Venice Rediscovered

Since lockdown began, I have travelled everywhere in Italy in my head.  I am of course also storing there the trips I was planning for this year’s clients … suspended like balloons quivering in a spring breeze. And eagerly anticipated Italy research travels I had planned for myself and for our family.

And there too I keep Venice, a beloved place that my mind returns to again and again.  In these last two months I have been struck by Venice’s fragility (a city whose economy rests nearly entirely on tourism), its without-compare beauty, and the sparseness of its permanent population when all of the visitors are gone.  For a sense of this, enjoy these time lapse video images of Venice during the second week of May, shot in Piazza San Marco and on the Grand Canal around the Rialto bridge : https://video.corriere.it/cronaca/fase-2-venezia-torna-lentamente-vivere-timelapse-citta/a57950b2-9755-11ea-ba09-20ae073bed63

This spring I have been especially grateful for my friend Antonella, Venetian born, a veneziana through and through. She has shared with me so much of her experience during these singular weeks of lockdown.

Antonella is well known to many Insider’s Italy travelers as she is our special docent guide for the city, with a deep knowledge of her city and its cultural heritage, both on and off the beaten path.

Like all Venetians, she is a walker, and had in Phase One (March 10 – May 3) suffered from being restricted to walking no further than 200 meters from her home.

She writes : “It has been only two days that I have been allowed to move freely around my city without restrictions.  We are just beginning Phase 2, but now I can walk everywhere ! Walking is so good for tempering anxiety. And of course in Venice, for uplifting spirits.

I felt an almost physical necessity to rediscover my Venice among the calli, campi, the bridges and squares. To make sure that everything was still there, intact and just as beautiful as in the countless videos that have appeared everywhere in the past two months.

What I saw was both thrilling and very sad. Venice is actually all still there, and more captivating and more magical than ever.

But disconcertingly empty, with just a handful Venetians off on small errands or intent on rearranging their shops after two months of closure.  Everyone is eagerly awaiting this “reopening” of shops, bars, restaurants, even hotels, but I fear that the recovery will be very slow.

For me, the personal rediscovery of my city will involve a different walk itinerary for each day.

Yesterday I chose the more obvious route: from my house, near the Basilica dei Frari and the Scuola di San Rocco, to the Rialto bridge and Piazza San Marco. Many Venetians who live between San Polo and the Rialto had come out to greet one another after the long hibernation. But as soon as I arrived near Piazza San Marco, I perceived that the square would be close to empty.

And so it was : historically this most important urban space, richest in grandiose monuments, the most beautiful living room in the world (as Napoleon defined the Piazza, before plundering it) was deserted.

The grandeur and beauty of the square overwhelmed me. Never was it clearer how predatory mass tourism has distorted the truest essence of Venice.

Today instead I selected a long walk through the Cannaregio district.  I didn’t choose the route I use on my usual tours : beautiful secondary streets, each glorious in their many small historical richnesses. No, I purposely chose instead the main road, one that is normally so full of tourists that they entirely distort the street.

The street, Strada Nuova, was constructed by the Austrians and then by the Italians by burying a long series of canals to create a direct route from the railway to the center.

Fortunately, the shops and commercial activities that sell low quality goods intended for mass tourism are still all closed by decree, this until the end of the month. So I managed to look carefully at details on a street I would normally always avoid, and rediscovered many features that delighted me.

Cannaregio is still one of the most lived-in neighborhoods in the city.  Here I saw Venetians out to for a coffee (only takeaway for the moment since the bars are closed) and catching up with friends — all the while maintaining the required two meter distance.”

Veneto’s governor Luca Zaia has announced that come Monday 18 May, the Veneto will “relaunch”.  

Zaia intends, he says, to “reopen everything”. Not only hairdressers, beauticians, shops, bars and restaurants, but also museums, libraries, gyms, sports centers, swimming pools and beaches, “to start the engines of tourism”. There is an obligation to wear a mask outside the home, in any situation.  

Venice, which relies disproportionately on tourism, will not by any means be “back to normal” the month. What is certain is that Insider’s Italy travelers who visit sooner rather than later will find a city that still lives in an air of undisturbed beauty, in the same suspended reality that held it exquisitely still for so many recent weeks.