Venice, Italy-The City Of Dreams

Venice is something out of a dream.

So beautiful it is hard to imagine that it is a real place, even when one is there.

Streets turn to narrow alleys that twist and turn around on themselves and then end abruptly in quaint squares or along canals that seem to spring from nowhere.

Each of the countless bridges is so picturesque that they seem more like paintings than actual stone or wood that one could walk upon.

Sometimes, when one reaches to touch the red brick of the narrow alley walls, it crumbles to dust beneath one’s fingertips and it is harder still to tell whether one is sleeping or awake in this dreamy city.

But the crumbling walls and the glimmering canals serve also as a harsh reminder of a reality no one likes to think about, that Venice is sinking and crumbling into the dark green depths of the canals that have made the city so mystic.

At once its creation as well as its demise.

Materials for flood walkways sit ready
for the next flood along many streets.

But the city still receives more visitors than one can count, or perhaps it is because of this, even in early November although it is colder than the rest of Italy.

But even with the lower temperatures everything about this crumbling, sinking city is a dreamers paradise.

As the train nears the city the countryside flowing past suddenly turns to water-a vast plain of water completely surrounding the elevated train tracks and highway.

In the water boats meander by carrying fishermen and crabbers and then, suddenly there will appear an empty boat with it’s owner standing in the endless water. It’s smooth surface barely waist deep. An astonishing sight for an unsuspecting traveler aboard those trains.

And then the buildings appear with arching bridges stretching the cities canals like dainty white fingers adorned in lacy designs.

Even exiting the train station exposes visitors to a lovely sight of beautifully dome-topped buildings, an expansive bridge that seems so tall as to be vying with the surrounding buildings for impressive heights and lapping canals beside the cobblestone streets.

I was warned that the Venice train station was a haven for pickpockets and no wonder, with such a view as a welcome, most visitors wouldn’t notice a living orange elephant the size of a bus in their path unless it blocked their view.

The directions to one of the few hostels in Venice were simple enough although peculiar sounding to those unused to the strange city.

“Exit the train station and turn left,” the directions read. “Continue walking ‘straight’ through a small square and cross a large bridge. Again continue ‘straight’ until you cross a second, much smaller bridge. Directly before you come to the third bridge turn right and cross the small bridge leading to the green door-this is the hostel.”

Thankfully the directions were truly that simple and I was able to find the charming little hostel without any problems.

My first night I explored the city, discovering the oldest of the bridges sprawling across The Grand Canal as well as the infamous Piazza San Marco where I instantly fell in love with the rows of little white lights adorning every single window of the long square.

The next day I wandered the city. Following walks along twisting, turning canals and meandering down ever narrowing alleyways.

I found a small square with a few trees, a collection of pigeons and few tourists and later, a large building with faded green and purple doors that looked as if they were about to crumble from their hinges that turned out to be the cities hospital.

Before returning to my hostel for the evening, I drifted into a square where a man stood, his hand outstretched and covered with dipping, diving, chirping little birds who instantly vanished when the last scrap of birdseed he held was picked up by the last bird...only for them to swarm back down from the nearby trees like bees as soon as he refilled his hand with seeds from the bag he held.

At my hostel I was treated to a lovely night of all-you-can-eat Italian pasta, a made-up drinking game with the others in the hostel and led by two of the girls who worked there and a brisk night walk to the most popular bar in town.

Venice is vacant at night. With no cars and few street lamps the city is so dark one can count the stars shinning between the roofs above. There is no sign of life on the streets and no lights appear from behind shuttered windows. Even ones light footsteps seem to echo over the quiet waters whose even lapping is the only other sound.

Night time Venice is vacant except in one square, the square we were led to that night.

Here the entire town seems to gather, so much so that few can fit in the bars and cafes open along the edges of the square. Instead the people escape the cramped bars to gather in seated circles upon the cobblestones, a beer in their hand talking of the worlds problems or politics or everyday life. The scene much resembles a summer afternoon on a college campus, a strange sight for travels, few of which ever see the large square.

The next morning I was invited to walk the city, explore an unusual gallery and have a picnic lunch with three young men from the hostel.

  

After a picnic of rather sparse poor travelers fair we found ourselves accidentally separated into two groups of two and after searching in vain for the others, me and the young man I found myself with reverted to plan B.

Plan B was a suggestion I had been given the night before by yet another traveler, a three hour, 20 euro, boat ride from Venice to three nearby islands, each revered for a different skill.

The first island, Murano, was known for it’s master glass makers. After a brief performance by one such glass maker we were directed to a showroom, an experience we thought would be boring but turned out to be rather like what I would guess walking through a stained glass window scene to be like.

The second island, Burano, was a fishing town, known for its brightly colored houses and lace makers.

The town reminded me of a miniature Venice with it’s small, wandering streets and its arching bridges. 
The homes, each painted a separate color, were so lovely they reminded me of a living rainbow with a church tower at their center so tilted that it looked as if the slightest gust of wind would blow it to the ground.

And the lace.

The lace outside the tiny shops was so intricate and lovely that one found it hard to comprehend the talent that went into such exquisite designs.

The third island, Torcello, held an ancient church at its center and with twilight falling the distant lights of Venice sparkled like low stars in the darkening sky which seemed to merge with the dark water until it was impossible to tell where one began and the other ended.

That night was Halloween. Something becoming more popular I had been told because of the midwinter masquerade that takes place every year in Venice. The children of Venice however do not knock on the doors of houses for the simple reason that there are none. The citizens of Venice live in small apartments tucked into alleyways above shops and beside churches.

Instead the few children enjoying the holiday visit the stores, wiggling and giggling their way through the crowds of tourists in their tiny devil suits with shopping bags filled with tiny bits of candy.

That night I returned to the bar in the square with two others from the hostel to see what the popular square would look like on such a night as Halloween.

Tonight the square was bursting at the seams.

More people than I thought lived in Venice had arrived, some with painted faces and some in sweeping black gauze. People carried one another on their backs, shouted and laughed and even danced and every few seconds, over the confusion of drunken sounds, came the sharp sound of glass breaking upon the ground.

The college square in summer had become a party so dense that one had to slither their way through the dense crowds leading to the square itself.

We stayed for a time, enjoying the scene and talking of politics and the mysteries of the universe while slight chaos erupted around us before eventually returning to the hostel where I vowed to find the square in the morning to see how it had fared after such a night.

With the touch of daylight the square was quite a different place. Glass no longer shimmered between the cobbles and laundry hung from windows above the now-silent bars. Street vendors dotted the square along with outdoor cafe tables covered with food and vases of flowers.

Quite a contrast from the popular square by night.

I am generally fonder of cities at night but other than the two squares I visited I fell in love with the daytime Venice more than the nighttime one.

The day lite Venice is so lovely that it is easier and also harder to distinguish from a dream than the nighttime one, a dream so distinct that one knows upon stepping out of that train station that this is the one dream of their lives they will never forget.

“Come along Life, take my hand, let’s have an adventure together.”

Appropriate seeming graffiti and
the only English graffiti I saw in the city.

~KrystleLyric