The Venice Marathon finishes in the most beautiful city in the world. Or maybe not.
The classic foot race known as a marathon is generally predictable, from the distance (26 miles/385 yards or 42 km/195 meters) to the winner (so often an athlete from Kenya or Ethiopia or Eritrea). And why should the 32nd Venice Marathon, which was run last Sunday, October 22, have been any different?
Why indeed? That’s what people would really like to know.
Because in 31 years here no competitors in the lead have ever somehow taken the wrong road at the 16-mile point. And yet on Sunday there was a little peloton of East Africans who were some distance ahead of the 5,962 other runners. Abdulahl Dawud, Gilbert Kipleting Chumba, Kipkemei Mutai and David Kiprono Metto were following the motorcycle at the head of the race, as per normal, and when it turned right, going up the ramp onto the overpass leading to Venice, naturally they followed. Except that they were supposed to be on the highway below the overpass.
The drone — or helicopter — showed this scene in real time. Unbelievable. (itv.com)Of course there’s nothing strange about seeing the front runners on an empty road. It just turned out to be the wrong empty road. (Sports Illustrated)
As two precious minutes ticked by, somebody else on a motorcycle caught up with them, yelling (I imagine) “What the hell, you guys? You’re supposed to be down there!” I imagine this because Lino and I were watching the live broadcast and you could easily see the men begin to turn around and trot back the way they came, no longer in the lead although still all by themselves, race essentially over. In fact, it was literally over; they withdrew immediately. One doesn’t run 26 miles/385 yards, or at that point one hour and 15 minutes, for the sheer euphoric joy of it. Who was responsible for that wrong turn? If you know, the world would like to hear from you. And so would the four runners.
As if we needed another problem, here it is: The winner, Eyob Faniel — who finished with an amazing two-minute lead over the rest of the pack — was born in Eritrea but is a naturalized Italian citizen and runs for the Venicemarathon Club. Fun fact: It has been 22 years since an Italian won the Venice Marathon. About time, you say? Somebody else might have been thinking the same thought. I’m not usually one for conspiracy theories, but the optics here, as the current expression has it, are not attractive.
Here is what Lorenzo Cortesi, general secretary of the Venice Marathon, has said (translated by me): “We need to evaluate if this was an error by the vigili urbani (a sort of local police), or by us. The service autos exited the barriers and the local police didn’t close the street. The motorcycles, then, weren’t able to transit the underpass.” (I totally do not understand this last bit. You want the people to run on a road that the motorcycle is forbidden to take?) “But I wouldn’t want the significance of this race to be limited only to this.” Of course you wouldn’t. Neither would I, if I were in charge.
But enough unpleasantness! Backpats generously administered by Signor Cortesi to the 2,000 volunteers involved, not to mention to everyone involved in the successful completion of all the unusual elements which the Venice Marathon requires: “Just think of the fact that we have to transport from the mainland to the arrival area, with 12 big trucks and 12 boats, the sacks of all the personal effects of the athletes.”
I can confirm that the organization was impressive as seen from ground level, from the chemical toilets to the bags of snacks to the massage tables with massagers waiting for massaggees.
But although the scaffolding and some bridges and the bleachers have all been removed, the questions refuse to go away. It used to be that everybody would be talking about how people ran. Now the only thing they’re talking about is where.
On Thursday, things began to be done on the Riva dei Sette Martiri. Unusual things for the Riva, normal things for the marathon, which is held on the fourth (and usually also the last) Sunday in October.This spacious area in the Giardini Pubblici was soon to be revised to accommodate the immediate needs of thousands of exhausted and sweaty people.The accommodation was, first of all, big tents for changing your clothes. Smaller tents were for medical attention of various sorts.Masses of runners downshifting after the 10K race, which preceded the main event by a few hours. The brown-paper bags contained cartons of fruit juice, cookies, fruit and something else — I only got a glimpse inside one. The broad plastic wrappers were temporary blankets doing double duty as large posters for the main sponsor, Huawei Technologies. I should have mentioned that the official name of the event, as announced by the speaker in virtually every sentence, is “Huawei Venice Marathon.”Yes, there will be garbage. Let’s see…thousands of plastic blankets and paper bags of food and busted shoelaces and fistfuls of used tissues, or whatever runners throw away when the party’s over, all have to be collected and carried off by the hardy trashmen and women of Veritas.
Three of the 12 enormous boats loaded with bags which contain the bags of runners’ personal effects trundled toward the Giardini to wherever the pickup point was organized. If you’ve ever had any reason to inquire about the cost of renting one of these boats, you won’t have to ask why there are so many sponsors for this event.As you see: Sponsors. Job lots of them, which is the only way these affairs can exist.We sat in the bleachers watching the overjoyed 10K runners cross the finish line. The sky threw down some gobbets of rain but it didn’t last long.The jumbotron was a great way to watch the big race as the runners coasted along the Brenta river. It all seemed so peaceful and normal…A few sections of the temporary bridge used for the feast of the Redentore bring the runners from the Zattere across the Grand Canal to San Marco.There was a little soupcon of acqua alta in the Piazza, but the higher stretch in the center of the square meant the runners kept their feet dry (which was not the case on one memorable day some years ago when “sloshing” entered the event’s description).The fabulous finish by Eyob Faniel was pretty exciting. I don’t want the backstory to discolor what was a great moment for the spectators anyway. Nobody had truly grasped the whole situation at this point, and a guy running with nobody to be seen behind him is irresistibly thrilling.And of course, crossing the finish line was a huge experience for the myriad unsung runners racing against themselves.And after the glory come the showers. Follow the helpful hand-drawn arrows to hot water and soap, the happy ending after the happy ending.
…is a good offense. As we know. Not social offensiveness, but what is also called by the disphoneous term “pro-active.”
I just made up that word, because the inventors of language have overlooked creating an opposite to “euphoneous.” They offer “cacophony,” which is completely wrong here.
Why am I even talking about offense/defense?
Because of a little event in Lino’s life which is an excellent illustration of how this works. He’s very good at these gambits.
I don’t remember what we were talking about, but it brought back to his mind a small but perfectly formed encounter years and years ago.
It was a Friday, and on Sunday the annual corteo on the Brenta known as the Riveria Fiorita was coming up. The club’s gondolone, or 8-oar gondola, was on the list to participate and the rowers were all signed up.
But the boat had to be at Tronchetto at 8:00 the next (Saturday) morning, which — considering that the club was on the Lido — would have meant going to the Lido in the middle of the night to have enough time to put the boat in the water and traverse the lagoon. This didn’t seem like the most entertaining thing to do.
So he and his son went to the club on Friday and rowed the gondolone to Venice, to the canal that went by their home. Then they looked for a place to tie up.
They found a spot on an empty stretch of his canal, just under the fence marking off a bit of garden. The space was ample, and it was available to the public. He wasn’t encroaching on any boat-owner’s parking place. He wasn’t encroaching on anything.
But a man came out of a domicile facing the garden, and it was clear that he felt extremely encroached upon.
“You can’t tie the boat there,” he stated.
“Why is that?” Lino asked.
“Because”(some vague reason here — maybe narrowing the space for other boats, or something. Anyway, he didn’t want the boat there.)
“If you leave this boat here,” he finished in high dudgeon, “I’m going to come and sink it.”
“Be my guest,” was Lino’s immediate reply. “Because if anything happens to this boat between now and tomorrow morning, I’ll know exactly who did it, and then we can go to the Carabinieri together.”
Silence. Not the silence of a quibble that was squashed, but the profound silence of deep space. The man went back inside and was never seen or heard from again.
But Lino was now more than tranquil. Because, as he explained it, “He probably came out to check on the boat every 30 minutes all night long.
Blessedly, there is an antidote to the histrionics of the racing world, and it is composed of the assorted boating events strung across the calendar which are conducted by us plain folks.
One of the roadies helping to organize the start.
One of the prettiest, for the rowers, at least, is called the “Riviera Fiorita,” or “flowered riviera,” which consists, among many other events, a boat procession (“corteo“) which meanders down the Brenta Canal from Stra to the lagoon over the course of one long and (one prays) sunny day — usually the second Sunday in September. Participation is optional, so the number of boats and rowers can vary, but some years have seen nearly a hundred boats.
Two weeks ago was the 33rd edition of this event, which means that by now many of the participants have long since forgotten two of its basic motives, if they ever knew them in the first place.
One, that it was conceived in order to draw attention to the calamitous condition of this attractive and very historic little waterway, which till then was known primarily (and still is) for the ranks of Renaissance villas standing along its banks. There are anywhere between 40 and 70 of these extraordinary dwellings, depending on what source you’re reading; plenty, in any case.
Back in 1977, in the attempt to rally the public to the aid of this stretch of former Venetian territory, a few local organizations engaged a number of the fancy “bissone” and their costumed rowers from Venice in the hope of drawing some spectators, raising awareness and concern for the river’s plight, and so on. As you see, the plan worked.
Second, that the event is intended to recall (“evoke” would be impossible for anyone today even to imagine, much less pay for) the corteo which was held in July of 1574 to welcome Henry III, imminent King of France, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, on his approach to Venice.
Henry’s visit inspired all sorts of memorable incidents; every time you’re reading about the 16th century hereabouts, he keeps turning up. The magnificence of the entertainment provided by all and sundry over the week he spent in the Doge’s territory makes it a little hard to remember that the basic purpose of his visit was to ask the Doge to lend him 100,000 scudi, without interest. Next time you want your buddy to spot you a twenty, see what happens if you ask him to organize a boat procession in your honor. And a couple of masked balls,while you’re at it. But then, your buddy probably isn’t the only thing standing between you and the Spanish Empire.
Then this thought crosses my mind: If the Doge had had any notion that some two centuries later the republic would be ravaged, wrecked, and exterminated by a Frenchman, maybe he would have thought twice about lending him the money and giving all those parties. One of countless useless afterthoughts gathering dust in my brain.
The Brenta in its natural state, descending the Valsugana at a brisk clip. Here at Valstagna the water of the spring-fed Oliero River pushes its way in. You can see why modifications to this waterway needed to be made by the people living on the plain.
So why is there a Brenta Canal (“Naviglio del Brenta”) when there’s a perfectly good Brenta River? Because the river, which springs from the lake of Caldonazzo in the foothills of the Alps near Trento, and wends 108 miles (174 km) southeastward till it reaches the Venetian lagoon, is too unruly and too silt-laden to have been permitted to continue its traditional path to the sea which was, in fact, the Grand Canal.
A clear rendition of the cut the Venetians made at Stra in the natural eastward path of the Brenta, sending the major flow southeast and out to sea.Thereby creating an ideal waterway for easily moving goods, people, and anything else between Padova (Padua) and Venice. And providing a marvelous setting for beautiful country houses.
The Venetians had been fiddling with the river’s course since the 1330’s, and by the 17th century had diverted the main river south, to debouch into the Adriatic at Brondolo, leaving a more docile little arm of the river, plus several crucial locks, to use as a direct connection between Venice and Padua. It was perfect for the transporting of all sorts of cargo in barges towed by horses, some of which cargo included patrician Venetian families with lots of their furniture shifting to their summer houses/farms for as much as six months of partying.
Two versions of the "Burchiello" in 1711, which carried patrician families upriver to their country estates. The boat obviously could be rowed as well as towed. (Credit: Gilberto Penzo)
That’s the short version.
This waterway has now come to style itself the Riviera del Brenta, sucking up new streams of tourism by promoting its amazing collection of villas. These vary in size and splendor, from the monumental Villa Pisani at Stra (yearning to matchVersailles, or at least Blenheim) to many elegant and winsome mansions — my favorite, the Villa Badoer Fattoretto — down to a ragged assortment of deteriorating properties whose history deserves something better than what they’ve been doomed to suffer.
These are just some of the boats at Stra being readied for the corteo. A few of the fancy "bissone," and a very workaday red caorlina.
The boats, fancy or otherwise, were towed upstream from Venice on Saturday. Sunday morning we took the bus to Stra, where we joined the throngs getting themselves and their boats ready to depart. We were on a slim little mascareta, just the two of us. At about 10:00 (translation: oh, 10:30) the procession moved out.
The sun was shining, the air was cool, the spectators were happy, and I was feeling pretty good myself. We had 17 miles (27.3 km) to go, but by now I knew what the stages would be, so I was prepared not only for the effort of rowing (not much) and the effort of not rowing (strenuous).
The prow of a bissona, nuzzling the shrubbery.Lino spiffing up the mascareta before we all get moving.Bissone milling around. The trumpeters aboard the mother ship, the "Serenissima," will be providing the occasional fanfare. Here they are taking on passengers also dressed in 18th-century garb. They're going to be very hot in all that velvet before long.Waiting around isn't too bad, no matter what hat you're wearing, if it doesn't go on too long. This man is one of hundreds of costumed passengers who provide atmosphere.
And we're off!
“Not rowing”? What do I mean? If we were to row at top speed, bearing in mind that we’re going with the current — slight as it may be — we could theoretically make the trip in three hours. But speed isn’t the point, and there is also the factor of those three pesky locks and three pesky revolving bridges we to have to pass through. As in: Wait to be opened for us to pass through. Wait for everyone else to catch up so we can all get moving as a group again. No stringing out the procession, it loses all its charm if we’re not together.
We start cheek by jowl with the Villa Pisani. This is how it looks to the people ashore.And this how it looks to us, taking the boat's-eye view.
Here’s what I love about this event: The families clustered along the shore just outside their gardens, where picnic/barbecues are in full swing. I made a game of counting the number of houses we passed from which the perfumed smoke of ribs grilling over charcoal was billowing. When I got to five I gave up, because I knew I wasn’t going to be getting any and it just made me hungry.
Kids, dogs, people on bicycles, babies, fishermen, little old ladies — they’re watching us but I think they’re hundreds of times more fun.
People clapping just because we're rowing? What a great idea for a day out.
Our first lock. Couldn't fit anybody else in, but there are at least three more lock-loads of boats that have to come through. So they wait for all the water to be released, for us to row out, and for the lock to fill up again. Takes time. People get cranky.Almost down to the level of the next stretch of river. The boats along the sides have to attach a rope to hang onto as we descend.Time for a break, sandwiches and water provided. Whether you're hungry or thirsty or have to go to the bathroom OR NOT, the boats in the lead (and the biggest) block the river. This forces the by-now somewhat strung-out corteo to bunch up. It looks better. So we hit the "pause" button on our progress one more time.So here we are, duly bunched up, on the road again.You can't smell the ribs on the barbecue, but they're just behind those trees. People can be so cruel.Lunchtime at last. We all stop at the Villa Contarini dei Leoni at Mira, where doge Alvise I Mocenigo met Henry III on his approach to Venice. A simpler welcome today: Hot food for hot rowers. No silver salvers, though. Or doges.The garden is lovely. What the set-up may lack in charm it makes up for in efficiency. That's no small feat around here.This bunch brought their own vittles. I have no idea where or what the "Comune de Pan e Vin" (commune of bread and wine) might be, but it's clear that its members regard rowing as an amusing sideline to the real entertainment in life.A caorlina from the boat club at Cavallino-Treporti, an area which is still at least partly farmland. They are clearly faithful to their agricultural roots, what with the festoons of eggplant and bell peppers and all, down to the chili-pepper belt the first rower improvised. After lunch, the day does begin to drag somewhat.Enlivened by one of the swing bridges which we all have to pass through in some kind of orderly manner. Now it's the cars who have to wait. Nice.Applause and cheers are always appreciated, but my thoughts are beginning to wander from the adoration of the masses to getting home and taking a shower.
Here’s what else I love: Passing the Villa Foscari “La Malcontenta.” Not only is its elegance and repose something especially beautiful when we pass in the dwindling afternoon, when the sun begins to descend and the light warms to honey and amber. Reaching this emerald curve also means we’re almost at the end, an idea which is gaining appeal with every bend in the channel.
The Villa Foscari "La Malcontenta," one of the most beautiful buildings on earth. I think the partial screen of willows increases the allure.
Here’s what I don’t love: The aforementioned locks and bridges, not in themselves but because of the sort of frenzy that overtakes people trying to squeeze their boat in when there obviously isn’t enough space for a toothpick. They start to get tired and cranky, and maybe they’ve had one or two glasses of wine (it could happen) and so these little solar flares of emotion begin to overheat my own sense of benevolence toward my fellow man.
Moranzani, the last lock. We are in pole position to get in as soon as the gates open. It's past 6:00 PM and at this point everybody wants to be first.
Here’s what I especially don’t love: Wind in the lagoon. It has happened more than once that by the time we were leaving the river at Fusina and heading into open water, we were facing a wall of wind. Which brings waves. Which means just when you really want it all to be over, you have to seriously get to work rowing.
In 2001 — a date branded into my brain — there was so much weather that the trip to the Lido in the 8-oar gondolone which normally would take an hour took three times that long. Doesn’t sound so bad? Maybe not now, but we had no idea when it was going to end, if ever, as we were struggling through the tumult, crashing along, the boat stopping every time we went into the trough between the waves, of which there were many. I also lost my oar overboard. Having to retrace lots of waves we’d just conquered in order to recover it is not a memory I revisit with any pleasure.
You might think that this kind of experience would really build your muscle mass, and I suppose it does. I counted several whimpering new ones the morning after. But what it really toughens up is your mental mass. Mental stamina, some level of fortitude you never needed till now. Plain old grit. You’re out there and suddenly realize you’ve completely run out of the stuff and you’re still not home? You’ve got to make more grit right there. There is no alternative.
One of those nights we were rowing back (it’s always getting dark in these return voyages, which adds to the dramatic element) in the six-oar caorlina with four teenagers who hadn’t done much rowing. I was in the bow, so I couldn’t see anything but night ahead of me. Rowing, rowing… It felt like we were rowing in a sea of cement, pushing against a brick wall. And as I rowed, I gave myself comfort in the only way I could: Swearing a series of oaths in my mind, more sincerely than any juror with both hands on the Bible, oaths which I fully intended to voice to Lino whenever we made it to shore, and calling on the angels, prophets and martyrs as my witnesses, as follows:
“Forget my name. This is the last time. I’m never doing this again. This is insane. I hate this. Why am I here? What was I thinking? Forget my name. This is the last time…..”
I can’t remember how long ago that was, and well, I’m still doing it. So much for my oaths, and I think my witnesses have all gone home.
But this year the return row was heavenly. We were towed, with ten other boats, from the last lock at Moranzani out into the lagoon. When we got as far as the Giudecca, at about 7:45 PM, we untied our little mascareta from the others and rowed through the darkness back to the Remiera Casteo, at Sant’ Elena. The other end of Venice, in other words.
The lagoon is always beautiful, and even more so when you're heading home.
I love rowing at night. The sky gleams like black onyx and the darkness somehow makes it feel like you’re going really fast. There is almost no traffic (it’s not summer anymore, thank God) so the water is smooth and silky. It’s dreamy.
Then we had to cross the San Marco canal– sorry, dream over. There’s less traffic at 8:30 at night, but there are still waves, spawned by an assortment of vaporettos and the ferryboat and some random taxis, none of whom is likely to be looking out for any stray mascareta. Yes, we had a light. No, it wasn’t a floodlight. This created enough tension to inspire me to speed up. and we briskly made it across in only a few minutes.
Home free. And very sorry it was all over. And very ready to shut the door on today and turn on the shower. Boats are great but 12 hours in one is plenty.
