Impulse

I’m sick of tourists. They come by the thou­sands in great flocks. They’re every­where, walk­ing slowly, get­ting in the way. They crap on every­thing mak­ing it impos­si­ble find a clean seat. No, wait. Those are the pid­geons. It’s hard to tell them apart when you’re walk­ing through San Marco square as they are equally many of each. I think the humans are the brightly col­ored ones…

Sunday appar­ently is the day to visit San Marco. I didn’t know this and on my first attempt found the square com­pletely packed with all man­ner of tourists. This led me to retreat to the tour of the Palazzo Ducale and its pris­ons. Walking around a dun­geon is far prefer­able to nav­i­gat­ing a throng of tourists in the hot sun while try­ing not to tram­ple the fly­ing ver­min every­one is feed­ing and try­ing not to lis­ten cham­ber orches­tra cov­ers of Andrew Lloyd Webber (I’m sure the for­mer Doges of the Venice were rolling in their graves at “Dont Cry for Me Argentina” being played at the very seat of their for­mer empire).
The Palazzo pri­mar­ily piqued my inter­est in the work­ings of the Venetian empire — they had at least a dozen dif­fer­ent gov­ern­ing coun­cils, each with its own room. I’m curi­ous how they man­aged to gov­ern a mer­chant empire for nearly a mil­lenia with so many com­mit­tees.
After the Palazzo, I fled San Marco and it’s minia­ture 5th Avenue shop­ping dis­trict. Ok, one last rant: What is the fas­ci­na­tion with going shop­ping in exotic loca­tions at stores that can be found in any major metrop­o­lis, includ­ing your local one? Does Prada really look bet­ter when you paid for it in euros?
I attempted San Marco again the fol­low­ing day. Though the crowds were only a quar­ter of what they had been, and the bands played bet­ter tunes — a tango, a waltz, clas­si­cal, folk songs, jazz, etc. (For those not in the know: the square is sur­rounded by cafes, each of which has a small band — piano, string bass, 1 – 2 vio­lin, and accor­dion. The bands take turns around the square play­ing. Seems like a great idea with the right music & lack of peo­ple pour­ing bird­seed on their head for a laugh). Unfortunately, the line for the great Basilico San Marco was enor­mous before the doors opened, and the Secret Itineraries Tour (through the secret passeges of the Palazzo) was booked for days. So, I spent time tak­ing pic­tures of the silly peo­ple with their cam­eras.
Then I went for a wan­der. I put my map away and set off throught he Venetian maze intend­ing to get as lost as pos­si­ble. Every time I saw a sign point­ing some­onewhere impor­tant, I chose another way. I love doing this in cities. Venice, being and island, makes this even more fun because the worst that I can get is wet. I wan­dered the res­i­den­tial sec­tion of the San Pollo dis­trict, and encoun­tered a few schools.
Italians love kids. I think the even love the sound they make when let run wild. Those schools were filled with screams of kids at play. Screaming, laugh­ing, shout­ing chil­dren at play in their lit­tle match­ing light-blue, lab coat uni­forms. It made me think my amer­i­can upbring­ing as pos­i­tively stodgy. American par­ents chas­tise their kids for both­er­ing any­one. I can’t think of how many times some par­ent in the US has reeled in their lit­tle one who had decided to talk to me. In Italy, par­ents let the kids go crazy. Outside my win­dow each morn­ing, par­ents bring their kids to the school (yes, the par­ents walk with the kids to the school). The par­ents stand talk­ing as the kids run ram­pant through the square. Neighbors call out to the kids from bal­conies. Eventually, the school doors open, the kids go inside, and the par­ents head off to work. It’s clearly a big social event for every­one. And they do this every morn­ing. It really makes me see how “chil­dren must be seen and not heard” per­vades US cul­ture. (though, I must say, I enjoy how the kids in Seattle do let me sleep in).
Today, I set off with an ambi­tious agenda: to cir­cum­nav­i­gate the islands while vis­it­ing the out­ly­ing islands of San Giorgio Maggore and Murano, then con­clude with the last few muse­ums I had not yet seen. I got to all but two of the muse­ums. Wouldn’t have mat­tered if I got all the way around: some­where along the way I lost my museum pass, and hav­ing paid EU18 for it, I didn’t want to pay full price admis­sion at the other places.
I think I like Murano a lit­tle bet­ter than Venice — if only because the build­ings are all short, thus you can actu­ally see the sky with­out hav­ing to walk any­where. The breeze off the lagoon helped. Ok, and the enjoy­able ban­ter with the woman who gave the tour of the glass­works. (and enjoyed watch­ing every­one jump as she demon­strated the den­sity, thust strength, of Murano crys­tal by drop­ping vases on the table and whack­ing glasses against it (all remained unbro­ken)). That, and I finally had my first decent italian-style pizza of the trip. Everywhere else served up microwaved stuff.
And tomor­row? I have no idea. I’m toy­ing with the idea of head­ing out early to visit my friends Tom and Simone in Vienna who just informed me that they are expect­ing. Or, I may spend the rest of the week in the shade, with a breeze, catch­ing up on some read­ing and plan­ning the RAAM doc­u­men­tary. I had intended to do all this on the train, but the pass­ing land­scape mes­mer­izes me.

Related posts:

1. Venezia
2. Of Ewoks and Emperors
3. CA: Kids with Cameras