For a
holiday respite, my Friday posts through December and into January will tell of
a trip I took to Venice in 2007. Using photos and notes that I took at the time,
I’m highlighting the urbanist issues of day-to-day life in perhaps the most
famous car-free city in the world.
After three
posts, I’ve managed to get myself inside the front door of my well-located but headroom-challenged apartment
near the Grand Canal. In this post, I’ll begin looking around the
city that I was to call home for the next two weeks. (Four posts and I’ve
barely covered a single day in Serenissima.
I need to move along more quickly.
Maybe next week.)
First
Destination: With bags unpacked and a short nap having shaken the worst of
cobwebs from a trans-Atlantic red-eye, Venice beckoned with urgency. The Rialto Bridge seemed an appropriate
destination for a first outing.
I took a
good look at a map and headed out on foot.
Having learned lessons from my attempt at Venetian pedestrian navigation,
I did better this time, ducking into passageways that looked nearly private and
crossing over bridges that seemed headed into dead-ends. A good rule for Venetian pedestrians is that if
there isn’t door blocking the way, it’s likely a public route. And if it’s a public route, it’s likely essential
to reaching a fascinating district of the city.
With barely
a misstep, I found the Rialto Bridge, passing through an area of enticing
restaurants and the end-of-day activities of the Rialto Market, one of the great
public markets of the world.
It was from
the Rialto Bridge, looking at the centuries-old buildings along the Grand Canal
in the golden light of a fading day, when the wonder of Venice was really
driven home. And when the memory cards
of my camera began to fill.
Taking a
Vaporetto to Parts Unknown: Having successfully found the Rialto Bridge, I
decided to wander farther afield. I
hopped a vaporetto without checking the route map, trusting it to take me to a
place that I would find delightful.
Automotive
manufacturers suggest that a car is a route to freedom. In the rural countryside, they may be right. But in a city, a car is an anchor. Between sitting in traffic, circling in a
search of parking, and taking a second mortgage to pay the parking tab, a car
doesn’t provide much freedom.
Instead,
hopping aboard transit to parts unknown, letting serendipity take hold, is the
ultimate urban freedom. Especially when
the travel is accompanied by the gentle slap of waves on a hull.
And sometimes
it also leads to great photos.
I found
myself near the southern tip of the island, a neighborhood that I would later
explore more fully. But for tonight, I
stayed along the water, following a broad walkway looking across the Guidecca Channel
toward Guidecca Island and the San Giorgio Maggiore Church, a structure which had
played a key role in the history of architecture and which I would also later
visit.
On the
landside as I walked was a tall fence, covered in jasmine that was fully in
bloom. I’m not always scent-oriented,
but this evening the jasmine was an essential part of the scene.
As the light
turned increasingly golden, I found the photo that remains my favorite from the
entire trip. Looking across the light
chop of the channel at the church steeple, with navigation pylons in the
foreground marked with lights that looked as if they’d been stolen from a
London street, it wasn’t the quintessential Venetian scene, but it captured the
magic of Venice for me. I can’t smell
jasmine without thinking of the setting.
My exploring
quotient complete for the day, I returned to my home neighborhood, found a
trattoria on the Campo San Polo, and had a frutte di mare pizza with a beer,
happy with my first day in Venice.
The next day,
I’d begin to explore in earnest.
As always,
your questions or comments will be appreciated.
Please comment below or email me.
And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)
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