{"id":1363,"date":"2013-06-18T18:20:52","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T16:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickzullo.com\/?p=1363"},"modified":"2021-11-12T21:54:16","modified_gmt":"2021-11-12T20:54:16","slug":"life-and-death-in-venice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/life-and-death-in-venice\/","title":{"rendered":"Life and Death in Venice"},"content":{"rendered":"

“But come back in November or December, in February or March, when the fog, la nebbia, settles upon the city like a marvelous monster, and you will have little trouble believing that things can appear and disappear in this labyrinthine city, or that time here could easily slip in its sprockets and take you, willingly or unwillingly, back.”<\/i> –Erica Jong, “A City of Love and Death: Venice”<\/p>\n

Before arriving in Rome in July of 2010, I had the fortunate circumstance to live in Venice for a few months.\u00a0 I went there to study Venetian history through the lens of its literary traditions with a group of professors and students from my hometown in Florida (Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, with professors Emanuele Pettener and Ilaria Serra).\u00a0 I shared an apartment in the Castello district, just behind Piazza San Zaccaria, only about 100 meters from the Venetian lagoon.\u00a0 It was just far enough from the midday swell of tourists to feel homey, and yet central enough to give me the illusion of being Venetian for a short while.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"death
Venessia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Prior to that stay, I had been to Italy several times, but surprisingly never to Venice.\u00a0 I knew that I\u2019d be enchanted by its famous \u201celegant decay,\u201d which of course I was.\u00a0 But what I didn\u2019t expect were all the little miracles and mysteries that you can only discover by actually living in that impossible floating city and catching the \u201cQueen of the Adriatic\u201d off her guard. \u00a0After sunset, when the cruise ship crowds have departed, or during the small hours of the morning when the real Venetians tend to their daily work, La Serenissima<\/i> becomes the back drop to all your romantic fantasies requiring very little input from your imagination.<\/p>\n

Nowadays, I certainly feel most connected to Rome\u2014that famous she-wolf who nurtured Romulus and Remus.\u00a0 And those who read my blog regularly also know about my love for Sicily (and my little sicilianuzza<\/em>, Demetra). But before Rome and Sicily there was Venessia<\/em>; the Queen of Adriatic, La Serenissima<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Life and Death in Venice<\/h2>\n

Living in Venice, you quickly realize that it’s a city you can never fully know, no matter how long you stay.\u00a0 And once you concede this, you feel grateful for your ignorance rather than frustrated by it.\u00a0 The thrill is in the constant rediscovery.<\/p>\n

So after you\u2019ve nearly mapped out your little neighborhood, you need only cross one unfamiliar bridge to find yourself in quite another place. \u00a0Shape-shifting shadows and strange new reflections confound your senses, trapping you in a house of mirrors. \u00a0The muffled echo of a rippling tide against crumbling palazzi<\/i> is like the \u00a0voice of a ventriloquist and you don\u2019t know which way to turn.\u00a0 A twisting labyrinth of calli<\/i> and canali<\/i> that always leads to more water and another dead end.<\/p>\n

\"venice,
From biennale park<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I will always recall my time in Venice as the most tranquil period of my adult life.\u00a0 I had only two obligations for those few months: read Venetian history and visit the places where it happened.\u00a0 After three or four \u201cstressful\u201d hours of that, Spritz and cicchetti <\/i>occupied the rest of my day.\u00a0 Or sometimes, just before sunset, I would put on my running shoes and jog West along the fondamente<\/i>; past the Bridge of Sighs, past the Arsenel<\/i>, past the biennale park, and all the way to where the land simply stops and empties into the sea.\u00a0 This is about the only part of Venice where there\u2019s enough bridge-free sidewalk to gather a bit of momentum. \u00a0Here is where most of the remaining Venetians still live, in the quiet residential areas far removed from the landmarks and tourists and progress.<\/p>\n

For the students and professors currently experiencing this miracolo<\/i>\u2014or for anyone interested in Venetian literature\u2014I’ve attached the little essay about labyrinths<\/a> that I wrote during my time there while happily lost in that seductive maze.\u00a0 In Venice, there are labyrinths everywhere you look: Not just in the street map, but in the art, the architecture, the literature, and even in the geography of the lagoon itself.\u00a0 Getting lost is a foregone conclusion and the only reasonable thing to do is to just submit to the disorientation.\u00a0 To paraphrase Erica Jong, \u201cLet time slip in its sprockets and take you, willingly, back…\u201d<\/p>\n

A Few Venice Suggestions<\/h2>\n
\"garden<\/a>
The Labyrinth of Villa Pisani<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you haven’t guessed by now, I believe that the best suggestion that anyone can give you for enjoying Venice is to throw away the itinerary and just get lost.\u00a0 (Or lose yourself, to be more accurate.)\u00a0 The standard checklist will keep you locked on a worn path from the train station to The Rialto Bridge to St. Mark\u2019s Square and back again without ever seeing the Venessia<\/i> of Marco Polo or Giacomo Casanova or Veronica Franco or Lord Byron.\u00a0 You\u2019ll only see what the souvenir salesmen want you to see and that would be a huge tragedy.\u00a0 Just resolve to buy a piece of Murano glass at the train station on your way out of town and otherwise forget all about that sort of conspicuous consumption.<\/p>\n

But if you must, here are the things that I would make an effort to visit if you have plenty of time. This list is intentionally brief.\u00a0 Remember, time doesn’t play by the rules in Venice.<\/p>\n

Art<\/b>: Tough to pick one, but for me it\u2019s between\u00a0L\u2019Accademia<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Scuola Grand di San Rocco<\/i>. \u00a0Eeny, meeny, miny, moe\u2026<\/p>\n

\"the
The Labrynth of the Sestiere Castello<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

History<\/b>: The Doge\u2019s Palace Secret Itineraries Tour.\u00a0 The official website:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/palazzoducale.visitmuve.it\/en\/pianifica-la-tua-visita\/secretitineraries\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Restaurant<\/b>: Al Nonno Risorto Sotoportego, De Siora Bettina, 2338. \u00a0The fish here is fresh and excellent.\u00a0 And cheap\u2014they forgot to charge me for it the last time I was there.\u00a0 Well, after two\u00a0scroppini<\/i>\u00a0I guess I was having a hard time with the math.\u00a0 I intend to pay them back\u2014it\u2019s my excuse to return one day.<\/p>\n

Cicchetti<\/b>: Bacar\u00f2 Risorto, Castello 4700, (Campo San Provolo) \u00a0I\u2019m not claiming that this particular bacar\u00f2<\/i> is the best cicchetteria<\/i> in all of Venice, but it holds a sentimental place for me.\u00a0 It was only about ten paces from my front door, so I went there nearly every day for two months.<\/p>\n

Hotel<\/b>: Locanda Casa Querini, Campo San Giovanni Novo, 4388. \u00a0I lived in apartment so I don\u2019t know much about hotels in Venice except that they\u2019re expensive. My cousin visited me for a few days and she stayed in this one, which was reasonable, well-situated, and quite nice.<\/p>\n

\"venice
Take the traghetto instead of the gondola.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Avoid<\/b>: Gondola ride.\u00a0 They are ridiculously expensive (are they up to 90\u20ac now?) and in the end, pretty cheesy. \u00a0Instead, take the traghetto<\/i> from one side of the Grand Canal to the other for 50 cents.\u00a0 You\u2019ll likely share the 5-minute ride in an unadorned gondola with a couple of businessmen in suits on their way to work.<\/p>\n

Ciao!<\/h2>\n

Did you know that \u201cciao<\/i>\u201d is derived from the Venetian for \u201cschiavo<\/i>,\u201d or slave?\u00a0 In other words, \u201cAt your service,\u201d or \u201cI\u2019m your slave.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s true, look it up.<\/p>\n

Venice will always be a special place for me.\u00a0 In some ways, I\u2019m reluctant to ever go back there again\u2014perhaps it\u2019s better to leave my idyllic memories intact and not risk spoiling them by trying to recreate the magic.\u00a0 \u00a0However, I doubt that I\u2019ll be able to resist her charms forever, because as Peggy Guggenheim has so perfectly explained, \u201cTo live in Venice means that you fall in love with the city itself. \u00a0There is nothing left over in your heart for anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Shhh…don’t tell Rome that I said that.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“But come back in November or December, in February or March, when the fog, la nebbia, settles upon the city like a marvelous monster, and you will have little trouble believing that things can appear and disappear in this labyrinthine city, or that time here could easily slip in its sprockets and take you, willingly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1373,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,42],"tags":[147,28,385,32,327,25,146,145],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}