Venice Diaries, Part 1: High waters in Venice
Last year I finally made it into Venice, fearing that soon it may be wiped out of the maps. Had been hearing all the hustle and the gossip about the rising waters and the sinking island that I had become seriously paranoid and feared that years may pass by and I may have missed seeing one of the most romantic cities on earth.
I ended up in Venice totally off-season -that is if there is anything such as a season in Venice. You say season and mean ‘winter’ for a ski resort on a mountaintop, whereas you mean ‘summer’ for Ibiza, Sardinia and any other seaside. But Venice is different. It’s as if there is no season. It is always crowded and always more than 70% are tourists. Venice -it seems- has little or no local population.
That, being an observation I had made, was also substantiated by Virginia W. Mason in the latest National Geographic Turkish edition (August 2009). According to an interview with the major of the city, the population of Venice has shred from a top of 120.000 -30 years ago- to less than 60.000. The cause: the expenses… Indeed, as a result of the incoming tourist flows the city has ended up being very expensive. And, there is no remedy for whether you are a local or not. A bottle of water is 5 euros for everyone. The total number of people on the island on the other hand at any given time is above a million. The number of the arriving is even larger at the time of the carnival, but I will have to save the carnival for another time.
So, we left Milan for Venice on a snowy day in December and arrived in a rainy Venice. Getting off the train station, we wondered how on earth were we going to reach Piazza San Marco -the center of the tourist idle and the location of our hotel. We did what everybody else did and went over to the vaporetto station to get ourselves a 48 hour limitless ticket for 28 euros per person. Had we concerned to buy a single ticket every time we took the ferry, a single ride would have cost us 6 euros each time. This is another example on the increasing rate of the expenses for the locals. As would be expected, the very few locals, who still reside and work in Venice, do not even care to take the ferry. They simply walk… If they need to walk for 30 minutes, they leave their homes exactly 30 minutes earlier.
These available passes are more often for the tourists. They provide the tourists the advantage of having limitless access to public transportation and public toilettes. The tickets range from 12 hour tickets to 7 day tickets. For a complete list, refer to Europe for Visitors.
As we were standing in line at the ticket booth, an old man in the line before me asked the ticket booth: Should we wear special clothes to go into San Marco? And, simultaneously a teenage boy walked to the front of us with his dog –both in a yellow nylon suit -full body coverage- and green above knee length boots. And, I wondered where were we? What was ahead of us? Was Venice sinking that seriously? Then, I lamented for my Prada boots on my feet.
Fortunately, the ferry ride to Piazza San Marco was soothing. Other than the teenage boy, everybody else was dressed normal and the scenery was beautiful. Despite the shivering cold, we stayed out in the open to watch the canal ride. Piazza San Marco was also quite nice. As we walked into the Piazza, we laughed to the idiosyncrasy of the fearful “other” tourists. Yes, there were a few droplets of water here and there, but nothing to create a bogus for. The droplets looked typical of a rainy day in any other city.
We found our hotel after a little bit of trouble. That said, I must admit that the addresses in Venice are some issue. Basically, there are no street names. There are regions and numbers. So, San Paolo 6054 can be anywhere in the region known as San Paolo.
We settled into our hotel and got us a map and headed out. We were in Venice! We were going to seize every detail we could in the little time we had. We walked up and down every street in San Paolo. No big deal… With the second round of our walk included, that took us no more than 30 minutes. But, many times we thought we got lost and so we had our bit of fun. I had my bit fun especially walking in and out of little shops selling glass ornaments (the Murano glass is a typical product in Venice) and masks. Now, I can assume the snobbish smile that anyone, who has been to Venice at least 2 times, has on his or her lips. That’s because, San Paolo is really not even the gist of Venice. It is basically the most touristic area of the city and whatever glass or mask shops I may have walked into are pretty much standard. We were told, on the other hand that the better parts, the parts that tourists are unlikely to go into were in Dorsoduro. That would have required us to take a ferry or walk a long way, so we decided to postpone that for the next day. Instead, we walked until the Rialto Bridge, where we stopped at some local wine bar for a glass of wine. By that time our watches already showed 6.30 P.M. Feasting on our little aperitivo –we ordered a plate of salamis and cheese- we sipped our glasses of wine and felt romantic. That is, we felt that way until we heard the sirens. They were no regular sirens –nothing like that of an ambulance or the police. It felt more alarming. It felt like somebody was about drop a bombshell on us… Our host, gave us the nod and indicated to us in his half English that maybe we should go back to our hotel: The water was rising…
We paid the bill and rushed out. We passed a few Venetians wearing knee length Hunter like boots, only more ugly and much longer. We started to walk faster, but at the same time we were trying to assess the size of the problem we faced. We couldn’t tell how serious the problem was. For one thing, there was still no water, other than a few droplets here and there. So, we were wondering, whether the Venetians were making an issue out of nothing or whether we were too naïve. As we passed back into San Paolo and still saw no lethal volume of water, we relaxed and slowed down. We started to laugh at the fearful “other tourists” again. We laughed until we walked into Piazza San Marco, which was literally filled up with water up to my knee. There was no possible way for us to walk through the Piazza without getting all soaked in water. There was a high road set up, meaning wooden stands leading the way through the Piazza, but the end of the high way was still no way. So, we walked back to where we had sanity and less water and tried to figure out a way to reach our hotel from the back streets, which were secluded from the rising waters –at least for the time being.
© National Geographic
We did find the way at the end and we also found a pair of ugly boots that we were once making fun of. Getting into our hotel we were bewildered once again to see a high road was also set up inside of our lobby, leading to the elevators. We went up to get changed for dinner, at the same time hesitating to go to dinner. What if we could not make it back?
Fears aside, we took the chance. We had a very wonderful and very delicious and waterless meal at Alla Testiere on Calle Del Mondo Novo in Castello 5801. This small osteria (Italian for the traditional fish restaurants) has limited seating for 24 people only. We had linguini with shrimps –remarkable- and “gnocchetti ai calamaretti” as our first dishes –Italians call starters the primi piatti. For secondi piatti, we shared a grilled octopus dish –outstanding. Later on having been amazed by the cheese plate that had been served to the neighbouring table, we ordered a cheese plate as desert and enjoyed that with yet another bottle of wine J. As for additional bonus, the owner / host of the osteria speaks very fluent English, but fortunately the place does not smells that touristic.
After dinner, we walked back, a little drunk and therefore fearless of waters. Besides, we now had the boots. So, we even walked through the waters instead of taking the high roads, whenever we came across a pool of water.
Then sound asleep without any heed to any sirens whatsoever, dreaming of Dorsoduro, masks and the next day.
Osteria Alle Testiere
Cuisine: Venetian / Italian
Hours: Mon-Sat 2 seatings at 7 and 9:15pm
Address: Castello 5801
Tel: 041/522-7220
Reservations: Good idea
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