You think Venice is just museums and restaurants? This particular moment will show that you can be in Venice without doing any of the things you typically expected to do, at least in the heart of darkest Castello. Sumer is definitely icumen in.
Potluck dinner tonight in Seco Marina.
Not being sarcastic, I think that is absolutely adorable, because extending the invitation to foreigners (just for starters) especially in the local language, is the essence of welcome. Also not being sarcastic, maybe it’s a cleverly calculated risk, because I’m not sure how many foreigners speak Venetian.
A Venetian I know, working on the assumption that some foreigners would understand this invitation anyhow, also assumes that said foreigners would bring next to nothing to the table but a large desire to eat free food. I’m not going to be there to confirm or deny this, but the notion that at least one foreigner might interpret the invitation in this way does give an regrettable indication of how some foreigners have led at least one Venetian to imagine something so unpleasant. This foreigner (me) unhappily believes that the aforementioned Venetian may well not be wrong.
While we’re on the subject of Friday evening, you could wander over to the Campo San Lorenzo and enjoy an evening organized by “Art Night Venice.” (Please note the Comune’s commitment to serving its tourists by organizing or sponsoring all these events on June 22 by promoting it on their website whose English-language option does not translate into English. You might chance your arm by using Google Translate, if you care.) There are scores — they say “hundreds” — of free events that night. Here’s an English-language rundown.
San Lorenzo is a bit out of my circuit even though it’s not far. You could be there in ten minutes or even fewer from via Garibaldi.
Then there is the annual five-day festa of San Piero di Casteo June 26-30. Every year thousands of revelers come to revel till midnight or so to live music and equally live mosquitoes (bring your strongest repellent). When the music ends and the food stands close, everybody all reveled out wanders homeward along the street outside our bedroom window. We are at street level. The windows are open because we are sweltering. So we get to hear everybody’s chaotic closing remarks till 1:00 AM or so.
And let us not forget that the Biennale is still in full swing. Last Wednesday morning about 4,936 kids (by my estimate) from Campalto, a village up on the way to the airport, were coming to see it. They were excited, which is nice. But 4,936 excited kids on the 5.1 vaporetto from the Zattere was not at all nice. I closed my eyes all the way back, trying not to imagine those doomed ferries in southeast Asia that go down because they are so groaningly overloaded. I asked Lino if we were going to start seeing people riding atop the vaporettos, like trains in India. He didn’t reply. I did not take that as a “no.”
But the true drama underway in the neighborhood — speaking of entertainment, which I guess we were — is the gobsmackingly ponderous Coldiretti Villaggio that has been under construction for a week and will continue to be under construction till it opens on June 28 for three gobsmacking days. I couldn’t find anything in English about this phenomenon but click on the link to see a brief video from the same undertaking a few months ago at Naples.
This event is of dimensions so extreme and gnarly that it needs its own post. Meanwhile, as I struggle to write it, may I suggest that you pause to evaluate the theoretical value/importance/necessity/desirability of awakening Venetians (I think the three days are intended to awaken people) to the problems of farmers and raisers of livestock by bringing the farmers and livestock straight into the heart of a desperately fragile World Heritage Site that is already known to be staggering under the weight of human hordes.
And on that note (I think it’s a G-flat), let the summer begin.
10 Comments
When we were in Venice in May, it smelled of the lagoon (not unpleasantly) and sounded of the bells. The cena sounds good-noisy, Coldiretti not so much.
Delightful writing and evocation as always! When traveling abroad, we find it worth reading posters for local events. These have taken us to tiny local annual festivals (honey, nuts, not together), weekly fish fries (in a sheet-metal tent), concerts (spirituals sung in French were, umm, interesting), even an archery festival. But a festival that attracts thousands in a tight space? Not so much. I’d rather be trampled at a county fair that’s not on an island.
“Mi so’ foresto” to allude to the miniseries “Faccia d’Angelo”. It would have been fun to join the party on the Seco Marina but probably a bit awkward since I don’t speak neither Venetian nor Italian and would have been quite unable to bring anything remotely interesting to the table. I appreciate the kind invitation though. Too bad I missed it.
I guess Venice never cease to amaze but I would never have expected a fatstock show on the Riva dei Sette Martiri. Curiouser and curioser, said Alice.
See you soon, I hope!
All the best from Solna!
You astonish me how far short you sell yourself. “Unable to bring anything remotely interesting to the table”? If you weren’t to feel up to buying some baccala’ mantecato or sarde in saor at the supermarket, there’s always the wine shop. They’ve got barrels and spigots galore — you could have brought a few demijohns of cheap plonk and been an instant STAR!!
That’s always an option. 😀 Thanks for a good laugh. A demijohn or two of good wine could go a long way. 😀
This year I have charged myself to find some liqueurs that are not readily available at the Swedish Liquor Monopoly and I think I will go on a search for a good wine shop. Last year I got the address of a place on the Zattere from siór Bianchi’s daughter but never had the time to go there but there are probably many around.
Got to run. Collecting child from skating camp!
The “good wine shop” she mentioned is undoubtedly Cantine Schiavi, it’s pretty famous. https://www.cantinaschiavi.com/ But you don’t understand — the operative word in my suggestion was “cheap.” People at these things don’t want Chateau Mouton Rothschild, they’re glad to have any ordinary old table wine, the more the better. Show up with bottles of GOOD wine and you’ll just discombobulate the down-home atmosphere.
Ah. Thank you for that. Sometimes less is more, I realize that but it only goes to show how hard it would be for me as a “foresti” to sneak in unnoticed.
It sounds lovely though. A demijohn of “cheap”, but still good, wine and some also cheap but still good dishes from the supermarket might work. No need for things to be overly fancy among friends.
It would be impossible for a foresto (masculine) or a foresta (feminine) to sneak in unnoticed. No need to bother trying — everybody can tell you’re not from here, and nobody cares. Why imagine you’d want to conceal it in some way? For one thing, you’re a welcome break from the monotonous crowd of everybody they’ve known since birth every blessed day. Think of yourself as an exotic bird (or lizard, or bison, or whatever). Wear your high-school wrestling team T-shirt. Venture three words in mangled Venetian. Embrace your forestitude! And, as I mentioned, bring plenty of cheap wine. If it’s cheap it’s already good, by definition.
Sounds a bit like a good old North of England Non-conformist Chapel tradition – a “Jacob’s Join” – a semi- official social event, where all ages gather, and people bring different food / prepared dishes, and everyone is involved, with games and dances, silly entertainments, forfeits and contests, too, often.
-But the strict chapel goers would not countenance the Alcohol!
Thank you so very much for these very original and interesting tid-bits of Venice, its history and daily life there.