The Ascent of Vesuvius (Continued)--Being an Account of Venice {1}
Written: May 10 '01 (Updated May 12 '01)
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Pros: Easily one of the most captivating cities in the entire world.
Cons: Some of the nastiest smelling and tasting seafood I've ever been served.
The Bottom Line: The fact that I can't say whether Venice is superior to Florence or not is a testament to the head-spinning greatness of both cities.
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| Sloucho's Full Review: Venice |
Part 1: In which the importance of marrying an intelligent woman raised in a Spanish-speaking household is made clear
Kudos to Mrs. Sloucho. Allow me to stress the fact that this trip was all her doing and that it ran like clockwork. We always had reservations at hotels that were easily accessible from the train stations that we were using; Mrs. Sloucho had packed all the essentials of life for two weeks; we had train passes that were valid for precisely as long as we needed them to be valid; and (proportionately speaking) we spent just the right amount of time in each of the cities we visited (4 days in Florence, 3 in Venice, 6 in Rome, and 1 in Naples).
I wouldn't have bothered to pack a windbreaker if she hadn't insisted. It would never have occurred to me to bring along a tiny bottle of Woolite so as to be able to do laundry in a sink. And most importantly, I can speak neither Spanish nor Italian, but Mrs. Sloucho's fluency in Spanish (more precisely 'Tex-Mex' or 'Spanglish') enabled her to communicate uninhibitedly with any Italian that we encountered. She addressed the Italians in Spanish; they responded in Italian; and all of her conversations went flawlessly. As a bonus, our clashing skin tones prompted most folks to assume that we were from South America (people usually guessed Brazil), and it's always refreshing not to be taken for an American (particularly when one is an American).
Part 2: In which Sloucho does the glorious city of Venice a disservice by derogating its renowned shops and attempting to describe its incredible atmosphere
I did not mention the things in Florence that we did {2} more thoroughly than I would have liked (such as the market outside of San Lorenzo and the shops on the Ponte Vecchio); but Venice could very easily have gotten on my nerves if I had had to spend one more evening looking at samples of glass and lace.
First let me say that Venice was the most pleasant surprise I had during my trip to Italy. People have always told me how romantic this city of canals is; but they didn't know that I don't believe in romance. Venice did not make me believe in romance--except perhaps during the first few minutes of the vaporetto ride up the Grand Canal from the station to our hotel on the Rialto. But Venice did make me understand that "romantic" was doing euphemistic duty for all the people who use the word in order to describe the city, which is charged with an atmosphere of raw eroticism. If you wanted, you could say that since water is a feminine symbol and towers are inevitably phallic, the erection of towers out of water makes the whole city of Venice into a huge coital metaphor.
Perhaps so. Or perhaps it was just the absence of automobiles, the fact that one must walk or float to one's destinations within the city. I really can't say what it was except for the fact that every breath of Venice air filled me with sexual desire. I can certainly see why honeymooners go there.
But I can also see why they leave. I like an erotically charged atmosphere as much as the next guy; and I weary of shopping as easily as the next guy as well. Apart from the inevitable visits to St. Mark's Plaza and the ride with the gondolier who didn't sing (and whose singing I would have denied if he had sung), one seems obliged to spend one's time in Venice looking at Murano glass and Burano lace--especially if one has a wife. But after an evening of looking at vases and a night of dreading tablecloths and a morning of looking at doilies, I could take no more. I begged Mrs. Sloucho's permission to take the afternoon off. And she granted my request.
I think Murano is a wonderful place because there is a bar there. None of the people at this bar speak English; and the only Italian they are willing to teach their English speaking patrons is "Un alcra birra grande." When the afternoon was over, Mrs. Sloucho had acquired gifts for practically everyone; and I was fabulously drunk. I had spent the afternoon discussing (more through hand gestures than words) the relative merits of Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan and Sandra Bullock with Venice locals who seemed genuinely interested in demonstrating their knowledge of Hollywood Super Starlets to a bona fide American. Perhaps they were making fun of me, but at least I wasn't shopping. And I was drunk enough to imagine that the pigeons and the clock and the campanile and the doge's palace and St. Mark's Cathedral and the Ponte Rialto all seemed like very small things to come to Venice for when compared to the beer at that bar on Murano.
Part 3: In which Sloucho gets to the part you probably came for
The artwork of Venice is very different from that of Florence, and not quite as compelling in my opinion. The huge Tintorettos and Titians that one encounters in the Doge's Palace, for all their soft luxuriousness, simply didn't arrest me in the way that Michelangelo's stairway for the Laurentian Library had in Florence. In fact, I'll confess that no single artwork in the entire Doge's Palace interested me nearly as much as the two wooden doors at the base of a stairwell that banged softly against one another as the water from a canal just outside the palace lapped under them and halfway up the bottom stair.
But I don't want to say anything against Tintoretto or Titian. The strangest thing that happened on my entire trip happened at the Piazzo San Marco and was clearly triggered by the incredible balance that one finds in any Renaissance Italian artwork, no matter which artist is responsible for it. A section of the facade of St. Mark's Cathedral was being restored during my visit, and some scaffolding had been set up to the left of the main doorway, with plywood shields set up around the base of the scaffolds. Someone (presumably an English-speaking tourist) had scrawled a limerick across one section of the plywood shield. The writing was too small for me to make out from a distance, but just as I was walking past the scaffolding, I managed to make out the first two lines of the limerick. They were interesting enough that I wanted to find out how it ended, but I was in too much of a hurry to break my stride.
"No matter," I reasoned, "I'll just read the rest of the limerick on the other side of the scaffolding."
I hope that anecdote can help to convey how overwhelming the artistry of Italy is. After having been in the country for less than a week, I was already expecting the graffiti to be symmetrical. Imagine my disappointment when I learned that the English-speaking vandal had only scrawled his limerick across one side of the plywood shield--the dastardly brute.
The most interesting thing about St. Mark's Cathedral was easily the mosaic work on the floor. What made it even more interesting than it would have been in a vacuum was the fact that Mrs. Sloucho and I had just come from Florence, where the art was so different (so seemingly uninfluenced by the Islamic world). I was too eager to enjoy Florence to allow its many cathedrals to run together in my mind (as they later would in Rome), but the change of pace that St. Mark's provided was just the shot in the arm that I needed in order to sustain my interest in sacred architecture.
Part 4: In which Mr. Sloucho touches on the pigeons that touched on Mrs. Sloucho (rather more than she would have liked)
Perhaps the most popular activity at the Piazzo San Marco involves neither an appreciation for art nor an understanding of architecture. It is an urbanized zoological experience involving the pigeons that make their home there. There are people in the Piazza who sell packages of crumbs that tourists can feed to the pigeons by scattering them on the ground (if they are timid) or holding them in their hands (if they are curious about what it feels like to turn themselves into pigeon-roosts). I was curious. I bought a package of crumbs and did my best crucifixion pose as I attracted dozens of pigeons who swarmed over me until there just wasn't room for any more. When I asked Mrs. Sloucho if she wanted to try it, she declined.
"Aww, c'mon," I said, "it's cool." And it is cool--if only because you have to do it to know what it feels like to be swarmed by pigeons.
"Do they claw you?" she asked.
"Not at all," I said. "They just coo and go for the crumbs. Try it. It's fun."
So she tried it. But after about twenty pigeons had landed on her, she completely freaked out. She started yelling and running around and trying to beat the pigeons off, but she was too panicked to realize that the first thing to do would be to throw down the package of crumbs. I wish she had timed her antics differently, as there were two children who were in the process of covering themselves with pigeons at the time. They saw an adult woman who looked as if she was being attacked by pigeons and went into panics of their own (which earned me reproving looks from their parents). I couldn't help chuckling as I raced to Mrs. Sloucho to pry the little sack of crumbs out of her hand, and she was furious with me for having her try it (and even more furious with me for laughing). I suppose the moral of the story is that if you think turning yourself into a pigeon-roost might upset you, you should probably stay as far away from the crumb salespeople as possible.
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{1}Because my trip to Italy was my first European experience, it seemed fitting to me to read Twain's hilarious Innocents Abroad as I traveled. I have modeled my reflections on Italy upon the Italian section of Twain's work, hence my enigmatic title.
{2}For my (admittedly lame) justification of the use of this particular verb in conjunction with touring, please see section 4 of my review of Florence (link provided below).
This is the 4th part of a projected 6-part review. Parts 1 & 2 (concerning the vagaries of international flight and the pitfalls of guided tours) are forthcoming.
Part 3, concerning Florence, can be found here:
http://www.epinions.com/content_21853212292
Part 5, concerning Rome, can be found here:
http://www.epinions.com/content_21895876228
Part 6, concerning Naples, can be found here:
http://www.epinions.com/content_21902298756
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Couples
Best Time to Travel Here: Sep - Nov
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Epinions.com ID:
Sloucho
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Member: Mike Davis
Location: Philadelphia
Reviews written: 199
Trusted by: 248 members
About Me:
Read my reviews in order to heal the sick and control the weather. Seriously.
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