Mossy and mouldy near the canals, the real Venice is to be found in its shaded alleys and sunny squares.
This is the table, perhaps, where they dreamt of the Venice biennale. I feel the cool marble top under my arms, daydream a bit, and try to remember the exact date when Europe’s biggest contemporary art exhibition was first set up. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t usually keep such trivia handy. It’s merely that I have been brushing up on history and art and such from all the travel websites on Venice — the shimmering city of water, of romance and art, where it is possible to see Eastern influences in Western architecture. And here I am at last, sitting where history was possibly made; at Florian’s, Europe’s oldest café, founded in 1720. There’s no escaping dates, is there?
As far as coffee goes, it is not exceptional but served ceremoniously, on a silver tray by a stiff, gloved waiter in black. Naturally, it is overpriced. So is the beer (listed here under the “Venetian beer” category but it tastes, as I find out, no different from the not-so-pricey draught we’ve been having everywhere in the town till now). Besides, we’ve had to shell out something like ¤14, just to have the privilege of sitting here, under a bright European sun, in the centre of the Piazza San Marco with its Romanesque facades, fading frescos, touristy crowds, pigeons and all. An ensemble of unsmiling violin and cello wielders provide the music, which is lively enough even though it reminds you of all those Raj Kapoor films — quite clearly, Bollywood being “inspired” by entire quatrains is hardly new. On the whole, it is a moment to savour with just the right ingredients — a clear azure sky, the smell of the sea nearby, and breathtaking murals of the Basilica of St Mark.
Piazza San Marco, named after Venice’s patron saint, is the place to congregate in Venice. The basilica, dating back to 832, though there have been continuous constructions and repairs, done in a style that is sometimes called Gothic, sometimes Byzantine and at other times Romanic, has some gorgeous murals and mosaics. You take in the sheer beauty, the scale and the colours (lapis, precious in medieval times, is favoured) and gape at the glittering gold in the mosaics. So unlike our own Taj, I think.
Mine, though, is an unusual trip to Venice: There are no gondola rides — with or without a significant other. Before parking myself at Florian’s, I’ve been walking through the town — on a healthy diet of beer, pizzas and piccante olive oil discovered in the street cafes — with two Indian guys for company. In Verona, where we have been based (but more about that later), the men have shown a healthy regard for all the Ducatis we meet on the roads. Here, fortunately, there are no roads.
Just the waterways or the narrow calli (gullies, alleys, notice the phonetic similarities). Outside the railway station, you can either walk or take a water taxi or gondola. But business seems to be down for the gondoliers as they try and catch our attention with ¤100 rides. “That’s too much,” I shake my head, conceding to these recessionary times. “So what do you want to give?” shoots back a gondolier who’s been pursuing us. “Very little,” I say firmly and he gives up.
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On foot, Venice is still beautiful. The walls are peeling, pock-marked by graffiti, there’s moss gathered in the waterways, but it is splendid when you burst out of an alley into a sunny square with a cathedral or merchant’s hall or another medieval structure. I sit in one such cathedral for a while, taking in the fading murals and the calm.
Staying in a hotel in Venice, though, doesn’t seem like a great idea. Apart from the tariff, there’s the fact that most of the old structures by the water seem rather mouldy. A better choice, I have been told, is on one of the neighbouring islands, Murano, Burano or Lido, or like us, further inland, in the pretty town of Verona, a town with its own Roman arena famous for its opera every summer. The morning train that we take from Verona brings us to Venice in a little under two hours for an absurd price of ¤6 per ticket.
The “real” Venice hits us in the alleys. These are lined with shops selling Murano glass jewellery, leather goods, masks and more masks. “My wife will kill me if I don’t take back a Louis Vuitton bag,” says Sandipan, one of my companions. I promise to help him choose one. He lands up buying a non-brand but a genuine leather one and is not dead yet.
As we halt every few minutes to see some more trinkets, I can sense my other companion, Dipendra, getting more impatient. “Touristo, touristo,” he screams each time we pause to pick up something. But as we approach San Marco, he finally changes his mind about being non-touristy and picks up some pretty pendants: “For my girlfriends,” he says. For four of them. I hope they don’t read this because I had promised not to write it.