Erla Zwingle | Venice: I am not making this up

“Besieged”: tourism update

August 27, 2009 3 Comments

I know it might seem that this subject just won’t go away, even if, as Mark Twain said about something else, you take a stick and hit it on the snout. But as it’s one of the central subjects of existence here, there is no escape.

I was interested to see the headline in the Gazzettino two days ago, “Venice doesn’t know how to keep its tourists.” This is intriguing, considering that much of the criticism hurled at tourism here seems to have to do with wanting the tourists to go away.

Just in case, though, that my recent disquisition on tourism might have seemed like the lonely ravings of a solitary misfit, a recent study by the Confindustria Venezia, a business consortium, which looked at Venice, Rome and Florence, has shown not only the brevity of the average stay (2.47 nights), but that tourists rarely return to Venice. And they say outright that, as I mentioned the other day, the city lacks a tourism strategy.

“The central point,” said Elisabetta Fogarin, president of Confindustria Venezia Turismo, “is that Venice needs a policy of Destination Management. It needs to be relaunched at the international level, to make it an icon and a glamour destination again, where the visitor and traveler can live an experience that can’t be repeated somewhere else.”

Glamour is the grail of tourism here, the notion that quality can be made to replace quantity in the economic equation. I’d suggest that this dream is something like wanting all trains to be like the Orient Express, including the Venice-Pordenone local. Which I would totally endorse, except that there are too many people who just need to get home from work to make that even imaginable.

The statistic of 2.47 nights here is, according to the study, a sign that Venice is drastically under-realizing its potential; in any case, it’s not indicative of “culture tourism” (for which one needs more time, clearly. Anybody who has entered the Uffizi Galleryin Florence with the intention of seeing it all knows that about five months is probably a more reasonable time frame for visiting some cultural monuments here.) And 2.47 nights is just another way of saying “not quality tourists.” Bearing in mind that to reach an average, you must have many people who are staying less time (and at least some who are staying longer, true.) But mostly tourists just hit and run.

I think somebody has already recognized this and decided to play to Venice’s currently somewhat battered image. A new campaign promoting the city’s museums shows two scenes: One is a detail of the huddled masses in the Piazza San Marco, next to a shot of the magnificent Scala d’Oro in the Doge’s Palace, a ceremonial staircase dwarfing two lorn humans. The slogan in Italian translates as, “If you stay outside, you can’t say you’ve seen Venice.” Which I like better than the way they translated it, snappy as it may be.

So to really see Venice, you have to get away from Venice? Well, I guess that’s as good an approach to crowd management as another. It just seems slightly regrettable that instead of promoting this monument for the wonder of the world that it is, this angle is more like “Want to get away from all those uncouth boors outside? Flee into our gorgeous past, which is deserted,” which actually sounds pretty good unless you know that this means you’re going to have to pay 13 euros ($18) to walk through endless non-air-conditioned rooms and look at a million paintings that all look alike. Or so it might seem if your primary motivation for entering was merely because it isn’t Out There.

I happen to worship the Doge’s Palace and consider it a given that if you don’t spend several hours here, you can’t have the tiniest notion of the greatness, brilliance and sheer power of the Venetian Republic. Without which, your visit to Venice is just a pointless trek through a flyblown postcard.

It’s just too bad to tell people they should see the museums because there aren’t any of those awful tourists there. But I guess if you have no tourism strategy, you’ll try all kinds of things.

Venetian Curiosities, Venetian-ness

Seeking a new viewpoint

August 25, 2009 2 Comments

The location of Rosa Salva's cafe makes an excellent outdoor perch for resting and ingesting many marvelous calories in the form of pastry and ice cream. — The location of Rosa Salva's cafe makes an excellent outdoor perch for resting and ingesting many first-class calories in the form of pastry and ice cream.

One Sunday afternoon as I was toiling along toward the Fondamente Nove on my way to Burano, I stopped for refreshment (coffee and use of the bathroom) at the elegant cafe/bar Rosa Salva in Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo.

Let me note right here that although travel writers seem to love propagating “Zanipolo,” the ancient Venetian name for this trusty duet of saints, I myself have never heard any Venetian use that word, even by mistake. That era, whenever it was, is long, long gone. (I have seen it written, occasionally, on local boats or bars.) I just wanted to point that out.

Anyway, it was a miserable day. When it rains like that the entire world goes sodden, nothing escapes. Your skin isn’t just wet, it’s saturated. The air, your clothes, your brain. A day like this makes you want to just stay in bed, with the (sodden) covers pulled over your (sodden) head.

Not surprisingly, there were no other customers in the cafe. A dark-haired girl and a young man wearing glasses were standing behind the bar. I smiled and gave that whaddya-gonna-do shrug toward the weather and the world.

I said, “Why are we here?”

They smiled. He said, “Good question. There’s nobody around — nobody. And there’s five of us here to work today. Some days even with five we’re working like crazy, but look at this. There’s nothing to do.”

Helpful little Anglo-Saxon, no-minute-left-unexploited me, bounces right in: “You could read a book,” I offered. “Write some letters. Do needlepoint. Write the story of your life. Not the stuff that happened, but the stuff you wish had happened. Your dreams.”

Did someone say dreams? He was ready. “My dream was to become a captain of a vaporetto with the ACTV [the local transport company],” he replied.

“Good grief!” I said (or rather, its Venetian equivalent). “If you’re going to dream, dream big! Captain of a vaporetto? Why not make it captain of a cruise ship? After all, it’s just dreams. Go for it!”

“Well, no,” he replied, unruffled. “It would be enough for me. It’s a secure position, you work your seven hours and then you go home.” (This the classic philosophy of a certain sort of person here: I need to work but don’t let it disturb my life.) “Besides, my father was captain of a cruise ship and he was gone for weeks at a time.” Oops. I was aiming at the wrong dream.

“Well, that changes things,” I said. “You know what you’re talking about. So fine. Why don’t you apply to the ACTV?”

“I did.” He gestured toward his glasses. “You can’t make it if you wear glasses.”

I didn’t want to give in. “So have the operation!”

“I could do that” — he had obviously been serious about this dream, small as it might have seemed to me. “It would correct the near-sightedness, but not the astigmatism.” (Or the other way around, I can’t remember.)

“I wouldn’t have minded being a train driver,” he went on, “but it’s the same problem about the eyes. ”

“Subway driver?” (Somewhere else, obviously, not here.) Nope — anyone who wants to work at something that’s part of the autotramvieri union, it’s the same story. He was stuck.

He had sort of made his peace with it, but he was still young enough to feel the empty space where what he wanted to be his life was supposed to have been put. Meanwhile he’s making do with carrying overpriced cappuccinos to exhausted tourists. Or not, as is the case today.

“Well,” I said, still trying to be helpful but drastically changing tack, “just think, anyway you’ve still got your eyes. How many people could say they wish they had your problems?” Not the best contribution, being repulsively banal, but true, which is something, anyway.

He agreed. Well, what else could he do? Evidently he had long since reached that conclusion, the idea that things could have been, or be, worse. But meanwhile the rain is pouring down, and the motor has pretty much stalled in his life, so to speak. Whether he simply needs more fuel, or new spark plugs, or some part that’s more expensive and hard to find (“…we’ll have to order it…”…”it will be two months…” …”everybody’s closed for Christmas/New Year’s/summer vacation”…) I hope he finds it and gets his life moving again. He’s too young to stay stalled in the breakdown lane of life like this.

Venetian-ness

Kids coming out of the woodwork

August 22, 2009 1 Comment

I love the fact that this neighborhood is running over with children, like some cosmic bathtub.

If your mom does force you to go shopping with her first thing in the morning, at least you can make it easy on yourself by hitching a ride. — If your mom forces you to go shopping with her first thing in the morning, at least you can make it easy on yourself by hitching a ride.

Contrary to the Italian national average birthrate, which at 1.37 per woman is almost the lowest in the European Union (only Spain and Greece are lower), here in the heart of darkest Castello offspring are definitely not produced in fractions. I suppose they are seen as — well, I’m not sure what. Necessary? Fun? Inevitable? Normal? Probably all of these, and more.

In the morning, all is effervescence and charm; the little urchins are full of high spirits as they set off to conquer the world. Toward afternoon, though, the scene turns darker. Something happens to those shining little angels, tousled, chirping, frolicking, laughing in twinkly little voices, beings that can make you want to have a dozen just because they are the concentrated essence of happy-to-be-alive-on-Earth-with-youness.

As 5:00 PM slinks toward you, Things Change. It is the Hour of the Crying Child. You hear crying in the distance, or even nearby, as the little people begin to troop homeward, often goaded by their intolerant and domineering older siblings. (Yes, they have siblings here. It’s great.)

On St. Martin's Day (November 11,) kids dress up and come out in droves, banging pots and buckets and demanding candy or money from the neighbors. The afternoon turns into something of a controlled riot.

The crying, or screaming, or incoherent baby-vulture-like screeching, gets closer and closer, and as it approaches it also gets louder and more grating. Often it is lubricated with angry, exhausted, exasperated, helpless tears, the kind the kid can’t turn off even as they overwhelm him or her. The kind that gets ratcheted up with each attempt, increasingly harsh, by its adults to bring the hysteria to a halt.

A little boy was crying like this the other day as he and his entourage passed along the fondamenta across the canal from us. It was a sound somewhere between a shriek and a whine, more temper than pain, and was definitely under his complete control. It was that “I’m going to punish you till you snap” noise that you know he can keep up for hours, if need be, that stops being about anything other than itself.

I was heading over the bridge toward him, to do some errands. Two American girls crossed the bridge, coming toward me. As they passed, I heard one say to the other, “I’m never having kids.”

I went down the other side. Standing at the bottom of the bridge were three little old ladies — they’re always in three, like the Weird Sisters in Macbeth. As I passed, I heard one say to the others, in Venetian, “We always had a smile on our faces. Always.” Of course she was referring to the Golden Age, when she was the little boy’s age and life was hard but happy and people were simple and honest and children were perfect.

Kids can claim virtually any part of the street for themselves; if they had a flag they could declare their own independent republic. Which would be ruled by dictators, thousands of them.

Yeah, right. Everybody was ready with a comment, no matter how irrational. I choked off the temptation to turn around and shout at all of them, “You’re lucky your mother isn’t here now!”

Late yesterday afternoon I was headed toward via Garibaldi at the Moment of the Swarming Children (when they all obey some primal signal and come out to, well, swarm), a festive interlude which briefly precedes the Hour of the Crying Child.

As I was walking along the fondamenta, I saw a little blonde girl, maybe four years old, standing at the railing looking into the water of the canal. Her mother and a couple of her female friends were standing near her but involved in hashing over whatever needed to be hashed. Meanwhile, the girl was transfixed, staring down.

As I passed by, curious to glimpse what she was looking at, her older brother went over to her. He might have been seven. She looked up at him and I heard her say two words: “E’ morto.” It’s dead. A pensive little voice stating a simple little fact.

It was a pigeon, floating in the water. I had a strange rustic impulse to say “Great! One less! That leaves only about ten billion to go.” But I didn’t. First, I try not to invite myself into other people’s lives, especially if I don’t know them (though via Garibaldi grants a lot of leeway for spontaneous badinage even among strangers).

But I couldn’t do it. Something in her voice had struck me. It wasn’t that she was sad, or repulsed, or anything you could identify with a single word, or even several words. She was standing there doing her best to grasp the fact that something which had been alive wasn’t alive anymore, and wasn’t ever going to be alive again. She made me feel strangely respectful.

I am sure that if I had said anything — anything at all — I would have made it worse. I think her brother sensed the same thing, because as long as I was in earshot, I didn’t hear him say one thing. They just stood there, looking down, waiting for their mother to stop talking.

Boatworld, Problems, Tourism

Gondoliers gone wild

August 20, 2009 8 Comments

Not only have gondolas changed fairly radically in the few hundred years since this image was made, but so have the gondoliers. Boatmen have always gotten into arguments; under the Venetian Republic there was even a special code of laws designed specifically to adjudicate boat-borne conflicts. Maybe we should bring them back.

Last Friday an unfortunate event occurred which not only did not shed honor on the worshipful order of gondoliers, it did way, way the opposite, and then some.

The two gondoliers involved have not only been suspended for five days till the jury decides whether to suspend them for three months (“You are so grounded!!”), but three sopping American tourists have been hauled out of the canal, and I think most of their personal effects have been recovered by the fire department divers.

For all its elegance, complexity, and historic value, in some ways the gondola is just another working boat in a city where most of the work involves a boat somewhere. Just like the blue cargo barge and the green garbage truck, the black gondola is here to make a living. What the passenger brings to the experience is kind of up to him or her.

In the early afternoon of the aforementioned Friday, two gondoliers based at the stazio near Piazzale Roma came to blows. I have to say that having heard their location, what followed didn’t come as a total surprise, seeing as the gondoliers here generally are not of the type you can imagine drinking tea with their pinkies extended. It is also fairly evident that conflict between the two men had already been on a low boil for some time now.

Gondolier A was boarding three Americans for a gondola ride. To do this, the gondolier ties his boats to some slim pilings next to a wooden platform with descending steps, and helps the passengers aboard.

Gondolier B approached and, seeing that the embarkation point was occupied and that the people were taking too long (in his opinion) to get aboard, was seized by a fury that impelled him to leap off his boat without even tying it up, and head straight for Gondolier A. The enraged bellowing, threats, imprecations, etc. that flew between the both of them did not need subtitles or any other form of translation; the Americans, seeing an ugly fight approaching, got scared and all stood up together to get off the boat immediately.

Sudden simultaneous movements, which involve weight as well as motion, especially all concentrated on the lower starboard side of a flat-bottomed gondola, are Not Good. The tourists know that now, because suddenly all three were in the drink and one was at least momentarily sort of stuck under the capsized gondola. This is Extremely Not Good.

Happily, at that moment a motor launch was passing, carrying some firemen back to the firehouse. Firemen here are almost always involved in nautical rescues, so they got right to it. People saved, boat righted, sunken objects (including a video camera) eventually retrieved. Gondolier A gets to washing and drying the boat, and peace — or the opposite of rage, anyway — descends.

Needless to say, the Ente Gondola (the gondoliers’ organization) is now taking steps, which will be determined after all the meetings have concluded.

An isolated incident between two men who haven’t had their rabies shots? Not quite, it seems. Because the scene now shifts to Sunday morning (two days later), at the Rialto area.

A batch of us had rowed over from the Lido, as we like to do on Sunday mornings, and had tied up our eight-oar gondola to the platform at the Erbaria, an open sort of small square facing the Grand Canal.

Being a popular tourist area, the Rialto is a place where some gondoliers tie up to await potential clients. Even to entice passersby to become clients. But not today. Enticement was not in the air.

The young gondolier kneeling on the stern wiping down his boat with a chamois cloth suddenly started to roar at a passing tourist who had stopped to make some snaps of him at work. “I’m not paid to be photographed,” the gondolier yelled, using plenty of vulgar phraseology and making some threatening motions that implied he might be ready to come ashore to demonstrate how much he meant it.

The tourist fled. We stood there, aghast. Lino was outraged.

“The gondola and the tourist are a gondolier’s bread,” he said. “If there’s one thing a gondolier depends on, it’s tourists. This shows that not only is he incredibly rude, he’s even willing to shoot himself in the foot.”

Say what you will, it's hard to think that this gondolier is feeling very much in tune with the romance and glamour the public might imagine was his lot. It can be a very demanding way to make a living, as you can surmise by imagining the frame of mind of a gondolier like this one, preparing his boat for a cold and possibly not very profitable day -- here, on New Year's Day at 9:00 AM.

Lino wasn’t shouting or gesticulating but I think he was angrier than the gondolier. Because the gondolier was merely responding to some random neural firing somewhere in the limbic system of his brain, whereas Lino felt offended as a Venetian on behalf not only of the gondoliers who aren’t insane, but the image of the city as a whole. It’s painful to him to think that people go away with an idea of his city as a place where you take your life (and your wallet) in your hands.

Let’s see if these two events turn out to have been merely some bizarre coincidence and we can all go back to sleep. Otherwise, I don’t know whether it makes more sense to approach a gondolier wearing a life vest or a bullet-proof jacket.