Venice

We were the first to arrive at the water shuttle to Venice. We had our choice of seats. Bev closed her eyes for a few minutes. I don’t think it helped much. Sleep deprivation requires more than a nap. More people arrived and we cast off, following a course mapped out between buoys, marking the dredged portion of the lagoon. The sun took its time parting the clouds and bathing us with the brightness Bev desperately needed. Water cabs raced past us, almost as quick as the traffic rushing past us on the causeway that matched our course.

I wished that we could enter the city as quickly, but had we, we’d have missed the experience of having watched the city rise up out of the sea, gliding under the Rialto Bridge, and docking alongside the Piazza San Marco. The causeway would not have gotten us to the piazza. In fact, the speedy causeway would have only delivered us to the edge of the city and the warehouses and carparks there. Only the water shuttle could actually bring us into the city. And it did. The clouds parted and the sun began to burn off the droplets of spray that spotted and blurred our first view of the Grand Canal and the fleets of gondolas that lined it and finally the Piazza itself. Besides, cabs and water cabs cost eighty euros to the water bus’ ten.

Two tall columns guarded the gap between the Doge Palace and the Library, the bell tower rising up over both and the Basilica behind. The columns were topped with singular statuary, one the winged lion of Venice, the other by St. Theodore standing atop the slain crocodilian dragon of the marsh.
There were hundreds, if not thousands, of people in the piazza and along the canal when we arrived. We had no idea at the time that the cruise ships were in town that day and that we’d never see such crowds again.

There are stalls hawking wares along the path selling fine art, cheap plastic necklaces, postcards and rosaries, everything a tourist could hope for.

It was slow going, disembarking the shuttle and mounting the steps to the piazza proper past those stalls and all those people. Our bags were large and heavy and the people rude and oblivious to all around them. The steps were teeming with people we had to thread between, people who gazed up and not around, people who rushed passed and cut us off, people who were disinclined to make way for anyone. People taking selfies.

We were stalled by an artist selling his etchings under the columns. His pictures were tall and thin and in muted shades of slate and plaster, evoking the narrowness of canals and the shadows that almost always cast from one building to the next. We loved his work, but we didn’t love the prospect of juggling tubes of artwork along with our bags. He told us that he’d be around all day. We returned later to greatly depleted crowds and bought three pictures from him. Bev was shocked to see most of her traveller’s cheques spent before we’d even completed our first day.

“Not to worry,” I said. “We have plastic. We have ATMs. We have online banking. It all works here.” That said, we still didn’t have a world of money after buying the house, either. I didn’t need to mention that. I could see it in her eyes. No matter, I thought, it’s our honeymoon. If we couldn’t pamper ourselves then, when could we?

Beyond were the piazza, the cafes spilling out from under columned arches, and the tower, terracotta amid so much grey, the basilica and the milling crowds queuing up for this or that, each line two and three people wide and hours long. And pigeons. They perched on chairs, on tables, atop each of the two stories standing over the crooked square. The waiters hovered near as well, eager to sit you for the most expensive coffee and gelato you’ll ever pay for. Is it worth it? Yes. Ambiance and memories are everything.

Having braved the crowds, we passed the basilica and found ourselves a “quiet” spot to consult our map of the city as to where our hotel was. The map showed a maze of short streets that pretended to be a grid. Careful consideration brought us no closer to spotting our hotel.

I asked someone who did not look like a tourist. He asked me for the address number. I said it was on Castello Street. He waved the name of the street off, asking again for the number, explaining that Venice was structured in a series of boxes. There was the 1000s, the row of boxes immediately behind the Piazza and the Grand Canal. The 2000s were behind them, the 3000s behind them. Our hotel was in the 5000s, 5487 to be exact. He said that the 1010s were to the right, pointing and circling his finger over that area, and that the 1090s were to the left, his finger circling over an area there. The same was true for the 2000s and 3000s and so on. When he saw what the address on the hotel voucher was, he counted the blocks back and from the right, saying that our hotel was in this area, around the middle of the main island. He said follow this street and keep an eye on the numbers on the building and we would find it easily. We did, and we did.

The streets ran straight and true, unless they didn’t. They curved. They bent. One street led into another that was offset by only a few feet, as though they were begun from one side and the other and didn’t quite meet up. Few were more than four abreast in width. All were bounded by three and four stories of buildings that were a thousand years old. They showed their age above the ground floor, pitted and blackened, the windows yawning open, their shutters a rainbow of peeling colours, with narrow planters clutching the wrought iron that stretched between them.

Below them, the street was resplendent with shops and cafes and restaurants and curios shops. There was an antique bookshop here, a linen shop there, a canal and arched bridge and a spot of sunlight from time to time. Murano glass sparkled and gleamed and glowed behind dusky windows. Masks grinned and scowled, some with elongated beaks, others gnashing teeth. A church resolved out of the shadows as we rounded this bend, a large circle of stained glass facing the courtyard before it. A lone Armani suit stood in the single display window of the shop that belched air-conditioning in hopes of luring us in. I did peek in. Three more mannequins struck impossible poses within, the glossy wooden shelves displaying no more than two sweaters or three shirts each. I decided that I probably could not afford anything in that store.

We passed by our street, noting that we’d entered the 6000s, retraced our steps and found a bridge and side street that spilled out into a narrow courtyard, made smaller by the red table-umbrellas and awning drawn over half its width, the potted flowers and ferns displayed down its length. A leafy bough draped over it from the adjacent courtyard. A dusky mustard coloured building rose behind it, the stairs, the frames and shutters white. A narrow row of bistro tables and benches leaned into the wall, potted fronds to either end.

We consulted the sign hung from elaborate wrought iron over the door: The Hotel Canaletto, the same as on our voucher.

We had found our home for the next week.