An old man lingered at a bookstore window as I watched from my cafe table on the little square near Campo San Polo.
After a few days in this city, I was beginning to realize something, and the old man represented part of a clue.
Inside the bookstore window, just above the man’s head, hung a reproduction of Vittore Carpaccio’s “A Portrait of a Young Man in a Red Hat.”
The young man in the red hat seemed to be gazing upon the old man with a speculative look, as if he were considering whether to permit this elderly stroller to learn the intricate secrets of the late 15th Century. The young man in the red hat could not have been a day under 500; his paint dried two years before Columbus made his first landfall in the Americas. By comparison, the old man outside the bookstore was a mere child, although he looked to be about 80.
These surroundings do belong to the old, old days, and we wander the streets as if we had been granted permission to go back in time. Some of the buildings are nearly as ancient as a fine Carpaccio painting or, if newer, at least they carry on with tried and true rococo elegance.
A diligent guide told me that the oldest edifices — those with Byzantine flamboyance — date back to the 13th Century. Other buildings march toward the present with Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque facades. The Venice that visitors see (unless they insist on scouting out obscure modern buildings on the back streets or on the edges of distant islands) is a festival of galleries, arcades, arches, decorative carvings, domes and campaniles — best viewed, it goes without saying, from an unhurried gondola.
We have to admire the elaborate craftsmanship, even if some of the best came from Constantinople and other places during the time Venice ruled the seas and could take art and decorations by force.
The city locks us into eras of its own choosing. Laced with canals and centuries, its center has no room for cars, or much else smacking of modern times. Its history is one of conquest. At one time it dominated the known world with its fleets and ports. Yet its leaders, the doges, refrained from domestic tyranny.
The Adriatic, now and then, dares to rise a few inches and splash the plazas, brazenly seeping into sanctuaries and the foyers of magnificent palazzos. This is not a cleansing. Flood waters add to the patina of age and the burden of worry. When will the whole beautiful assemblage sink? But Venice is not so fragile as it might look. And often it resists showing its years.
For example, Venice became a youthful place on the day, five years ago, when my 11-year-old daughter fed the pigeons in Piazza San Marco. She giggled as they perched on her arm, extending their beaks for the seeds that a vendor had sold to us. I watched her play in that beautiful space and realized I had reached a goal before I knew I was seeking one.
The Venice depicted in school books, merely a fairy tale before, spread before me for the first time, three-dimensional but still fantastic. My daughter, who then had only a vague understanding of Europe and its famous places, stood happily in the foreground, laughing at the pigeons in a place she would remember the rest of her life. The overwhelming antiquity meant little to her then. But, these days, as a well-read adolescent, she keeps asking when we can go back. She is my heiress of travel.
The best sort of Old World layout surrounded us on that first trip: twisting alleys and narrow streets flanked by canals and filled with intriguing churches, shops, restaurants, apartments, palaces and plazas. We could explore at will, and no car — no Vespa — would have the means to interrupt us. In terms of fighting internal combustion to a standstill, Venice still rules Italy.
We could walk in any direction and find things we had no idea we were looking for. Books and films unfailingly depict the city as rife with intrigue, even treachery. But the hidden corners and unexpected shadows failed to scare us. We simply had to learn what might lurk around the next bend, confident it would be different from anything we had discovered around the last. Sometimes, a lot of people ventured along with us; other times, we saw only those who live and work on those narrow streets. Most nodded hello.
A friend, also a traveler, once remarked that Venice ranked near the top of his least-favorite places. “Crowded. Hot. Dirty. Mean. Overpriced.”
You could look at it that way, I suppose. My daughter played with the pigeons on a misty spring morning, when the pigeons far outnumbered tourists in Piazza San Marco. But later we did have to shoulder our way through certain popular alleys and squares. When my wife and I came here again last spring, visitors walked the streets in droves, we were soaked in sweat, a vaporetto (water bus) ticket-taker shortchanged us and sneered at our protests. The Rialto Bridge, lined with merchants and street wares of questionable quality, was ankle-deep in trash at some points and needed a good scrubbing. There were moments when I was glad our daughter hadn’t been able to come with us and see it this way.
Overpriced? The young man in the red hat might just as well have been looking askance at our cafe bill from his spot in the bookstore window. For a slice of pizza, a plate of noodles and a liter of water, the waiter wanted $37.35.
Yet I knew it wouldn’t be that way all over town. The desk clerk at our hotel suggested a few small restaurants that were delightful, uncrowded and reasonably priced. Yes, dirt and litter and the tarps of antiquity-restoration do mar a few heavily traveled sections, but those aren’t the only fascinating parts of town. More obscure neighborhoods were just as much fun to explore and cleaner than the areas hordes have trampled.
On our first day last spring, as we walked . . . and walked from the vaporetto stand near the train station to and from our hotel — the Abbazia — my wife had to know, “How did this start? Why did they build a city here?”
It does seem to be the sort of location that, in America, would inspire snide jokes about Florida swamp land.
I could only parrot what the guides and history books said: As the mighty Roman Empire succumbed to the invading Goths, starting in the 4th Century, people from the mainland in the region now known as Veneto fled to uninhabited islands off the coast. They founded Venice in AD 421 and soon built an empire of their own, a maritime power with an eventual lock on the trade routes to Byzantium, the gall to spirit away from Alexandria in Egypt the remains of St. Mark the Evangelist and the opportunism to take over the trade of cities captured during the First Crusade, late in the 11th Century.
By then, Venice was on top of the world and well protected, the most gilt-edged marsh property on Earth. Why leave?
And we are privileged to see it much as it looked during its days of glory and decadence. Its churches and museums hold magnificent works of art — Titians, Bellinis, Carpaccios (“A Portrait of a Young Man in a Red Hat” hangs in Museo Correr), the impossibly elaborate mosaics and carvings in Basilica San Marco.
Great art can be found all over Italy, but in Venice you might encounter it with little fanfare — entering from a silent courtyard into, say, Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. Once inside the hushed Gothic church, visitors find Titian’s overwhelming masterpiece, “The Assumption of the Virgin” (1518). Thousands of intricate carvings on the 15th Century monk’s choir seem to usher us toward the Titian, which glows as if backlit from the main altar.
Or, on a lane lined with shops, a display of Carnival masks stops us and suggests we must return sometime before Lent to witness a city in costume, a city of revels, a city full of mischief carried out in the fog and chill of February. With a change into ruffles and capes, the citizens become 18th Century libertines, flirting at parties in lavish palazzos, dancing away the night at grand balls in the grand ballrooms.
Many signs point the way to San Marco. Some point backward, toward the place you just left, as if to suggest that one must travel around the world to deserve a look at one of the planet’s most famous squares. But every street leads toward San Marco eventually — to the ornate basilica, the tower, the doges’ palace and the broad expanse of space and light where pigeons scavenge.
The crowds take in all there is to see, but then someone will look out toward the ocean, past the Grand Canal, and ask, “What is that? Who lives out there?”
We were told at the hotel that a representative from an artisans’ cooperative on the glass-producing island of Murano would be glad to take us there by water taxi. No obligation.
We joined an Australian couple and their daughter for the short ride to one of those places that, before, we could scarcely see from the edge of San Marco. We now would actually set foot on one of those “other” islands that add to the Venetian allure. We fulfilled our obligation by watching glass-blowing demonstrations and walking through showrooms that glittered with colorful chandeliers, crystal sculpture and seeming acres of untouchable, gold-trimmed dinnerware. No one pressured us to buy, and we bought only trinkets worth far less than the water-taxi ride.
Then we were free to stroll about the island, a compact collection of houses painted in pastels and connected by boardwalks above a complex maze of waterways. We did not stay long, but we had a taste of another aspect of the city — island neighborhoods that would justify at least one more journey: the cemetery island of San Michele, Burano (lace makers), Torcello (with its 7th Century cathedral), Le Vignole (gardens and a fort), Lido (beaches), Sant’ Angello delle Polvere, Madonna del Monte . . .
They float out there in the Venetian Lagoon, like condiments on a feast of experience. The endlessly unfolding city, like the young man in the red hat, challenges us to see it all, knowing we never can but tempting us to try and luring us on with false promises of secrets never meant to be shared.
IF YOU GO
– GETTING THERE
Most flights from the United States will land in Rome, Milan or other major European cities. From there, flights connect to Marco Polo, the Venice airport. Major highways and rail lines also serve Venice.
– LODGING
We stayed at Hotel Abbazia, which is, as the name implies, a former abbey. It’s tucked away in an alley called Calle Priuli, near the train station and the Grand Canal. Our chamber was slightly larger than a monk’s cell with all the modern conveniences and a rosy-marbled bath. The window looked out upon a small garden. The public rooms featured high vaulted ceilings and dark wood. In the main sitting room, a lofty pulpit shares space with the espresso machine. About $150 and up for a double. 011-041-717333. Fax: 011-041-717949.
For amusement, we checked out the ornate lobbies of the Hotel Danieli and the Gritti Palace. Both are sights in their own right and charge close to $600 and up for rooms with a view of the Grand Canal.
– DINING
We had a long, expensive lunch at Harry’s Bar, the saloon made famous by Ernest Hemingway and by every other American who has read the literary history of Venice. We were shunted to a back room (the main ones were closed that late in the afternoon) and our view was restricted to black and white photographs of the city as it looked near the dawn of photography. (“Nothing has changed,” our waiter pointed out.)
The aperitif was the Bellini, a pleasant mixture of sparkling wine and white-peach juice that has become almost as famous as Harry’s itself. (“Of course,” the waiter said approvingly.)
So many places like this tend to serve up empty calories of Reputation. But at Harry’s we delighted in delicate slabs of marinated salmon, thin slices of perfect beef, fluffy risotto, sublime prosciutto, a creamy lemon dessert and espresso. It came to about $65 for two, including tip. Maybe that was a ripoff, but, still, a satisfying one. As we were leaving, another American popped through the door and demanded of the host, “Is there a cover charge?” Naturally, in places like this, in the most fabulous Italian cities, there is. “Bah!” said the American, and he stomped out.
Americans and Italians alike gathered at long tables in Trattoria alla Madonna, off a dark alley near the Rialto Bridge. It’s a boisterous place, with white-jacketed waiters bellowing and customers crammed into every square inch. We dug into an abundance of seafood, greens in red wine vinegar and olive oil, real clams in a real sauce on exquisite pasta, fresh sole and a fluffy vanilla concoction called Cake Madonna. We were out almost $80 when we left, smiling.
We learned about Trattoria Madonna as we were dining a few nights before in the tiny Ristorante Alle Testiere, two blocks and a canal northeast of Piazza San Marco. Four adults and two children (one sleeping) occupied two of the six tables, which they had shoved together in a family grouping. While we gorged on an antipasto of mixed fish, shrimp, octopus, polenta and crayfish, our neighbors advised us on other restaurants and let us know they were thoroughly happy to be Venetians (although one woman was a fairly recent immigrant from suburban Shanghai). We wondered if anything could surpass our spider crab entrees No, they said. But go to these other places (including Madonna) for dinners just as good. Our repast and a bottle of wine at Alle Testiere came to $33 each.
– INFORMATION
For more information about Venice, inquire at the Italian Government Travel Office, 500 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 2240, Chicago, IL 60611; 312-644-0990; fax: 312-644-0996.
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Robert Cross’ e-mail address is bcross@tribune.com.
