The Venice of Italy

We’re behind on blogging. We still need to cover Florence and Naples, but here’s some on the rest of our Venice trip.

We’re noticing, thumbing through our Lonely Planet book, that so many places get labeled “the Venice of x,” for having multiple waterways. For example, Bamberg is the Venice of Germany. Brugge, the Venice of the North, supersedes Bamberg. There’s another one in Europe, but I’m too lazy to look it up

Actual Venice turned out better than it started, though I personally like some of the fake ones better.

It’s impossible not to get lost here. Blame the 400 canals and over 100 islands and bridges. This was the last aggravating point (that, and the obscene Italian train fare). “Just losing yourself” strolling in a city loses its novelty when you’ve already been lost for quite some time.

Anyway, we did the things to do: San Marco, gelato, spaghetti, art, canal views. These things are as Venetian as beautiful walks.

Tourism, however, has an odd, indirect, hollowing effect on the city. Although people live here, at least two thirds of those out and about seem to be non-residents, and we’re not talking just the Rialto or San Marco. Tourists here aren’t annoying, and it’s a city worthy of being toured, but it’s just not what I saw in mind’s eye reading the Merchant of Venice, or in Venetian paintings. It’s like there used to be a real, actual city here, or at least one that had been built up in my imagination, and by replacing all of what I imagined with a bunch of gelaterias and 70 euro gondoliers, it just kind of feels like a ghost town or something. I’m not sure what I mean, and it’s likely just me. I’m crazy, like the Siberia of San Polo in Brazil.