"Much as expected, really.........." a Venice Travel Page by leics

I had to go at some point, of course...........one simply has to visit such places if one can. The vast majority of the European population already have many images of Venice in their heads; one doesn't really expect to be surprised.

And I wasn't really, if I'm honest. I saw alleyways and canals and gondolas and gondoliers, art and churches and church bells, water and tourists. A dramatic arrival in the midst of a raging thunderstorm with truly torrential rain somewhat dampened any anticipatory exhilaration I might otherwise have felt (thankfully the storm arrived after we landed, although we'd been told to expect 'severe turbulence', which was a bit scary). but the next two full days (and a morning) were pleasant and sunny, even warm in the afternoons, and thus ideal weather for my usual long, long walks wandering around an unknown city.

I didn't do the trip down the Grand Canal (too expensive, imo), nor the gondola ride (even more expensive, although I did manage a cheapo ferry trip on a traghetto gondola). Nor did I visit any of the other islands. thse things can wait until my return, if there is to be one.

But some things were unexpected: how expensive Venice is, for example. I had expected to be on a par with Rome, but it is more like London. It's not impossible to eat for a reasonable price (I did), but paying 1 euro for every toilet stop seemed a lot. But then, as long as the money goes towards maintaining the city............

I was pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness of the streets too. There wasn't the usual rubbish one expects to see in Italian cities, nor the graffiti. I can't speak for the cleanliness of the canals though; the lagoon is badly polluted by mainland industry, and the sink/bathwater from residential Venice still finds its way happily into the canals: the faint whiff which occasionally drifted up suggested what the place might smell like in the hottest months.

What else pleased me? Hmmmmm.........the little bits of old stonework which I spotted on walls everywhere I walked (I made a travelogue about these here and here). I suspect many originated as identification place-markers for a largely illiterate society. I saw the same thing in Pompeii, carvings on the corners of streets and so on.......lovely to thing how the practice survived into Medieval times...and in Krakow too, where many old houses have carvings above their doors. I know Venice now has a hugely confusing house-numbering system. The postman in the photo is a very clever man!

I liked the way narrow alleyways led into one another, or opened out onto a tiny courtyard, a little square or a massive church. I liked the way the larger squares were filled with children playing once school ended; riding their bikes, playing football, skipping, playing with the water fountains, the whole area resounding to their noise and chatter and laughter. Of course they do, for where else can the children of Venice play? It would drive one mad to be cooped up inside an apartment with a bubbly energetic child........better by far to go out onto the square, let the kids run around(no traffic to worry about) whilst you chat with other parents.

I liked the markets too, and the fact that (once away from the San Marco area) one could mostly hear nothing but Italian (I was there at the very beginning of the season, remember), and see ordinary people going about their ordinary lives.

I liked the fact that, although 'Don't Look Now' is one of my favourite films of all time, Venice isn't really the dank, dark, scary place it suggested.

The bggest surprise? Walking out of a sottoportego (an alleyway beneath a building) in Campo Santa Maria Formosa, a particularly large piazza, and hearing the rather familiar tinkle of bells. And then seeing the unmistakable sight of an English Morris dance troop, draining the last of their Peroni before preparing to work off the calories with a display. Of course. What else would one expect to see on a sunny Venice afternoon as one rounds a corner?

It was the Blackmore Morris Men, dancing their way round Venice for fun (they've been to other places too) . Their performance was well-received by those hanging around in the square, although some seemed bemused by the sight of English gentlemn with bells on their legs and flowers o their hats leaping about and waving handkerchiefs to the cound of accordian and fiddle.

But I liked seeing them, and I liked the way some little ones joined in with the dance. So that was fun, and deserves a travelogue of its own.

The art, of course, is there for those who wish to see it (it's not really my thing). The churches are many indeed, and I went into far more than most visitors do ....but their plainness and lack of external ornamentation was a surprise. Some were calm and atmospheric places, but many seemed to me to be nothing much more than art galleries.........but then, perhaps, my eye is jaundiced from so much Roman church exuberance, and by lovingly observing too much history and detail in UK churches and cathedrals.

Venice is desperately expensive for those who live there, so it is not really surprising that its population is dropping rapidly. I wonder whether, in the end, it will become a historical Disneyland, existing only for its visitors? In some ways it is already at that stage, for it is tourism which drives its economy and serving tourism which is its purpose.

And maybe that is not really such a bad thing. Better for Venice to stay preserved and functioning mostly for its visitors than for it to decay and decline and, eventually, be lost beneath the murky waters of the lagoon.