Few weeks ago we published an article explaining why the Veneziani were protesting against the impact of Big Ships invading the lagoon. We are happy that the government has finally understood the reasons behind the protest and decided to halt large cruise ships from passing through the Venice lagoon from November 2014, starting a limit on smaller cruise vessels from January 2014. This is a great success for all the Veneziani and their supporters, our readers included, but it does not stop ITALY Magazine's effort to help them protecting their city and suggesting to visitors a way to enjoy Venezia while respecting it at the same time. Continuing on this path, we publish Jeff Booth's article about his move to Venice where he goes beyond the stereotypes.
‘You do realise that my daughter is the most beautiful girl in the world?’ he said in a gravelly voice in the Macerata dialect, staring directly at me.
‘Of course, Umberto. That’s why I want to marry her,’ I replied in Italian, hoping I’d conjugated everything correctly. An American son-in-law was challenging enough, but one who butchered the Italian language might be too much to bear.
‘Una principessa! Capito?’ Umberto’s rather regal bearing seemed balanced between wanting to advise me sternly, and cautiously accepting me into the family. But then, he went for the classic intimidation factor. ‘Because if you don’t treat her like a princess...’ he warned, and made the slow, deliberate sign of the cross in front of my face. Then he gave me the Godfather-slap, three or four pats on my cheek, which in the movies means that character will die within three scenes.
But as he turned away and my future wife, Francesca, was preparing her ‘he-really-does-like-you’ speech, I saw Umberto smile and give her a little wink.
A Rewarding Challenge
And so I married a principessa and moved to Venice to create a real life, beyond the stereotypes of la dolce vita and Under the Tuscan Sun. Venice is, of course, a city of postcard images and shallow interpretation, the ultimate challenge for someone to understand it for what it really is. It also stops me in my tracks every day to marvel at reflections and colours and, thankfully, is five hours north of my wife’s family compound.
In the way that things are done in Italy, we found our apartment, overlooking the Giudecca canal, through a friend of a friend. I fell in love with the place from the first moment. Directly on the Zattere, the long waterfront fondamenta along the south of Venice which is fashionable with Venetians for their passeggiata, far from the crowds of San Marco, our apartment basks in the light that Ruskin revered. From our small terrace full of flowers and discreetly drying laundry (against comune rules), we can see the elegant red ochre and white Istrian marble of Palladio’s Church of the Redentore on the island of Giudecca off to our left. We still get a thrill from standing on the terrazza waving to passengers on the decks of monstrous cruise ships squeezing through the canal, their flashbulbs popping five storeys above the homes lining our waterfront.
Everything to Hand
As with most rented apartments in Venice, ours was already furnished (it’s truly painful to imagine carrying furniture through the narrow calli and over hundreds of bridges). One of the most famous gelaterie in Venice, Nico’s, is within emergency distance. But the clincher, for me at least, wasn’t the reflected light off the canal dancing on our ceiling, the Murano chandelier, or the architect upstairs who had built a thoroughly modern and hip kitchen, or even the real grocery store 30 metres away (that makes our Venetian friends truly jealous) – it was the three basketball courts within a five-minute walk.
Venice is, of course, all about gondolas and reflections in canals, Islamic-influenced architecture and inky black spaghetti con nero di seppia; but beneath the Disneyland of history and tourism, it’s a real, functioning city and my door to it opened on a basketball court.
I was coming home a bit late from work a few weeks after we moved in. I’m something of a jack of all trades, much like the Venetian merchants of the 15th century, and have juggled astronomy research at the University of Padova, freelance photography, and editing magazines. Strolling along the Rio Briati, I noticed lights in the gym of a Fascist-era school. The massive glass doors glowed from within, and over a distant gondolier’s off-key rendition of O Sole Mio I could hear the rhythmic pounding of a basketball, the squeak of sneakers and shouts of ‘pass me the damn ball’ in Venetian dialect.
Game On
I stood watching in the doorway and play slowed to a halt. Ten guys stood amazed when I asked, ‘Posso giocare?’ You mean a real American wants to play with us? From the land of the most famous basketball players in the world, to shoot around with some Venetian lawyers, accountants and construction workers in a run-down gym? ‘Per favore?’
I soon destroyed their illusions of American dominance in the sport when I tried to score a basket and they completely blocked my shot. Anything to help with the cultural exchange, I figured, and ran back down court on defence, laughing.
Building a life in a new city is always challenging. Trying to do so in Venice, a city full of foreigners yet notoriously closed off to non-Venetians, presents a particular challenge. But once you begin to meet people, you can’t escape them.
Francesca teaches Chinese at the University of Venice, Ca’ Foscari, and we are making friends with her colleagues. I’ve joined the Bucintoro, a local rowing society, and learned voga veneta, the elegant method of rowing like the gondolieri. My battles with the waves from vaporetti and playing chicken with other boats in narrow canals have gained me some rowing buddies. Then there are my teachers from the Istituto Venezia where I studied Italian. Everywhere I go now, I run into someone I know, inviting me for an ombra (a small glass of wine, in dialect) and a chat.
The Beauty of Life Without The car
Venice is a city on a human scale. The lack of cars has the obvious benefits: quiet, cleaner air, no 15-year-olds on Vespas swarming like mosquitoes. But unexpectedly it means that I run into neighbours and friends in the calli all the time – a shocking revelation for someone from the car-culture of Los Angeles. We lean over our balcony and shout greetings to friends passing below.
Every time I pass Caffé Rosso in Campo Santa Margarita someone will call out ‘’More!’ and I’ll have to stop for some cicchetti (typical small snacks like baccala mantecato, or fried calamari). We’re becoming part of a community, much like any other small town in Italy, the difference being that acceptance into the real Venice is a privilege earned through experiences, not a right by residence.
