Venice
- Feb 5
- 3 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
when is Venice?
Because it doesn’t look like it is now.
When is Venice? Because it doesn’t look like it is now. It is a replica of a fairy tale and at least one hundred million stories old. I wonder how deep the water in the canals is, but I don’t want to look it up. Because I’m not sure whether I want it to be very deep or not deep at all. Every time I cross a bridge, I fantasize about plunging in, eyes first, to see what the water is burying. But some secrets are best kept secret. Reality is anchorage, imagination the open sea.
You have to get lost in Venice for as long as you can.
Venice is old, and so are Venetians. The average age isn't exactly average, and lingers somewhere between pensioner and fossil. There are three or four young people though, and the tourists are very average, hailing from all countries and age groups.
You have to get lost in Venice for as long as you can. Bridge after bridge after bridge, always running in circles. Once you understand the ways of the maze, everything shrinks considerably, and it irks. Throughout the city, there are pedestrian highways everyone agrees on, and people with plans stick to their fast and loud lanes. One step to the side, and you are in a back alley world, in a silent movie that is all about plot, not action.
An ambulance, a police patrol, a bus, a cab, a courier, a ride borrowed from dad—all of them boats. The canals are the streets, and the streets are just treats for those without marine means.
My first time in Venice, wasn't in Venice. It was just a daytrip from Verona. The second time, I got much closer when we set up camp, quite literally, across the lagoon. Third time was—as expected of third times—a charm, scoring a cheap room in a Jesuit convent in the actual city proper. Real proper. Our room had a sink, which we used as a fridge for yoghurt and other supermarket delights that didn't eat into our skinny wallets like eating out. That typically cost around three arms and two legs. When in Venice, you can only choose between poverty or starvation. A slice of pizza and one scoop of gelato for lunch, a starter for dinner, that's how one fights for survival here. Blessed three times with the company of three women, it would be an insult to come back with another one.
Not many parks, but then again, the whole thing is a waterpark. No other city on this planet does water like Venice does. The lagoon is salty, its islands sweet drops. Murano, Burano—they even sounded like candy. And they were that colorful too.
There are some really beautiful buildings in Venice, and then there are some really beautiful rundown buildings. And those gardens and rooftop oases can really make you sigh—giving God pointers on where he should have put you on this Earth—as though the whole thing wasn't beautiful enough without plants moving in. Venice tortures you to never forget this bondage for the heart, the unfulfilled longing to be Venetian.
Venice is intense and you mustn’t overdose on it, so that you can come back for another hit.