Venice

Italy. Of all the places in the world I've had on my list to visit, this wasn't one of them. It always seemed a bit too cliché, too Standard Issue American Tourist for me. My only real interest has been Sicily, since it seems to have its own particularly cool character, impervious to the tourist industry. But even that was mainly when I was studying Italian in college and thought I might have some minor hope of actually understanding what's going on and conversing with people.

Like in many universities, my undergraduate Arts & Sciences degree required a year of a foreign language in order to graduate. It could be anything you like, as long as it was different to what you studied in High School. I'd taken French from grades 7 to 9, but due to a clerical error, my transcript said that I'd taken German. So I could have taken French again for an easy A, but my real desire was to learn Latin. The basis for all the romance languages, the tongue used throughout all academia until relatively recently, who wouldn't want to study that? OK, what complete and total word nerd (ie me) wouldn't want to?

I made the mistake of mentioning this to my uncle who had been forced to take Latin as a young fella, and he set off on a tirade along the lines of only a complete and utter moron would study a nonsensical dead language when they didn't absolutely have to! What can I say, I was young and impressionable, so I believed him and went for Italian instead. Incidentally, years later my (just as nerdy as me) brother did take Latin in college, and loved it. 

Anyway, here I am in good old Venezia, and I don't speak a damn word of Italian. A friend of Jody's in Edinburgh a few days ago said, "I'm sure when you get there it will come flooding back." It hasn't. At all. I hear words that sound vaguely familiar and know that I used to use them easily in class everyday, but I can't grasp the meaning, no matter how deeply in my brain I dig for even that one single word. I only remember one phrase from class -- which I may be butchering here -- Tu rompi le palle! It literally translates to something like you're breaking my balls, but colloquially it means... well, about the same thing we use it to mean in English. And I don't really think throwing out that particular line will get me very far around here.

So what was my original point? Oh, right, so I never planned to visit Venice. I always assumed it would be sort of cheesy and touristy, not at all my cup of tea. But I went ahead and booked it because I was already planning Milan and Zurich, so why not take a wee detour? Since then, people have been telling me how it's not anything like you'd expect, it's so beautiful, and not touristy at all. But I gotta say, I don't see it.

This place is touristy. Touristy as fuck, even. It's clear that the entire economy runs on people flocking here for their holidays and being very willing to part with their cash. It's exactly like Las Vegas, only older and wetter. Sure, there are some pretty things to look at and photograph, but there's much more dirt and graffiti and crumbling buildings. And the air smells like sewage all of the time. People complain about the scent of New York? New York is a cupcake shop compared to much of what I've walked through today.

On the plus side, I haven't seen a single car in the 24 hours I've been here. Just loads of people walking and boats! boats! boats! I very much like that aspect of it. The Grand Canal is right outside my hotel window, and while a lovely view, it sounds like a busy highway day and night. Which is essentially what it is, given that it's the fastest way for people move about the city.

I personally haven't really moved by water, apart from the Water Bus that took me from the airport to about 10 minutes walk from my hotel. Instead, the trusty rusty Fitbit tells me that I walked about 7 miles around the city in today's wanderings.


My plan was to walk to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, which would be about half an hour's trek across the city, and stop for anything pretty along the way. As it turned out, I stopped for a pretty church 8 minutes in, and then became hopelessly lost. Google's directions through the winding streets of Venice were only marginally helpful, so after an hour (and a few more photos of churches), I finally made it to the gallery. 

The Guggenheim Collection is the highlight of Venice, for me. It's nicely arranged with indoor galleries around a sculpture garden, and a terrace looking out over the canal. My favourite was the special exhibition of Italian art from the 1960s, called Imagine. I'm always keen on modern art, but I really loved some of what they had in that collection. I spent a long time there.

Afterward, I found my way back across the city, making a few stops along the way, got some pizza and wine for dinner, and am now out of energy. It's beautiful weather today, but all that walking in the sun and the heat sapped my energy. So in my hotel room I sit, watching the sun go down over the Grand Canal, and listening to the band in the bar above me play muffled lounge covers of 30 year old pop songs.

As Thursday evenings go, it's really not bad.