
I always try to “Eat in Season” – but that can lead to a very restricted diet here in the North of England! The April Fish idea is also, I seem to recall, the French term for an April Fool.
My mouth waters at all your veggie beauties. Unfortunately, even were I able to be in Venice today, I’m afraid I’m not at all a good cook, so sadly it’s hotels / restaurants for me, or nibbling firtuvely at raw bits – which my OH declares a foolish habit which will eventually polish me off!
Thanks, though, magnificent images and information – as always.
Truly one of your most delicious posts.
I forwarded it to Elena, la mia insegnante di italiano (who grew up in Liguria but here grandparents were Veneziani) and she wept over the cardi.
Me, I wept over the memory of castraure, steamed and anointed with a little olive oil, followed by granceole, in the garden at Montin too many years ago.
Thank you for another trip to Venezia, the children and I miss it so much….Castraure ❤️ there is no substitute…. I also love the local slightly sparkling white wine made in limited amounts every year.
I have a question that maybe you could include in one of your newsletters; about those hideous cheap souvenir, sweet, clothing, restaurants, and ‘Italian made’ (etc) style shops that quickly overtook the old ‘mom & pop’ and local shops (particularly between 2010 to 2019.
….Were many of them forced to close during the COVID lockdown years… I was hoping without tourists, especially cruise ships, they might decline and local business might rise again?
Have you noticed this at all?
Happy Easter to you.
The Covid lockdown certainly made many/most businesses rethink their short- and long-term futures. The fact that the pandemic hit only three months after the apocalyptic aqua alta of November 11, 2019 certainly didn’t help; many businesses could scarcely get back on their feet, literally, after the water subsided due to the loss of equipment, damage to the shop itself, and loss of income.
Local businesses will never be able to rise again, as you put it, as long as landlords (many of them Venetian, may I note) continue to raise the rent. You can see closures, even in neighborhood shops (looking at you, our fabulous drygoods shop) because of rent increases. A friend who belongs to a famous glass-master family on Murano, and whose shop near the Accademia was our never-fail standby for beautiful glass gifts, turned up the other day in a tobacco shop on campo Sant’ Aponal. He had been forced to close his life’s work and take up selling trivia because his landlord quintupled his rent. Let that sink in.
Anyone with a shop in Venice is at the mercy of the landlord. That’s all there is to say about it.
Oh, I’d really enjoy buying and reading any book that you write! So often I’m tempted to doodle images that come into my mind from your posts, even though I no longer do serious illustrative work, you create such good images.
Really wish i was in Venice today, OH’s birthday, a week after our Wedding Anniversary, and we’ve spent several of both in Venice! (Sighs)
Thanks for the reply Erla,
I was hoping for better news, but I’m not surprised to hear your information.
I remember the Venice I first visited in the 90’s… I still have a handful of Lire.
Then, we had the opportunity to live there between 2012 and 2019 on a part time basis, in every season, and so much of what made Venice Venetian seemed to be pushed to the side in favour of what made Venice more saleable (I’m trying to choose my words carefully here, I love venice, and I’m not criticising, it’s an observation lived)
I was horrified when T Fondaco dei Tedeschi was announced, and questioned where that left Coin… which was answered when Coin disappeared.
I understand the increase in online apartment rentals, cruise ship docking etc, created increased ‘affordable’ and all consuming tourism, increased demand for certain retail opportunities, which increased interest in Venice from a more parasitic and morally questionable set of players , reduced Venice to a euro sign, and created a perfect storm…. ( I’ve not included the political contribution, but it couldn’t have happened without political support/inaction)
My hackles always rise when I hear people say “I didn’t like Venice… it was too expensive/crowded/smelly, there were rats/pigeons/agressive seagulls…” etc
Too often, they come from patrons of package tourism which in large part explains their impressions of the city…. the rubbish in the streets after the cruise crowd has passed through, or the bags of household rubbish left out at the wrong times for birds to rip apart (and rats to finish off) -encouraging hoards of them to fight for supremacy in the city…..!… there are so many factors influencing and encouraging other factors.
I was there in Nov 2019 (near Ponte de la fava where we’d been for several years) and cried for Venice, the devastation was unbelievable …
When the pandemic hit I had a naive hope that with the tourist machine pressure off Venice might have a chance to regroup.
We’ll be back, it’s a very special place, and hopefully we can contribute in a positive and meaningful way to protect her from abuse.
Love your articles, thank you 🌻
I’m glad to have your reminiscences and I appreciate your taking the time to share them. Once again, for the 3,000,000th time, I wearily attempt to correct the impression (not fact, because yours are impressions) that cruise ships, or more precisely, their passengers, caused problems. I use the past tense because the anti-cruise-ship crowd, composed of not Venetians, managed to banish them from Venice. Some of the ships now dock at Chioggia, so any passengers that want to see Venice will be coming to town anyway, taking a bus for an hour if all goes well. I don’t see how that’s progress if the number of visitors was the perceived problem; what difference does it make where they disembark? Also, Chioggia is full of shops selling the same gewgaws, so no need to get them in Venice, so I guess you should spare a thought for the gewgaw sellers who make money also off the people who decide not to go to Venice but take a home a souvenir anyway.
Let’s move on. Fun fact: In 2013, when I interviewed the director of the Port Authority, back when the cruise business was booming, cruise passengers accounted for not quite 5 percent of the total annual tourist load in the city. The rest are overwhelmingly day-trippers, who arrive on day launches, trains, cars, buses, bicycles, motorcycles…
Yet the problems you mention — crowds and rubbish — continue and increase. So the problem isn’t the cruise ships, it’s the sheer number of people, wherever they come from. Some take packages, some just come on their own. Nobody can figure out how to limit the number of people, so just give up on that one.
But wait! If there’s too much rubbish, instead of blaming people for eating and drinking and buying things, WHY NOT PUT OUT LOTS AND LOTS OF GARBAGE BINS AND HIRE EXTRA SQUADS OF TRASH COLLECTORS TO EMPTY THEM? Hello? Hello? (I’m calling the mayor.) The line has gone dead.
On to the subject of shops selling gewgaws and cheap stuff. Venice has racked up 1600 years of history (by some counts) by selling things. Many of those things used to be made here, but economics and bureaucracy have pretty much destroyed any important artisanal activity. But if somebody wants a bobbing mechanical gondola to put on their bookshelf and you say “But wait — you could have this genuine hand-made Venetian forcola for only 700 euros instead,” what kind of merchant are you?
Another thought: Many of the shops that are selling the same things over and over are fronts for money-laundering, I have been told by reputable sources. So there’s that.
Final thought (I ran out of space on my previous reply): The cruise ships that dock in Chioggia can arrange transport — bus, taxi, I don’t know precisely what — from the ship to the most beautiful city in the world. But the shops in Chioggia sell the exact same stuff (cheap glass, cheap masks, etc.) you could buy in Venice. So if all you want is a souvenir, you can skip going to Venice altogether. Fewer tourists in Venice? You have saved a mere drop in the proverbial ocean.
I will tell you that many people here shared your hope that the pause imposed by the pandemic would indeed have enabled the city administration to think calmly and rationally about improvements in managing tourism. They did not profit from the opportunity and now it is gone. Now shops are shut (no matter what they were selling), and major streets in the San Marco area — Mercerie, calle de le Rasse — have so many empty windows and rusty grates and peeling stickers and graffiti that one thinks fondly of Naples. Note: I love Naples, but you see my point. If the choice now is between shops selling cheap trinkets and empty spaces selling nothing, it’s a choice nobody seems capable of making.
As for the bags of garbage being ripped apart, it’s not always the tourists who are guilty, I hate to tell you. But let me suggest, yet again, that MORE BINS AND MORE COLLECTIONS could quite possibly make a noticeable difference. Crazy, I know.
In conclusion, I feel you, as they say now, when you say you want to protect Venice from abuse. You can’t. I can’t. Only the city government can, but it doesn’t, and it won’t. It is too busy giving out more taxi licenses so that the Grand Canal can become the waterborne equivalent of whatever clogged commuter artery makes life hell at rush hour where you live.
Toujours gai, Archy.
19 Comments
What a beautiful post, I can almost taste the market! I can’t wait to visit Venice for the first time this summer and cook something in the kitchen I’ll have access to!
Fantastic blog. Thank you!
Thank you for writing your wonderful articles. I devour them with as much gusto as I do radicchio when I am in Venice.
Wonderful post. I really enjoy reading your blog. I learn so much about Venice that is seldom written about by other travel writers. Thanks.
You have warmed my heart, because my entire purpose in writing this blog is to talk about things that are seldom/never written about by others.
“Culinary equipoise”…you’re the best, Erla, a true writers’ writer.
When I was a kid, we had culinary equipoise on Saturday nights:
beans and franks.
Can’t you string together these wonderful observations and emerge
with the best book about Venice in a long, long time?
It’s only because I have readers like you that I can write what I want to. A word like that would have been killed in its cradle by almost every editor I’ve worked with. And yes, this may be the year I take up your suggestion/question. It will never surpass your memoir, “Circe and the Centaur.” I mention that so that anyone reading this will undertake a totally fruitless search for one of the best books ever written.
Dear Erla,
What a delightful posting. Toronto is somewhat beyond in terms of Spring vegetables, but I retain hope.
Caio,
I always try to “Eat in Season” – but that can lead to a very restricted diet here in the North of England! The April Fish idea is also, I seem to recall, the French term for an April Fool.
My mouth waters at all your veggie beauties. Unfortunately, even were I able to be in Venice today, I’m afraid I’m not at all a good cook, so sadly it’s hotels / restaurants for me, or nibbling firtuvely at raw bits – which my OH declares a foolish habit which will eventually polish me off!
Thanks, though, magnificent images and information – as always.
– Oh, and have a Good Easter!
Thank you so much, and you and your family also!
Truly one of your most delicious posts.
I forwarded it to Elena, la mia insegnante di italiano (who grew up in Liguria but here grandparents were Veneziani) and she wept over the cardi.
Me, I wept over the memory of castraure, steamed and anointed with a little olive oil, followed by granceole, in the garden at Montin too many years ago.
Thank you for another trip to Venezia, the children and I miss it so much….Castraure ❤️ there is no substitute…. I also love the local slightly sparkling white wine made in limited amounts every year.
I have a question that maybe you could include in one of your newsletters; about those hideous cheap souvenir, sweet, clothing, restaurants, and ‘Italian made’ (etc) style shops that quickly overtook the old ‘mom & pop’ and local shops (particularly between 2010 to 2019.
….Were many of them forced to close during the COVID lockdown years… I was hoping without tourists, especially cruise ships, they might decline and local business might rise again?
Have you noticed this at all?
Happy Easter to you.
The Covid lockdown certainly made many/most businesses rethink their short- and long-term futures. The fact that the pandemic hit only three months after the apocalyptic aqua alta of November 11, 2019 certainly didn’t help; many businesses could scarcely get back on their feet, literally, after the water subsided due to the loss of equipment, damage to the shop itself, and loss of income.
Local businesses will never be able to rise again, as you put it, as long as landlords (many of them Venetian, may I note) continue to raise the rent. You can see closures, even in neighborhood shops (looking at you, our fabulous drygoods shop) because of rent increases. A friend who belongs to a famous glass-master family on Murano, and whose shop near the Accademia was our never-fail standby for beautiful glass gifts, turned up the other day in a tobacco shop on campo Sant’ Aponal. He had been forced to close his life’s work and take up selling trivia because his landlord quintupled his rent. Let that sink in.
Anyone with a shop in Venice is at the mercy of the landlord. That’s all there is to say about it.
Oh, I’d really enjoy buying and reading any book that you write! So often I’m tempted to doodle images that come into my mind from your posts, even though I no longer do serious illustrative work, you create such good images.
Really wish i was in Venice today, OH’s birthday, a week after our Wedding Anniversary, and we’ve spent several of both in Venice! (Sighs)
Thanks for the reply Erla,
I was hoping for better news, but I’m not surprised to hear your information.
I remember the Venice I first visited in the 90’s… I still have a handful of Lire.
Then, we had the opportunity to live there between 2012 and 2019 on a part time basis, in every season, and so much of what made Venice Venetian seemed to be pushed to the side in favour of what made Venice more saleable (I’m trying to choose my words carefully here, I love venice, and I’m not criticising, it’s an observation lived)
I was horrified when T Fondaco dei Tedeschi was announced, and questioned where that left Coin… which was answered when Coin disappeared.
I understand the increase in online apartment rentals, cruise ship docking etc, created increased ‘affordable’ and all consuming tourism, increased demand for certain retail opportunities, which increased interest in Venice from a more parasitic and morally questionable set of players , reduced Venice to a euro sign, and created a perfect storm…. ( I’ve not included the political contribution, but it couldn’t have happened without political support/inaction)
My hackles always rise when I hear people say “I didn’t like Venice… it was too expensive/crowded/smelly, there were rats/pigeons/agressive seagulls…” etc
Too often, they come from patrons of package tourism which in large part explains their impressions of the city…. the rubbish in the streets after the cruise crowd has passed through, or the bags of household rubbish left out at the wrong times for birds to rip apart (and rats to finish off) -encouraging hoards of them to fight for supremacy in the city…..!… there are so many factors influencing and encouraging other factors.
I was there in Nov 2019 (near Ponte de la fava where we’d been for several years) and cried for Venice, the devastation was unbelievable …
When the pandemic hit I had a naive hope that with the tourist machine pressure off Venice might have a chance to regroup.
We’ll be back, it’s a very special place, and hopefully we can contribute in a positive and meaningful way to protect her from abuse.
Love your articles, thank you 🌻
I’m glad to have your reminiscences and I appreciate your taking the time to share them. Once again, for the 3,000,000th time, I wearily attempt to correct the impression (not fact, because yours are impressions) that cruise ships, or more precisely, their passengers, caused problems. I use the past tense because the anti-cruise-ship crowd, composed of not Venetians, managed to banish them from Venice. Some of the ships now dock at Chioggia, so any passengers that want to see Venice will be coming to town anyway, taking a bus for an hour if all goes well. I don’t see how that’s progress if the number of visitors was the perceived problem; what difference does it make where they disembark? Also, Chioggia is full of shops selling the same gewgaws, so no need to get them in Venice, so I guess you should spare a thought for the gewgaw sellers who make money also off the people who decide not to go to Venice but take a home a souvenir anyway.
Let’s move on. Fun fact: In 2013, when I interviewed the director of the Port Authority, back when the cruise business was booming, cruise passengers accounted for not quite 5 percent of the total annual tourist load in the city. The rest are overwhelmingly day-trippers, who arrive on day launches, trains, cars, buses, bicycles, motorcycles…
Yet the problems you mention — crowds and rubbish — continue and increase. So the problem isn’t the cruise ships, it’s the sheer number of people, wherever they come from. Some take packages, some just come on their own. Nobody can figure out how to limit the number of people, so just give up on that one.
But wait! If there’s too much rubbish, instead of blaming people for eating and drinking and buying things, WHY NOT PUT OUT LOTS AND LOTS OF GARBAGE BINS AND HIRE EXTRA SQUADS OF TRASH COLLECTORS TO EMPTY THEM? Hello? Hello? (I’m calling the mayor.) The line has gone dead.
On to the subject of shops selling gewgaws and cheap stuff. Venice has racked up 1600 years of history (by some counts) by selling things. Many of those things used to be made here, but economics and bureaucracy have pretty much destroyed any important artisanal activity. But if somebody wants a bobbing mechanical gondola to put on their bookshelf and you say “But wait — you could have this genuine hand-made Venetian forcola for only 700 euros instead,” what kind of merchant are you?
Another thought: Many of the shops that are selling the same things over and over are fronts for money-laundering, I have been told by reputable sources. So there’s that.
Final thought (I ran out of space on my previous reply): The cruise ships that dock in Chioggia can arrange transport — bus, taxi, I don’t know precisely what — from the ship to the most beautiful city in the world. But the shops in Chioggia sell the exact same stuff (cheap glass, cheap masks, etc.) you could buy in Venice. So if all you want is a souvenir, you can skip going to Venice altogether. Fewer tourists in Venice? You have saved a mere drop in the proverbial ocean.
I will tell you that many people here shared your hope that the pause imposed by the pandemic would indeed have enabled the city administration to think calmly and rationally about improvements in managing tourism. They did not profit from the opportunity and now it is gone. Now shops are shut (no matter what they were selling), and major streets in the San Marco area — Mercerie, calle de le Rasse — have so many empty windows and rusty grates and peeling stickers and graffiti that one thinks fondly of Naples. Note: I love Naples, but you see my point. If the choice now is between shops selling cheap trinkets and empty spaces selling nothing, it’s a choice nobody seems capable of making.
As for the bags of garbage being ripped apart, it’s not always the tourists who are guilty, I hate to tell you. But let me suggest, yet again, that MORE BINS AND MORE COLLECTIONS could quite possibly make a noticeable difference. Crazy, I know.
In conclusion, I feel you, as they say now, when you say you want to protect Venice from abuse. You can’t. I can’t. Only the city government can, but it doesn’t, and it won’t. It is too busy giving out more taxi licenses so that the Grand Canal can become the waterborne equivalent of whatever clogged commuter artery makes life hell at rush hour where you live.
Toujours gai, Archy.
i like the content very much