Some weather on Friday evening slightly bedraggled the lanterny lights that usually give a happy glow to alfresco feasting along the Giudecca. This in itself doesn’t ruin the party, but it doesn’t help.
When last we spoke, Venice was on the verge of its annual celebration of the feast of the Redentore (held last Sunday). By now the festa has come and gone, but this year the difference between the two was minimal. “Reduced form” is the boilerplate description, but if you reduce something past a certain point it just isn’t it anymore.
We did not have fireworks, as all the world knows. Without fireworks, I discovered, the festa can’t achieve liftoff. Yes, people did come to Venice — according to La Nuova Venezia, 108 tables had been reserved for the usual dinners outside (68 of them along the fondamenta of the Giudecca), and a total of some 15,000 people came to join the Venetians making some sort of merry. Fifteen thousand may sound good compared to nothing (let us cast our minds back to the desolation of the total lockdown), but it represented less than a fifth of the number that crammed the city last year. I used to hate the cramming, but without it the evening felt strangely deflated. No, actually, it felt partially deflated, which is not much better.
Seeing that we did not go roaming the city in search of entertainment, I only know what I saw in our little lobe of land, or what the newspaper reports. It says that there were people eating outside around the city, along fondamente big or small, or in their boats tied up in the Grand Canal or some other major waterways. That sounds nice.
To warm the general atmosphere to an even happier level, four large boats bearing a total of some 30 Venetian musicians moved around the Grand Canal, the Giudecca Canal and the Bacino of San Marco. Floating music has a long tradition in this festival, although in recent years it has been co-opted by the big party boats blaring music at levels that would pulverize a small planet. It must have been wonderful to have a bouncier, smaller sort of soundtrack as the evening drew on (for the record, the participants were Batisto Coco, Josmil Neris and Laguna Swing, Pitura Stail and Ska-j). All these groups are on YouTube, and here is a small clip that shows how little it took — at least, compared to the labor and cost of a 30-minute fireworks display — to get the party going.
It looks really sweet and I send huge compliments to the organizers, etc. Unhappily for us, none of these boats made it down as far as via Garibaldi — or at least not during the brief period I was roaming the waterfront. So if this sort of thing is ever organized again (and I hope it will be, though probably everyone will want fireworks again), the landlubbers need to lub somewhere further afield.
So I can only report on Redentore as observed south of the Arsenal and north of Sant’ Elena. But I will throw in some of the races held on Sunday afternoon, and a glimpse of the Patriarch going to mass, if that will help liven things up. We’ll hope for better and happier things next year.
The late afternoon scene was a little melancholy. At this point, in a normal world, this stretch of water would have been a turmoil of boats arriving and moving around and getting settled for the evening.There was a moment when weather looked like it was working up some fireworks of its own, but then it moved away.The Riva Sette Martiri is usually lined with enormous luxury yachts, driving the mobs crazy by blocking the view of the fireworks. These obviously did not present a problem. It was kind of touching, seeing yachts again, no matter how small and unassuming. This marks a kind of milestone in the return to normalcy.Getting ready for company, and lots of it, too. Via Garibaldi in the late afternoon seemed like one long table.Most of the tables were reserved, even if they were merely the picnic type.Individual tables have been separated, at least somewhat. But if your party consists of 30 friends and family, you’re not going to start measuring distances.Many people were looking very nice indeed. Not what one usually imagines with the word “tourist.”
Almost all the restaurants add more tables and the police look the other way. But this is sublime! Need two more tables? There’s plenty of room in the middle of via Garibaldi. People can just walk around them.And they did.More expansion into the mainstream, cleverly delimited by fake boxwoods.Just one more table? What a fabulous problem to have — needing more room — after the Long Closing of the spring.The waiter is wearing a mask because he’s going inside so often. Also, he probably isn’t related to any of this group. Also, I think it’s required.There was music here too — several places had live performers. The night’s still young, so the band hasn’t set up yet.Of course there are dogs. There are always dogs. But the street is uncharacteristically uncrammed. It feels a little strange.
A few families staked out their own territory, the basic building block of the festival. Forego fireworks? If we must. Forego food with the folks? No. Just no.
Neighborhood folks haven’t yet been outnumbered by the visitors. With plenty dogs and kids, it’s just a normal summer night on the street.The votive bridge got a reasonable amount of traffic, but as many seem to be going as coming. There was one balloon vendor, but no stands selling candy or cotton candy. No parish charity lottery, no stand selling products made by the prisoners. We were down to the bare bones.However, there were more spectators at the races than usual. I heard several people remark on it.Masks aren’t required outdoors, as you see. But plenty of people keep one on hand, if they should need to go into a bar/cafe, or take the vaporetto. Passengers aren’t allowed to board if a mask is not already in place.There are three races: Young men on pupparinos, older men on pupparinos, and men on gondolas. The blue boat has just crossed the finish line, marked by the vertical cord in the wooden frame, which is aligned with a marker further out in the canal.
Andrea Bertoldini and Mattia Colombi winning for the second year in a row. They were at least one boat-length ahead of their closest competitor.The battle for third place came down to the last few seconds.Well, that’s settled!
To enter the church required a line, of course; this year, a modest and very orderly line. Hand sanitizer on the table at the entrance, clearly marked entrance and exit (no more milling around), and monks with masks. It was all rather subdued.The Patriarch of Venice (last seen at the festa of San Piero at the end of June), arriving to get garbed for the big ceremonial procession.
Nothing like a palazzo, but something that was much more useful: A converted 19th-century grain warehouse.
Up to now, my idea of the average hostel has been deduced from the average hostel-dweller, at least as seen around here in the summer.
Every sweltering day the vaporettos carry payloads of dauntless wayfarers and their gear, 80-pound backpacks that look as if they’d just arrived via the Old Silk Road lashed to the chassis of a 2 1/2-ton 6×6 truck. Their owners don’t look much better, pounded like Swiss steaks by summer heat and malnutrition and the cumulative effect of too many languages and sleepless nights during their seemingly free-form peregrinations. Their clothes appear to have forgotten what it ever meant to be clean. These travelers might have credit cards and laptops and tablets these days, but going to a hostel still struck me as meaning they were essentially going to be sleeping in a multi-bed hangar, with a bucket by their heads to catch the rainwater coming through the roof.
Wrong again.
There has been a hostel in Venice since the Fifties, and it was (I’ve been told) of the Old School. I never visited it, but I read its rules once somewhere and was sorry to learn that in addition to everything else that seemed to suggest the aftermath of a festival as painted by Brueghel, the paying guests were required to get out by 11:00 AM and take their stuff with them. That seemed harsh.
But no more. Not long ago I got an e-mail from Generator Hostels, alerting me that they had re-done the “Ostello” on the Giudecca, and inviting me to take a look at it.
I have never written about a commercial operation on my blog. It’s been a point of pride. But this philosophy, to which I am still faithful, runs head-first into my desire to be useful. If the new hostel is a good thing, I ought to know about it.
So I went. I was shown around by Operations Manager Keti Camillo, and even if she hadn’t been so helpful, I’d have been impressed.
Bear in mind that I’m not risking the claim that this is the best hostel on the planet, because I don’t know. But I do know that for Venice, this is a remarkable lodging resource.
This is not an infomercial. I haven’t been paid anything by anybody. I am merely letting you know about this place because I think it’s amazing, and I would happily stay here myself.
Naturally I consider that the maximum compliment.
I recommend visiting a new place on a grey, foggy, rainy day. If it can overcome that, you can assume it will be even warmer and more appealing on sunny days. Here, the bar faces the entrance. Makes an excellent first impression.There’s something mysterious about how chairs salvaged from somebody’s backyard heap come to look so cool.
Most of the ground floor is just one warm, eclectic little nook after another.This nook between two other nooks is occupied by this reworked four-poster bed which evidently has power to draw people onto it and keep them there, prone, for hours. Certain hours, anyway.This is the dining room, done up refectory style.So you’re ready to sleep. The landings/floors are color-coded and given Venetian names.Hallways: Wide, bright and clean. Like everywhere else in the building. These are not words I normally associate with “hostel.”Of course there are shared rooms and bathrooms. But they’re really clean, and there appear to be enough for everybody. By which I mean: Not just one toilet for 40 people. Bonus point: The mattresses are wider than usual for single beds. There may still be a snorer in the room, but nobody can help that.But there is a private double room with private bath. There are also some private triples and quads, but I didn’t see them.It’s not exactly an order. More like a strong suggestion.
