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Venice may often seem metaphorically drowned under a sea of
tourists at the height of summer, and even the landmark Piazza
San Marco is often literally drowned during the flood tides, but
there is no denying that La Serenissima (The
Divine Republic) is an epic, unique and unforgetable city.
Venice has the capacity to impress not only goggle-eyed first
timers, but also the most jaded of travellers. Quite simply, La
Serenissima is unlike anywhere else on the planet, with a
collage of 116 islands connected by 409 bridges, where cars are
banned and everyone, including postmen and the police, goes by
boat.
History is writ large in this northeastern Italian city and
when visitors ease through the morning mists on empty canals
with grandious buildings rising up on all sides, it is easy to
slip back through the centuries, to the time of the Doges - the
omnipotent rulers, whose influence spread well beyond the
Venetian Lagoon.
Venice then was an exotic melting pot of East and West, where
travellers breezed in and out and traders peddled their silk and
spices. Venice under the Doges was a land of unimaginable wealth
and riches were spent wisely in crafting some of Europe’s most
memorable buildings, from the imposing Dode’s Palace to the
grand architecture of St. Marc’s Square famously described by
Napoleon as the ‘drawing room of Europe’.
Away from the main tourist throng, another Venice appears,
with narrow canals, women hanging out their washing and small
osterias (bars) where locals, for once, outnumber
tourists. The introduction of the smoking ban has done little to
dampen La Dolce Vita.
In the intense heat of a mediterranean summer, the city can
just get too much and the tourist congregations too large. Many
visitors are now choosing to turn up out of season, when swirls
of mist and frosty winds descend upon the canals.
Perhaps the last word on Venice should be left to one of her
most illustrious patrons, Henry James: ‘Dear old Venice has lost
her complexion, her figure, her reputation, her self-respect;
and yet, with it all, has so puzzlingly not lost a shred of her
distinction’. |
