Venice, Italy

Like Rome, I traveled to Venice during my college study abroad trip. In my last post, I recounted to you a little of what this trip entailed, with our British professor enrapturing us students as she narrated the stories of the buildings we were studying. During the day we belonged to her, and we would have followed her to the ends of Italy if she had desired as much, but the night was ours. The night was when we strayed from the protection of our mother goose to explore the wonders of the foreign cities. Everything was new and exciting. The people we met, the customs we encountered, and the vistas we gazed upon that appeared so different in the glow of the moon. It was one such night in Venice that I and a fellow student encountered a most fascinating and eldritch experience.

It was our first night in Venice and naturally we were thrilled to be in the waterlogged city—if not a bit nauseated by the surplus of star-crossed lovers—and decided to venture out into the streets alone. The night was warm and the moist air rolled off of the canals to circle our bodies in gentle caresses. Clouds covered the sky, but not so thick as to obscure the moon entirely. It glowed out through the haze like a flashlight held beneath a thin white sheet, offering us the slightest bit of comfort with its presence. People were all around as we walked along the Grand Canal. Restaurants with live music beckoned to us with their savory smells and sounds, the low murmur of lovers whispering sweet nothings as they strolled around us. A gondolier—clad in the typical uniform of white trousers and striped shirt complete with a straw hat encircled by a red ribbon—approached us, insisting that he could offer us a spectacular time at a low cost. Smiling, we politely refused his generosity only to be accosted again and again by similar proposals. Growing weary of the constant sales pitches, we veered away from the Grand Canal and down a narrow street.

As is the usual sequence of events in stories such as this, it didn’t take long for my friend and I to become very lost. So enthralled were we at the prospect of being in such an interesting place that we had all but abandoned the normal roads and found ourselves standing helplessly on yet another bridge crossing yet another canal. We gazed around our surroundings, laughing nervously as we tried to decipher our location. What had us most concerned was not that we were lost, however, but the profound silence of the area. There was not a living soul to be found and not even the water seemed to move. I felt like Truman Burbank on the set of The Truman Show as he begins to suspect that the world he has been living in is false. The silence was so heavy and pressing in on my ears in such a way that I felt as though my eyes would bulge with the pressure. As we continued on and came to the next narrow street—still with no people present—my heart thudded with unease. I had just begun questioning whether or not a mass evacuation of the city had been ordered without my knowledge, when all at once we stepped out into large square.

There were people everywhere! My friend and I gaped in wordless awe, breathing easily now that we were no longer immersed in strangling solitude. There were people sitting at outdoor pubs, couples wandering around with their fingers tenderly entwined, and people gathered in the center of the square around a great fountain. The fountain dwellers appeared to be in their early twenties, all boisterously singing: “Ciao Venezia, Ciao Venezia!” while strumming guitars and—to our surprise—thumping with considerable enthusiasm on djembe drums with their heads thrown back in gay abandon. Feeling relieved, we pressed on, continuing our search for our hotel. We tried to talk to a few of the people, asking if they knew which way to go. Unfortunately our Italian was severely lacking and they scowled at us as if we had just sprouted horns from our heads before shaking their own heads and continuing on with their musical release.

With no other option in sight we continued on and, alas, once again found ourselves amidst a silence so intense as to drive a bat mad. On and on we went, crossing bridges, walking along the waterways, always with a growing sense of hopelessness. Though side-by-side with a fellow student I can scarcely recall a time that I have felt more alone and helpless. There was nothing to be done. Even when we did happen to cross a sentient life form we could not communicate with them. Worse yet, my counterpart was proving to be useless as a navigating assistant and had even gone so far as to relinquish the responsibility upon me entirely.
So there I was, gazing wildly around my surroundings—all of which were beginning to look increasingly the same—trying to figure out which way to go while my friend—now free from the stresses of navigating—stood merrily by my side. I strained my ears to pick up any modicum of sound, hoping to use this as a means of directing me to the next area of thriving humans. I closed my eyes, feeling the soft brush of wind across my face as it breathed through the alleys of the city. Carried with the breeze was a distinctly musical sound and my eyes flew open with excitement.

Motioning for my companion to follow, I hurried towards the noise; pausing every so often to be sure I was on the right path, like a bloodhound hot on the scent of a rabbit. Rushing forward the sound grew louder and I was able to tell what it was. It was a tenor male voice singing with such gusto one might suspect he was auditioning for the part of the phantom. The singing led us to the front of a small church and we stood outside its doors while we contemplated what to do next. The singing continued on inside only to be accompanied by a chorus of other voices sounding wonderful and threatening all at the same time. I smiled with irony as the music grew in volume and intensity, this hopefully marking a rather climactic end to our journey. Then, abruptly, the music stopped.

The sound of excited chatter replaced the singing and the doors burst open to emit two heavily sweating males, both rather rotund in physique and one with a bushy blond beard. They paused when they saw us standing at the bottom of the steps staring up at them, our jaws sagging and eyes wide with the surprise of our discovery. I—having recently become the leader of this unfortunate expedition by means of forfeit—addressed the men, greeting them in Italian and praying that they spoke even an ounce of English. The men smiled, probably amused at my poor attempt at their language, and the man with the blond beard descended down the stairs to assist us, informing us that he spoke only a little of our own language. I set off explaining to him our predicament and he nodded politely, scratching his chin with thought and causing the whiskers there to make a rasping sound beneath his thick fingers. He smelled quite extraordinarily of unwashed male and it was all I could do not to gag during inhalation. After having listened to my desperate explanation he gave one final nod and opened his mouth to speak—he hadn’t been lying when he said he spoke “little” English—but he attempted to help us all the same using a combination of English and hand gestures to get his point across.

As seems to be typical with most cases of misdirection, we weren’t all that far away from our hotel; in fact we were embarrassingly close. Resisting the urge to plug my nose, I thanked the man who in turn insisted on shaking my hand, and hurried on towards the path to civilization. We passed through more areas of bustling crowds and profound quiet before we got back to our hotel where we wasted no time in retiring ourselves for the remainder of the evening.

Venice really is all it is cracked up to be. There is no place like it in the world and the calling of the gondoliers, the beauty of the canals, the surplus of rich and artistic culture, the pigeons in St. Mark’s Square where Hemingway sat creating his masterpieces, the Doge’s Palace, the Peggy Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art, the Murano glass factories, and everything else (the good food goes without saying!) only add to the city’s appeal. I visited all of these places and more, and I recommend all of them to you provided you have the time and money. For every one of these places provide sights and stories that can be enjoyed and cherished by people from all walks of life. Ciao Venezia!