Tourism | Venice: I am not making this up

Venice marries the sea: the bride was lovely

May 19, 2010 9 Comments

Last Sunday (May 16) Venice pulled what was once one of its greatest festivals out of storage for its annual exhibition: Ascension Day, or “la Sensa.”

The boat procession, having passed the Naval College, moves along the Lido shoreline toward the church of San Nicolo' and the ceremony of the blessing of the ring. — The boat procession, having passed the Naval College, moves along the Lido shoreline toward the church of San Nicolo’ and the ceremony of the blessing of the ring.

Up until the year 1000 A.D., if you’ll cast your minds back, the fortieth day after Easter had been primarily known as the commemoration of Christ’s ascension to heaven. It still is, but at the turn of the millennium the day took on large quantities of extra importance for Venice.

The day also became just as famous for the “Sposalizio del mare,” or wedding of the sea, a ceremony performed by the doge and Senate in the company of many boats of all sorts which all proceeded toward the inlet to the sea at San Nicolo’ on the Lido. At the culminating moment, the doge tossed a golden ring into the lagoon waters and intoned, “Desponsamus te, Mare, in signum veri perpetique dominii.” (“I wed thee, O Sea, in sign of perpetual dominion.”)

The "Serenissima" pulls up to the judges' stand to put the doge -- I mean mayor -- and retinue ashore. — The “Serenissima” pulls up to the judges’ stand to put the doge — I mean mayor — and retinue ashore.

This statement had nothing to do with religion, even though it does sound impressive in Latin, right up there with “till death us do part.” It had much more to do with politics, because on Ascension Day in the year 1000 (May 9, if you’re interested), doge Pietro II Orseolo finally quashed the Slavic pirates who, from their eastern Adriatic lairs, had been harassing Venetian shipping and seriously inconveniencing Venetian progress.

This was a pivotal moment in Venetian history; it opened the way to centuries of expansion, wealth and power, and the Venetians wanted to make sure that all their assorted neighbors and trading partners and possibly also trading competitors remembered what they had done and could do again, if necessary.

For another thing, beginning in 1180 one of the largest commercial fairs of the entire year was held during the Ascension Day period. Merchants and traders from all over the Mediterranean and beyond set up booths in the Piazza San Marco to sell ivory, incense, ebony, oils of jasmine and sandalwood and bergamot, pomegranate soap, tortoiseshell back-scratchers, bath salts, mirrors inlaid with mother-of-pearl, dried figs and apricots, plant-based hair dyes, luxurious textiles, and even Abyssinian and Circassian and sub-Saharan slaves. All this was traded in languages and dialects from Venetian to Armenian, Hebrew, Uzbek, Greek, Turkish, German, Georgian, Iberian, Arabic, French and Persian. I’m sure I’ve left something out. This fair was such a big deal that soon it was extended from eight days to two weeks. Yes, even back then the city was just one big emporium, though incense strikes me as being cooler than the bargain Carnival masks made in China bestrewing the shops today.

A flea market by the church of San Nicolo' is the best we can do on evoking the fabulous market of yore. — A flea market by the church of San Nicolo’ is the best we can do at evoking the fabulous market of yore.

I don’t suppose that the average Venetian on the street would have told you much of the above if you’d stopped to ask what the big deal was about the Sensa. But a smallish contingent of people have applied themselves, since the early Nineties, to bringing back at least some ceremonial in order to acknowledge the moment .

Need a lampshade with a portrait of Audrey Hepburn or Charlie Chaplin? Now's your chance. — Need a lampshade with a portrait of Audrey Hepburn or Charlie Chaplin? Now’s your chance.

I wonder if any merchants from the old days would have been tempted by these.

So yesterday morning there was a boat procession, more or less following the “Serenissima,” the biggest and fanciest of the city’s ceremonial barges which was carrying the mayor (best we could do, seeing as we’re dogeless these days) and costumed trumpeters and a batch of military and civilian dignitaries and also a priest.

At the Morosini naval college at Sant’ Elena, all the cadets were ready and waiting, lined up along the embankment. Standing crisply at attention with their hats in their right hand, on command they raised their hat-holding arm straight out at a sharp 45-degree angle, and shouted with one voice “OO-rah.” They did this three times in succession, then there was a pause. Then they did it again. They do this at intervals till the boats have all passed.

For my money, this is the best part of the event, much better than the ring-and-sea business. In fact, I’m convinced that if the cadets were not to do this, it would ruin the entire day.

The boats surround the "Serenissima" as the declamation(s) proceed. — The boats surround the “Serenissima” as the declamation(s) proceed.

The boats then proceed to the area in front of the church of San Nicolo’ on the Lido, where they clump together, the priest blesses the ring, and the mayor throws it into the water. One year our boat was close enough that I took somebody’s dare and actually managed to snag it before it sank (all the ribbons tied to it momentarily helped it to float). Then I had a heavy surge of superstitious guilt. Even if it wasn’t gold — it was kind of like what you’d use to hang a heavy curtain — it was a symbolic object fraught with meaning. I wondered if I’d just blighted Venice’s mojo for another year. But I didn’t throw it back — that seemed even stupider than grabbing it in the first place. So, you know, my disrespect just left another ding on the chrome trim of my conscience.

The first three gondolas, battling it out as they approach the first buoy. — The first three gondolas, battling it out in the back stretch.

Then there is a boat race — in this case, a race for gondolas rowed by four men each. In Venice the celebration of really important events always involved a regata, and when this festival began to take form, Lino created this one. Yesterday the competition was somewhat more dramatic than usual in that a strong garbin, or southwest wind, was blowing, and it was also really cold. Lots of big irritated waves. Strong incoming tide. All elements that do not conduce to easy victory or friendly handshakes afterward, not that these guys are ever inclined to that sort of thing. But it made for a very exciting 40 minutes — better than usual, if you could stand the cold.

Heading into the home stretch, they held onto third place, well ahead of their closest competitors.

So much for the festivities, so much for the wedding of the sea. No honeymoon, though. We just move on to another 12 months of trying to dominate the sea. Not with galleys anymore; Venice seems to be doing a pretty good job with the ever-increasing flotilla of cruise ships.

History, Nature, Problems, Tourism, Water

MOSE : no happily ever after

April 1, 2010 No Comments

It’s probably way past everybody’s bedtime, so I’ll wrap up this little philippic.

Imagining momentarily that a satisfactory conclusion could ever be reached in the Gordian convolutions of the “floodgate” project, permit me to make a few very brief observations.

First, let us make a concerted effort to ban all those irresistible emotional words that acqua alta seems to force from journalists’ subconscious. “Venice under siege,” is a common one. CNN said that the high water of December, 2008 had been caused by the Adriatic “bursting its banks.” (Banks? Bursting? Are we in Holland?). The Discovery Channel stated that the high water was “cannibalizing” the city’s buildings (OMG). And on and on. One could smile if this kind of reporting wasn’t cannibalizing common sense.

If the city can't manage to find some money for people, even when we've got MOSE we may no longer have any people. I'm sorry moments like this will become so rare. — If the city can't manage to find some money for people, even when we've got MOSE we may no longer have any people. Good thing we have pictures.

When I think about it really calmly, it appears to me that it’s actually impossible for the planners and builders of MOSE to be able to make any promise (guarantee, statement, claim, whatever you like) about their creation that they can prove is accurate.

There are simply too many unknowns in the many different scenarios devoted to its use: How well it will function — that’s the big one — how much its maintenance (routine or extra) will cost, where the money for feeding and caring for it will come from, etc.

Every claim from its proponents is supported so far only by data assembled by them.

Probably the two major areas of concern for its success are:

First: How high the highest tides are likely to become. Some estimates only give MOSE 100 years of usefulness, after which the highest tides will spill over its maximum height. The frequency and duration of these exceptional high tides are also subject to interminable debate. But nobody knows.

I wonder who will put up the laundry everybody (including me) loves to photograph. Maybe they'll hire somebody. — I wonder who will hang out the laundry everybody (including me) loves to photograph. Maybe they'll hire somebody.

Second: How well the individual caissons will remain aligned. As I mentioned in my last post, if they begin to lose their perfect uniform surface (even if only one of them doesn’t rise as high as its neighbor, or the seal begins to leak), the strength of the entire “wall” of caissons will be compromised.

I have rowed against the incoming tide at the inlet at San Nicolo, in normal weather with no hint of wind or surge, and it is nowhere near being a joke. If the barrier isn’t perfect, the tide will come in whether MOSE is ready or not.

But let us not be downhearted. Let’s say that the machinery functions perfectly, precisely as planned. Let’s say that exceptional high water occurs ever more frequently. as expected. Let’s say that every prediction is fulfilled, even though there is no way to assume they will be.

Here is the real question: Has Venice been saved from anything except some water in the street for a few hours?

The true inundation, the most implacable and destructive, is the endless tide of tourists. The number increases 3 per cent every year; in 2009 it reached 21 million in an area of about three square miles.

No need to waste any time worrying about the old folks, they'll be gone anyway.

Whether this fact inspires emotion or not, it is more measurable, and predictable, than the inexact, politically driven “science” that has given birth to MOSE.

So let’s say that while assorted interested parties continue to water and fertilize the popular obsession which the press has with acqua alta, some very real problems continue to be neglected.

Young families will continue to move away because they can’t afford Venice (housing, primarily, though lack of jobs is a close second), the older generations eventually die off, and before MOSE has become obsolete the city will be devoid of residents. In their place will be the tsunami of tourists — tended to by merchants who mostly live on the mainland — which will finally render the city completely unliveable.

So even if MOSE performs perfectly, the Venice that has been “saved” will amount to nothing more than a collection of really old buildings, beautiful or not, according to your taste.

If no comparable effort is made to revive and protect the life of Venice, then even if MOSE turns out to be an engineering marvel to rival the invention of the arch, the once-thriving city will be as devoid of life as Machu Picchu.

When that happens, there’s won’t be much point in vilifying MOSE, or bewailing the triumph of politics and fear over basic municipal common sense.

But unfortunately, and perhaps even unwillingly, even the not-so-old will be gone too.

But it seems clear, even now, before the first button is pushed, that if the time, energy, and billions of dollars that will have been spent to hold back the tide had been dedicated to resolving the chronic, debilitating problems that Venice experiences every day, in 50 years there would still be a living city worth saving.

Events, History, Problems, Tourism

Carnival: mopping up

February 19, 2010 No Comments

You thought Carnival was over with the sprinkling of the ashes on penitential hairdos? Not quite.

Carnival doesn’t slink away under cover of darkness when the marangon, the basso profundo bell in the campanile of San Marco, tolls midnight on Martedi Grasso. Two things have to happen for it to really be over — in my opinion, that is. Two things which are more predictable than the swallows returning to Capistrano.

One of the regular car ferries is engaged for the carnival trucks.

The first is the pulling apart and hauling away of the traveling amusement park (what they generically call a “Luna Park” here) which has been gracing the Riva dei Sette Martiri since — I believe — early December.

These people (as in much of the world) are almost exclusively families which have dedicated many generations to the setting up, operating, pulling down, and rolling on to the next location of their ride or concession stand.

After three months, I’m going to miss the smell of the hot-doughnut-frying-oil and the screeching of the children. It was fun strolling along the waterfront late every afternoon to mingle and kibitz. And I am convinced that as long as there is at least one small child walking home carrying a small plastic bag containing water and a goldfish, the world will not come to an end.

All this concentrated traffic is a lot to ask of a stretch of walkway which is made of small stones atop packed damp sand.

Anyway, the men start work early on Ash Wednesday morning, and by Thursday morning the funfair is gone. The only sign they’ve ever been here are the patches of new cement filling the holes in the pavement where their big rigs (or something) went astray.

Speaking of itinerant carnies, I went to the small town of Bergantino a few years ago when I was working on a story about the Po River (National Geographic, May, 2002). This former farming town has, since the Twenties and much more since the Sixties, become dedicated to the design, construction, and (eventually) operation of carnival rides — merry-go-rounds, bumper cars, etc. Despite the town’s modest size — it’s really just a village of some 2,000 people, when they’re all there, I mean, and not out on the road — they’ve carved away a heavy slice of this international industry for Italy. One of the major markets for their inventions is the USA.

Well, wherever they’ve gone, I’m already missing them.

The second element of the end of Carnival is the orgy of articles, editorials, and letters in the Gazzettino reviewing, celebrating, and vilifying the festivities just concluded. I can tell you without even having opened the paper that there will have been too many people for this fragile city to support; that the managing of this predictable overload will have shown inexcusable organizational flaws and failures to resolve the most elementary large-event necessities (toilets, in a word); that the money taken in doesn’t justify the stress and expense to the city; that it will have lacked originality and creative genius, and that for the residents and shopkeepers of Campo Santa Margherita, the ten days just concluded have been nothing less than at least six of the nine rings of hell.

And every year, the apex of all the claims and counter-claims: That this event would be (or ought to have been, or next year definitely will be) the “Carnival of the Venetians.” I saw Venetians having a fine time carnivalizing in their own modest way in various neighborhoods of the city, but not in the Piazza San Marco. I’d have given you a cash prize if you’d found any Venetians besides Lino in the Piazza San Marco.

Going-home time near San Marco. I count eight launches ready to load up and head back to the mainland, and this picture is only one third of the traffic panorama. This traffic is not composed of Venetians.

So when this wish to involve Venetians is mentioned, as if it were obviously a good thing, I ask myself if the speaker believes that a “Carnival of the Venetians” would have the slightest probability of pouring the millions of euros into the municipal strongboxes that all those tourists do. After all, Venetians don’t spend money on hotel rooms, restaurant meals, fancy masks, or whatever else makes Carnival matter. So frankly, what would be the point of spending money to organize a ten-day carnival for the few remaining locals? Just wondering.

Let’s go to the videotape (so to speak). Here is a smattering of the Gazzettino’s overview of Carnival 2010, as published yesterday:

The organizers claim that 150,000 people came the first Sunday; 250,000 the second Sunday (let that sink in…) and 40,000 on Martedi Grasso. Altogether, they say a total of 800,000 people came to Venice during Carnival. Perhaps not much compared to Rio, but for a city that covers a mere three square miles, not bad.

They estimate that each visitor spent 50 euros, for an exciting total income of 40 million euros. Not sure where this number came from; a professor of the Economics of Tourism at the University of Venice says that the “bite and run” day-trippers spend an average of 30 euros each day, while the more solid tourist spends 150. In any case, let’s not quibble over a million more or a million less. Restaurants and hotels certainly made money, not to mention the ACTV and their spectacularly expensive vaporetto tickets.

One new comment is by the businesspeople (especiallythose of restaurants and cafes) in the Piazza San Marco — they don’t want a maxi-stage there anymore. I’m not sure why, but I imagine it’s because it takes up too much space which needs to be available for them to put out their tables and chairs.

I could go on, but it’s probably not that interesting. These few days following Carnival are mainly spent in a sort of emotional and mental scrubbing and disinfecting.

The summary is fairly concise. Apart from numbers, claims, and counter-claims as to success or failure, as one reporter wrote, “Now the Venetians can give a deep sigh of relief and put their hands on their foreheads and say, “‘Once again we’ve lived through it.'”

Events, Food, Tourism, Venetian-ness

Ash Wednesday

February 17, 2010 No Comments

Carnival was definitely over early for the family who owns this tobacco shop; the sign on the door says they're closed for mourning. The blind left askew on the door emphasizes the point. And all that cheerful confetti has been swept up by the trash squad and left right here. Still feel like partying?

It’s not as if the city goes into mourning when Carnival is over (the merchants are too busy with their calculators to feel sad), but if you had gone out with me for a walk this morning, you wouldn’t just feel that something was missing (like, say 100,000 people). You would have the distinct sensation that you were at the bedside of a patient whose fever had finally broken and was sleeping peacfully.

A tranquillity comes over the city that is nothing less than miraculous. All that’s left to do is to clean the room and change the sweat-drenched sheets. So to speak. (I do hear some desultory sweeping going on outside.) And now we can see the simple, austere, monochromatic 40 days of Lent stretching before us.

Here’s what I won’t miss: The mighty force of the touristic masses being sucked into the city’s gullet as if through some colossal straw. The wall of humanity blocking entire streets, a good number of which had to be organized as strictly one-way. The incessant rumble of the launches hauling and re-hauling loads of countless people from the mainland to San Marco, not to mention the choking poison of their engines’ exhaust as they idle by the Fondamenta degli Schiavoni waiting for the next batch.

Here’s what I will miss: The neighborhood in full frivolity, the kids of all sizes in all sorts of costumes, their entourages of relatives, doting or beleaguered as they may be. And — you know what I’m going to say — the fritole and galani.

Lent personified during Carnival; detail from "The Battle between Carnival and Lent (Pieter Brueghel the Elder, 1559).

Food seems to be the standard by which every human experience is measured here, and now we’re supposed to get serious. The list of (technically) forbidden goodies for the next month and ten days is well known and can be fairly detailed. But I narrow the “forbidden” list to two items: Fat and sugar, which means no more fritole or galani (sob). And you are expected (technically) to pretty much give up on meat, at least on Ash Wednesday and Fridays.

In this officially Catholic country where hardly anybody (it is said) goes to church anymore, today the butcher shops are closed. You’re supposed to eat fish. Or nothing, I suppose — maybe you get extra points for fasting, which wouldn’t hurt anybody after the gorge-fest we’ve been through.

We stopped by Marcello the butcher yesterday, looking for a cheap steak to eat before the culinary window slams shut on our fingers. He was busy doing brain surgery on a batch of chicken breasts so we watched his deft slittings and peelings and trimming while waiting our turn. Now that I think of it, it’s not so much brain surgery as couture tailoring.

Lino said, “I’ve always loved watching butchers work on meat. It’s a real art.”

“All the work that artisans used to do were arts,” Marcello replied. “I used to love watching the baker making bread. He could twist and tie and arrange it in all sorts of shapes. You don’t see that anymore — now it’s all stamped out by some kind of form. I’d stand there for hours to watch him.”

“You going to be closed tomorrow?” Lino asked, not having noticed the handwritten sign in the window saying “Closed Tomorrow.”

“Yes,” said Marcello. “It used to be that on Ash Wednesday all the butchers would be closed. The butchers, and the salumieri [butchers who work only with pork], and the pastry-makers. Those were the only ones to close, and we still respect that.”

No need to have mentioned the pastry-makers: it’s obvious. They are the CENTCOM of fat and sugar. They also must be worn out by now.

Even if nowadays anybody can go to the supermarket on Ash Wednesday and buy chops and ground beef and veal brains and so on, it wouldn’t really be in the spirit of the day. We’re hanging tough with vegetables, mostly. So healthy, so spiritually fortifying.

While we’re thinking of food, have you ever noticed that fasting, instead of clearing the mental decks for you to contemplate matters of the soul, usually has the opposite effect? That’s something to meditate on when you run out of repentance.

Meanwhile, we ate seppie in their ink tonight with polenta made the old-fashioned way (40 minutes of constant stirring). The seppie were so fresh that they practically smiled at us from their plastic bag — Nardo the fisherman had struck again, and we scored his last two. Technically the menu was well within the Ash Wednesday rules, but we totally violated their spirit — it was outrageously good.

I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to repent of that too.