Events

who says there’s nothing to do here

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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.

This announces the Seventh (!) “Dinner of Seco.”  Seco Marina is the official name of the long major street stretching parallel to the canal at the bottom of Via Garibaldi. (See map). Neighborhood gatherings of this sort are not common, but as you see, Seco is forging its own destiny.  (Smaller alfresco feasts are common on the evening of the Redentore, but they are usually organized among friends and/or family.)  Extremely loose and colloquial translation: “Friday June 21 at 19:00 hours (7:00 PM) let’s get together again this year to celebrate the arrival of summer.  Everybody bring whatever they can, tables and chairs included.  Everybody bring their desire to hang out.  Let’s live our splendid city together.”  And then, in a truly lovely touch that embodies the “let’s hang out” spirit, is the final phrase in Venetian: “Even foreigners are welcome.” Conclusion:  “Let’s all make a huge crowd.  Long live Seco!”

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.

The yellow line traces Seco Marina. Just trust me, because there is no street sign. You may well have walked along it many times without even knowing its name.

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.

The decommissioned church of San Lorenzo (that once held the tomb of Marco Polo) is now used by various exhibitors of the Biennale. Art Night is a vivacious addition to the area.
On Friday, June 21 a free painting laboratory will be set up in Campo San Lorenzo “for little kids and youngsters.”  I make no assumption as to the true age limit — perhaps you can tell them how young you feel and get a tube and brush or whatever they’re using to make instant art.  If you prefer your paintings by Tintoretto and not unknown small people (bearing in mind that Tintoretto too started out as a kid), just wait till 20:00 hours (8:00 PM) when “Milonga in Campo” will start up; I interpret this as “music and dancing” because of the name of the organizers: Associazione Vividotango.  As for who will be dancing, it may or may not be you, depending on how many beverages you might have imbibed.  Wikipedia explains that “Milonga is a musical genre that originated in the Río de la Plata areas of Argentina, Uruguay, and the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. It is considered a precursor of the tango. ‘Milonga is an excited habanera.'”

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.

Stands where producers and cookers of food will be in full tilt, as well as areas presenting live farm animals of all sorts and sizes, are being set up along the Riva dei Sette Martiri as well as in the Giardini.  Sorry, Biennale visitors, you’re going to have to take the scenic route to get to the pavilions.
I suppose one could look at this acreage and say it doesn’t look like so much space. Perhaps it isn’t, if you don’t want anybody to be able to move.  You should know that even though entry is free, they have installed fences.  (See: livestock.)  The area is completely fenced in.  I don’t know why that makes it all seem so much more claustrophobic, but it does.  Safer?  Okay.  But I’ll be watching to see if there are any “exit” signs.

You may recognize this area as via Garibaldi looking toward the statue of himself. If you are asking yourself who could have thought of this area — or any part of the historic center — as being ideal for an event predicted to draw literal thousands of visitors, you will not be alone. Every single person in the neighborhood is asking the same question, and not of themselves, and not quietly or pensively. They’re asking it of anybody who had any authority to sign off on any part of it.

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.

 

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Events

boaty Biennale

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It’s been several years since a boat featured in a work of art here.  This construction was the first submission ever made by artists of Puerto Rico, an island whose patron saint is St. John the Baptist, as you know.  Here’s what I can tell you as gleaned from an article on venezianews:  “The exhibition…reunites some of the best interdisciplinary artists of Puerto Rico… Around the monumental sculpture ‘San Juan Bautista,’ potent symbol of the capital, San Juan, actions, works and performances come to life, incorporating the complexity and the resilience of the Puerto Rican spirit, confronting at the same time the persistent heritage of colonialism and urgent questions of urban injustice.”

The Biennale has opened several weeks earlier than usual this year, and the inauguration was Saturday, April 20.  What remained usual, however,  was the mass of international art(s) journalists and assorted contributors that swarmed the streets of Castello for the three preceding days.

I usually enjoy seeing the exotic plumage of these migrating creatures, not to mention their extraordinary behavior, but this year netted little.  A good friend told me he saw a person in the street wearing a toilet on his head and I’m really sorry I missed that.  Lino’s father-in-law was a plumbing contractor and was occasionally seen around town carrying a toilet on his shoulder — clearly he didn’t realize the artistic potential in his humdrum little existence and its porcelain trappings.  I suspect that supporting four children during a world war might have limited his frivolous side, if he had one.

But such a jape would only have appeared frivolous back then, when life was real and life was earnest.  Whoever porta’d that potty the other day was doing it seriously.  To what end, I can’t say, but everything at the Biennale is done with a degree of seriousness denser than black granite.  Along with the art we get diatribes and philippics and harangues, and also sermons and lectures and platitudes.  Lots of words that labor to obscure rather than illuminate.  Speaking of art — I mean, words — I’m remembering this self-portrait by Salvator Rosa (1645):

Translation: “Be silent, unless what you have to say is better than silence.”  He would never make it at the Biennale.

Back to the bony statue on the boat.  It has been moored alongside the fruit and vegetable boat at the bottom of via Garibaldi.  It will be there till the Biennale closes in November.

After only two weeks he is beginning to fit right into the neighborhood.  I’ve already come to like this little dude.  Doesn’t bother anybody, doesn’t need anything.

But if you desire meaning, maybe the following will help:

The exhibition reflects the dissociation and exploitation of a colonial political system that has attempted to unravel the fraught complexities of contemporary Puerto Rican identities. The estrangement that is inherent to the colonial status is an extended act of violence resulting in a psychic malaise because of what Anibal Quijano has so aptly described and defined as “the coloniality of power”.

At the heart of the exhibition stands Celso González’ monumental Yola Sculpture, “San Juan Bautista,” a powerful symbol of Puerto Rico’s enduring spirit. This site-specific installation challenges the constraints of its political status, whil honoring the Island’s rich maritime heritage.

Wishing he could have a puppy.
Remembering the little girl he had a crush on in 4th grade.
Trying to come up with a system for knowing which contact lens goes in which eye.
It’s like living with a floating room full of masks from Oceania.
Come to Venice, they said.  You’ll have so much fun, they said.
Has just missed the next-to-last vaporetto to Sant’ Erasmo and has to wait an hour for the next one.  Good thing he’s not hungry.  And doesn’t have to go to the bathroom.  And isn’t cold.  Wishes he’d brought something to read.
St. John on the boat got lots of faces but they only gave her part of one.  It’s pretty cool that she’s got those independent eyes, though, like a chameleon.

There have been boats at the Biennale before now.  The water is evidently an element that helps some projects seem more interesting.  Or important.

The Comoro Islands sent this in 2009.  I can’t tell you anything about it, but then again, you know that if you have to ask, you shouldn’t be here.
In 2013, a boat overloaded with desperate migrants capsized on its way from Libya to Italy.  “Migrants, hundreds dead” is the headline on the borrowed newspaper that reported the tragedy off the coast of Lampedusa in which 360 persons drowned. How audaciously droll to remind people of the catastrophe in such a blithe and child-like way. (uncredited photo)

Vik Muniz’s floating installation Lampedusa was launched during the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. The article published in the Haifa Museum of Art publication stated that “the 14-meter-long (45 feet) paper boat was coated with a giant reproduction of the Italian newspaper that reported the tragedy. The gargantuan paper boat drifted along the Canal Grande, Venice’s main transportation route, docking near luxury yachts. As art critic Jonathan Jones wrote in The Guardian, “This art project has been overtaken by real-life horror. Perhaps, in theory, it seemed reasonable to make a vaguely thought-provoking, ‘playful’ piece about migration. But now the scale of our cruelty, the true consequences of all the rhetoric that dehumanises migrants, have become so lethally clear. Surely, art on such a theme should be less equivocal, more angry.”

Well said, Mr. Jones.  But this is the Biennale, where scruples find little nourishment.

These objects are occasionally left behind, and Muniz’s has been here for nine years now. No idea who is paying mooring fees at the “Vento di Venezia” marina, or why.  If its purpose was polemical it has lost whatever value it might have had; migrants keep drowning.
One critic explained that “Vik Muniz employs his traditional use of unlikely materials and scale manipulation to generate wonder from predictability. Contextualized in the naval environment of Venice, ‘Lampedusa’ is … built to scale of one of the town’s traditional vaporettos.”

I’m going to go back to floating St. John.  Despite not being any closer to resolving urgent questions of urban injustice or the coloniality of power, I’m starting to feel that we understand each other.

 

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Boatworld, Events, Venetian Events

rowing for peace?

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The 38 boats at the starting line stretched across most of the Giudecca Canal between the Maritime Zone and Sacca Fisola.   (City of Venice, uncredited photo)

Last Sunday morning was special:  Several very different events were rolled into one efficient package, and the sun came out and burned off the mist,  and also there were leftovers.

The amalgamated elements were: A Venetian-rowing race, a deft promotion of the next Winter Olympics, and an appeal for world peace that was ingeniously linked to the preceding two.  And there was food — oh, right.  I already mentioned that.

The prize- and speechgiving stand being prepared Sunday morning in the area by the basilica of the Madonna della Salute.  Several people are attaching the pennants for the first four boats to finish to their respective little metal sticks.

The race is called the “regata of the 50 caorlinas” to indicate the type and number of the boats involved.  Allow me a bit of backstory to help you appreciate it more fully.

Some years ago (I’m estimating as many as 15), there was formed a type of consortium of the local rowing clubs called the Coordinamento Associazioni Remiere della Voga alla Veneta (Coordination of the Venetian Rowing Associations).  The consortium still exists in a suspended-animation sort of way, but while it was young and glowing it organized an annual boat festival and race on Saint Andrew’s Day (Nov. 30, as you know) because Andrew is the patron saint of boatwrights, among many other things.

Almost all of the rowing clubs have at least one caorlina — a trusty boat created generations ago for lugging cargo around — and it’s very useful for fun because six people can row it even if they aren’t all at any particular level of skill.  It’s a social sort of thing.

The rowing group of the railway’s after-work sports club was looking fine.  As you see, height is no handicap — or, barring extremes, advantage — in rowing.  And speaking of work, to their starboard is a four-oar sandolo rowed by members of the Generali Insurance company, out to cheer on or loudly denigrate their team.

So for a few years this race was a great occasion for everybody to just throw themselves into the scrum.  Your correspondent participated in one edition and our little crew was quite the mixed bag.  I can’t remember our position at the finish — we were pretty far back.  Maybe we’re still rowing.  Your correspondent also participated for several years in the clubhouse kitchen, preparing and slinging vast amounts of pasta at the ravenous rowers and their relatives and friends afterward.  The fame of this little jamboree spread across the Venetian-rowing world, so crews came from Cremona and Florence and Milan and Pavia, and so on.  That’s how the number of participating boats rose to a mighty 50.  If there was a party for just us rowers, that was it.

The last edition was held in 2018.  Then Covid and the lockdown and many other things happened, and no more festa until now.  And why now, considering that St. Andrew is on vacation in the month of April?  Because April 6 was designated by the United Nations as the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace.  And so once again, Venice provides the perfect setting for initiatives or ceremonies that have little, if anything, to do with it.

I’m thinking back to the years when one of the more active and public members of the Coordinamento was vehement in his opposition to traditional rowing events being exploited for touristic or other purposes of promotion.  He would shout “We’re not figuranti!” (the costumed performers who parade in period dress to enliven certain events or ceremonies).

But here, in the fullness of time, it appears that what was once something truly local, that had nothing to do with anything but its participants, was suddenly the perfect way to draw attention to other things that have nothing to do with the city or its people.  This, without a squeak from the former paladin of Venetian-ness.  They like to say that Venice is the world city of peace, but I think it’s more like the world city of irony.  But let’s get back to the events.

This brings us to the second element: Sport.  Not Venetian rowing, per se, but the 2026 Winter Olympics.  The venues will be divided between two regions — Lombardy and Veneto — and naturally Cortina d’Ampezzo, the Pearl of the Dolomites, represents the Veneto.  Cortina is arguably one of the most famous names in winter sports, having hosted the winter Olympics in 1956.  So Sunday’s race was an extra-Venetian way of publicizing the Olympics, and also — did you notice? — the Veneto Region.  It was a match made, if not in heaven, certainly in many offices, bars and restaurants.

It took me more time than it should have to decipher the ultra-designed emblem.  The Veneto is identified as “host region,” and the two star cities, as you see, are Milano Cortina.  The three-swirl symbol on the right is for the Paralympics.

Third and final element: Peace.  We all need it and want it, and the Olympics were a fine reason to ask Antonio Silvio Calo’, president of the Fondazione Venezia per la Ricerca sulla Pace (Venice Foundation for Research on Peace) for his thoughts on the subject.

Bonus points: The regional councilor for sport, Cristiano Corazzari, drew our attention to the “Ancient memory of the ‘Olympic truce,’ that it should continue to be the central theme to evoke the profound value of the Olympics.”  If the long jump and the luge can promote peace, I say let’s extend the Olympic truce for the next 250 years.

Fun fact: The sacred truce did not put a stop to all warfare, only to conflicts which hindered the games. (Always check the fine print before signing anything, especially a truce.)  The truce protected travelers on their way to the sanctuary and only forbade military operations against and by the organizing city. But even this truce was breakable. In 420 BC, the Spartans were excluded from the Olympic games because they had attacked a part of the Elean territory. In 364 BC, Arcadian soldiers even attacked the holy domain of Olympia during the games.  So seek it as you will, peace appears to remain an elusive and fickle ideal.

Back to Venice.  Boats, Olympics, and peace got wrapped up together, and then we ate bigoli in salsa and went home.  The caorlinas and their rowers went home, the Olympics went back to the offices and the construction sites, and peace is yet to be found.  If only we could remember where we put it the last time we used it.

Some members of the Bucintoro club came out on their six-oar gondola to watch the proceedings.  Anything on the water looks better when seen from something on the water.
The gondolas that are usually tied up here are either at work or have been sent elsewhere for the morning. Thirty-eight caorlinas have to find somewhere to dock.
Several clubs sent more than one boat. The orange-and-blue rowers from the Voga Veneta Mestre were out in force.
Ditto the hardy members of Voga Veneta Lido, who rowed not only their own two caorlinas but borrowed one of the city’s set used for official races.
The Canottieri Mestre, green and white, sent their best.
The Olympics mascots were bouncing around. Tina (Cortina) on the left represents the full-bore Olympics. Milo (Milano) on the right stands for the Paralympics.  As you can somewhat see, his tail and right foot are not like hers.  The story is that he was born with only three legs, and has learned to use his tail instead to help him walk.  His motto: “Obstacles are trampolines.”
A slightly better look at Milo’s right foot. The normal right foot of the costume has been covered by the end of the tail, which is looped around the foot.  The animals are stoats, otherwise known as ermines.  I haven’t discovered why they were chosen, but I’m sure there’s some significance somewhere.
Finally the refreshments.  In a departure from the usual vats and cauldrons and countless plastic plates, the Art & Food Group catering organized portions of bigoli in salsa — one of the most basic and primordial Venetian dishes — neatly boxed in recyclable and/or compostable materials.  Incredibly efficient.  The leftovers were sent, it was said, to the Emporio della Solidarieta’, a type of local food bank and assistance organization.

If you’re in the mood to live the race, here goes.  The race itself begins at about 6:00.

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Tourism

natural functions

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We know these little horrors all too well, from sports events to any other mass gathering.  Temporary “porta-potties” are absolutely great when you’re desperate and there is nothing else.  That’s about the only great thing about them.  Here large numbers of the typical “chemical toilets” are being unloaded a few steps beyond the finish line of the annual Venice Marathon.  They are there for the obvious needs of thousands of runners just minutes after they arrive.  And yet, there are none conveniently placed for the spectators.  That seems wrong to me, now that I think about it.
But then again, useful as they are, it would deface the landscape to have them around all the time.
What if there were a public toilet permanently available? One that wasn’t a pungent plastic box?  I wasn’t asking myself that question when I was crossing the canal in front of the Arsenal a few weeks ago, but then I saw this kiosk beside the Naval Museum.  What ho, I thought.  Do I see the letters WC?
I do indeed, and the red hints that it is being used.   The experimental loo arrived on February 10, in the throes of Carnival, and installed most conveniently on the fondamenta along which many spectators heading to the show at the Arsenal were bound to be walking.  That extra spritz or beer?  Normally you would have had to plan ahead to deal with the result, because there are very few bars along the way (maybe you don’t know this yet, dear visitor, but you might soon).  This seems very civilized.  The kiosk will be here for two weeks, or till Feb. 24.  Or perhaps Feb. 29.  In any case, a very short time.  Disclaimer: Hygien Venezia does not know me and I have no interest in being known by them.  Just providing information here.

This is a simple tale composed of two parts.  (A) What we need and (B) how hard it can be to obtain it because of (C) (my error, the tale has three parts) other people.  To demonstrate I take the situation of the new experimental temporary chemical toilet (A) near the Arsenal and (C) the city of Venice, some city councillors of.

People need places to relieve themselves, we’ll start there.  On the whole, visitors manage the situation by stopping at bars/cafe’s, buying something, and using the facilities.  But sometimes bars/cafe’s are closed.  Sometimes they are crowded.  Sometimes the WC is mysteriously out of service.  And sometimes the owners have to crack down on tourists who show up in groups of which one person buys a coffee and all the rest use the bathroom, as we call it in the US.  Not made up.  So one person is relieved, so to speak, and his or her nine friends have to start looking for a toilet somewhere else, or buy a coffee, which is clearly something they were hoping to avoid.

Impatient and drunk males at big gatherings at night have no problem at all:  Find the nearest wall.  Vertical structures exert an atavistic allure to men.  Ladies, you’re on your own, as usual.  But there are small side streets — I’m thinking of offshoots of Campo Santa Margherita — whose residents have been driven to install a gate to prevent revelers from using the street to resolve the situation.

Yes, this conveniently dark passageway was a public toilet, according to the public. Perfect, until the repulsed residents fought back with the gate.

At night these side streets seemed perfect for personal usage; I mean, nobody was using them to go anywhere. Except home, as it turned out.  Dog poop is bad enough, but good grief, people.  Note that there is a canal only a few steps farther along.  Just, you know, saying.
Before there were gates there were these, possibly the first attempt at a public deterrent.  A closer look at the lower area where the walls meet gives an idea of why this construction was installed.  Useful, but only up to a point. My theory is that anyone who was sufficiently far gone wouldn’t mind (or notice) his shoes getting wet. There are many of these around (I don’t know who thought them up, or paid for them).
You might have thought that the little shrine (“capitello”) to Saint Anthony of Padua might have given the person in need the idea to find another corner. Evidently not.
But why are we talking about deterrents? Let’s get back to options for aiding those in need. There used to be plenty of pissoirs in Venice, or vespasiani, in Italian.  The etymology of the name is simple: The Roman emperor Vespasian placed a tax on urine collection because the liquid’s ammonia was necessary for several activities, such as leather tanning.  The Venetian vespasians  were usually near an osteria, places where wine consumption carried consequences. This wall near the church of San Sebastiano bears its scars proudly.
Needs no explanation, it all seems pretty simple to me.
The vestigial water pipe.  Typically the wall here was covered by a marble slab (more resistant than brick, by far) down which a stream of water constantly ran, and out the drain.
This is the little street leading to Lino’s family home (visible at the far end).  The curve accommodated a vespasiano that was concealed by a slim wall open at both ends, hence no door, hence always available.  Nobody thought anything of walking past its perfume a thousand times a day.  Most osterias didn’t have their own toilets, so the public went in public.  Unhappily for Lino’s oldest brother, his apartment was just above an osteria that did have a primitive toilet.  Great for the customers, not great for the brother.  He and his wife got used to it?  Only up to a point.  They kept the overlooking window closed.  Especially in summer.
A small street flanking the Lutheran church at the Campo Santi Apostoli.  On the wall supporting the abandoned mattress there are signs of the vespasiano that was. Lino remembers it, so we’re not talking about ancient history.
Maybe when you get bored with looking at palaces you could start looking for the remnants of these once-useful things. I mean the vespasiano, not the mattress.  By the way, if people were cool with pissoirs all over town, what’s so bad about kiosks?
I’m referring to kiosks that look like the one by Hygien Venezia down by the Arsenal.  You notice it has been designed to be accessible to people in wheelchairs. (There’s also a ramp at the door.)  Electricity is supplied by a battery maintained by solar panels.

But the choice is not kiosks or nothing.  There are permanent public loos in Venice.  But there aren’t very many, their hours vary WIDELY — 8:00 AM to 8:30 PM is rational, so is 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM, but 11:00 AM to 4:30 PM or 10 AM – 7:30 PM is not. And they aren’t always open.  The WC by the Piazza San Marco is scheduled to open at 9:30 AM, and when I passed by at a very reasonable 10:45 AM it was shut up tight.  These hours undoubtedly reflect the convenience of the staff, and not the public.  Or whether the Comune has paid the water bill?

In an attractive gesture of collaboration, the city has an app to guide you to the nearest public toilet.  Perhaps it will be open, perhaps not, but at least you can say you found it.

A map of the not exactly numerous public toilets.  I count ten here — none on the Giudecca, for unknown reasons, but the one at the cemetery is helpful.  The ones strewn about the Maritime Zone are for the non-existent cruise passengers, so ignore them.  But again — pardon my diatribe — there is no reason to publish such a cheerful and encouraging map if the public can’t be sure the loo will be open when it’s needed.   The other day a friend of mine was in severe need on Sant’ Elena and both of the only two bars were closed.  The doors of the so-cheerfully indicated city toilet were locked.  This is not a happy memory.  But as I say, it does look nice on the map.
The public WC at the foot of the Accademia Bridge. This is what a self-respecting public toilet should look like.  Its most impressive feature?  It’s open.
They’re doing work these days, heavy work with tools. I just hope you weren’t counting on using this facility. Zwingle’s Fifth Law: Do not count on things.
A curious sub-class of public toilets are Those That Were (and I don’t mean vespasiani).  This building on the northwest corner of Campo San Polo was a public loo until some not-distant time in the past.  Lino remembers it well, and it had the advantage of being in an extremely busy point of the city.  So it could have been highly useful.  But as you see, the need for the sketchy Euronet cash machines was greater.  Sorry, I shouldn’t say “sketchy.”  But I can say this: Independent cash providers such as Travelex, Euronet, Moneybox, Your Cash, Cardpoint, and Cashzone have high fees, higher than a bank ATM.  Example: 15 euros on a 200-euro withdrawal. There are probably ten times more Euronet ATM’s than public toilets in Venice now.  Priorities!
Back to the toilets. Once you know what this place used to be, you can easily make it out. Those high windows somehow give it away.

I decided to experiment and went looking for one of the city’s toilets last Saturday afternoon around 5:00 PM.  I was near the Arsenal, and wondered where the large sign indicating a nearby loo might lead me.  I didn’t need it, and what a good thing that turned out to be.

This very narrow and slightly ominous street is marked as the route to salvation. The Calle del Cagnoleto is right by the area on the Riva degli Schiavoni where the day-tripping tourist launches load and unload their passengers, so it would seem to be an ideal place for a rest stop, as we say in the US.
Yes, that happy arrow up there points toward relief. Take heart and forge ahead!
Wow. Well okay, on we go.
The street passes in front of the green doors (I was walking from right to left). You are looking for what transit engineers call “confirming signs.” But instead of repeating the sign you are familiar with, there is only a rectangle of stone saying “Alle Docce” (you frantically check for translation and find “To the showers.”  Showers?  Who wants showers?).  There used to be an arrow, but any help that might have provided is long gone.
A few more steps onward and there is a small sign that gives you hope.
And the street opens up and you discover you have reached the “Comune di Venezia Docce Pubbliche.”  City of Venice Public Showers.  We’re looking for WC and we get docce (DAW-cheh).
Let us imagine that at this point I am now beginning to feel that this experience is less a trial run and more of a real run. Now what?
The Public Showers also include, as one has been supposing, public toilets. The green arrow on the front door, on the left, has pointed toward the right, so the entrance is one of those two doors. But I’ll never know, because as you see, the place was closed up tighter than a can of tuna. Five o’clock on Saturday afternoon.  It’s the end of the road, and your choice now, as there are no bars in sight, is to turn around and hope to find a Plan B before crisis strikes, or figure out how to use the canal a few steps away.  As to the showers, they are maintained by the Diocese of Venice to accommodate anyone who is without that option, either temporarily or permanently, and clean clothes are also available.  This is praiseworthy and I have nothing but respect for this service.  But about the WC……
But you can leave with the knowledge that, according to this very edifying sign, the areas that you cannot use at your moment of off-schedule need are paragons of ecologically sound cleanliness.  I notice that hours are not even scribbled on a Post-It note. You know, it’s easy to inveigh against tourists, but I would recommend that one remember that tourists are also people.  And this little five-minute exploration has not only disappointed and discouraged me but also seems ever so slightly insulting.  “Fine, we’ll let you use our toilets, but only when it suits us.”  Solution?  There ought to be many, but the simplest would be the mere addition of the opening hours to the sign at the entrance to the street — the sign that lured me hopefully onward.  That way, at least nobody with an important problem will waste precious time heading toward locked doors.  I suggest this minimum concession if you’re not going to keep the facility open while the sun is still shining and there are plenty of tourists still around.

So to review:  The options for needy travelers are: Resort to one of the numberless bars/cafes, when available either geographically or according to time of day; or public toilet, when available either geographically or according to time of day.  Or wall.  Or canal.

Let’s return to the kiosk.  The Comune opened the public-toilet project for bids in 2019, with a budget of 5 million euros, and only one company submitted a proposal. Hygien Venezia was prepared to proceed, then the pandemic intervened.  So now, three years later, the company has finally installed its creation for a two-week trial.  Then all the reports and analyses and opinions and pros and cons will be thrown into a box and shaken (I’m making that up), and some decision will be made on installing the 20 more that the company is ready to place strategically around town.

Don’t assume that decision will inevitably be in the positive.  This being Venice, some people have complained.  From shops and hotels and other enterprises, some people have objected.  The Nuova Venezia only referred to the protesters as “the categories.”  What category?  The Worshipful Company of Environmental Cleaners? (It exists, but not in Italy.)

Whatever the “categories” might be, eight city councilors have spoken up, expressing a desire to inquire of the mayor “on the basis of what information is it considered that Venice possessed the characteristics to manage the cleaning (removal of waste) of 28 chemical toilets.” It occurs to me that Hygien Venezia probably has foreseen the problem and the solution, and described the plan on the bid itself.  I’ll bet that they will be able to provide answers as needed, without bothering the mayor.

Perhaps the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) phenomenon has arrived in Venice.  There may well be those who do not wish to see one of these kiosks near their homes or places of business.  I will grant you that the general lack of space here means that there is a risk that a new structure, however modest, could make the immediate area even more  crowded.  However, there are also campos and fondamentas that can boast of space.  But let’s not quibble.  Essentially, there seems to be an innate propensity to assume something new won’t work rather than consider ways in which in might perhaps be configured to work.

There is bound to be space for one of these kiosks at Campo Santa Margherita without jostling anybody too far to the side.
I’m going to ask the people who live here how they’d feel about having the kiosk in the campo.

In my view, this is another of the many situations in which Venice’s perplexity as to how to manage the city comes to the fore. Lots of real cities have public toilets in the streets.  Paris comes to mind, obviously — if there’s a city with bars/cafe’s at every turn, that would be Paris, and yet there are 420 cubicles on the streets of  the City of Light, used 3 million times a year.  I grant that Parisian streets tend to be more spacious than your average calle.  But the port of Piraeus has concise public toilets, as do Madrid, and Oslo, and Berlin, and so on.  Or at the very least, reorganize the public toilets in Venice with rational hours and doors that can be opened.

“The categories” want tourists, and then people grumble at how demanding those tourists can be. It seems to me that Venice might occasionally consider dismounting from its high horse on certain issues.  Give the horse a rest.

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