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Venice caffè and Coffee shop scams is a popular argument. Every now and then, you read in a newspaper, or nowadays someone writes a Tweet or a Facebook blog, about the rip-offs in Saint Mark’s Square. Someone has walked around there when suddenly the urge for a cup of coffee hit him from nowhere. So he sits down at the nearest table, looks over the square, and feels very satisfied with the view. He calls the waiter and orders a cup. The excellent blend goes down like a dream and he pulls up the wallet to pay.
He’s preparing for something expensive, but hey, you only live once …
A coffee in a normal Venice Caffè at the bar costs what, 1 euro?.. 1,20? Here it got to be more, so maybe 2… 3? Then I’ve been sitting down and that’s always expensive, so 4 euros?.. 5? Now really? He pulls out a fiver and calls the waiter…
– That will be 12:50, the man with the white jacket says in a perfectly neutral tone.

The Venice Caffè

In Italy, the normal coffee drinking procedure is as follows. You go into a Bar, preferably with friends, order for everybody and when you get the coffee, you drink it with or without sugar. After that, you argue a bit about who’s going to pay. No, not who’s paying in the sense that it has to be correct and fair. In Italy, the one who says the word caffè is supposed to have invited, and he’s the one paying, but everybody tries to get ahead and pay. If you’re a guest you don’t stand a chance. Just forget it. It took me two years in Italy before I was able to pay for my first coffee.

Now, if you sit down you normally pay a little extra, but always ask. Sometimes they let you sit down with the coffee from the bar, without charging. On Piazza San Marco, that is not the case. On Piazza San Marco you pay, and you pay a lot.

The rule here is: Always ask before. The prices at restaurants and bars in Italy have to be exposed. That doesn’t always happen but as a rule, you should always ask before. On Saint Mark’s Square, the prices are exposed, but still: Ask before. That’s the fourth time I write that.

Caffès in Saint Mark’s Square

On Piazza San Marco there are five Caffès. On the south side, Caffè Florian the most exclusive and Caffè Aurora, the least exclusive. On the north side, there are Caffè Eden, Gran Caffè Quadri, and Gran Caffè Lavena, and Of these Florian, Quadri and Lavena have music. With the music, there’s a cost and this is included in the prices on the menu for the latter two. In the case of Caffè Florian, the music fee is a flat 6 euro on top of the things you order. Actually, if you order something in the morning, you can bring your receipt in the afternoon and you won’t have to pay for the music a second time.

Around the corner, there are two more, but that’s not really Saint Mark’s Square. It’s actually what we call La Piazzetta, and it’s really the oldest part of the Square. There is Caffè Chioggia, which is expensive, has music, and is no good. Then there is the Bar Gelateria Al Todaro. They have some decent Ice cream too.

A tactical consideration

An example. You order a single cup of coffee. That would not be convenient at Florian, as our friend at the beginning realizes after having argued with the extremely calm waiter. But if you eat two or three tramezzini and you wash it down with half a bottle of Prosecco, then it’s possibly better to go to Florian as you pay only once for the music.

If you order to have done just that… To be able to tell the people at home that you had a coffee on San Marco, and you chose the cheapest thing you see on the menu, which would be a coffee. Then choose one on the northern side. But again, if you want to put the check-in a frame over the dinner table, and tell the story about the rip-off to friends and family, then Florian is the way to go. Like my father did. He and my mother went there in the 70s and he kept the receipt of 22.000 lire in a box all his life, as a souvenir.

And… Florian is the oldest Cafè in Italy. It dates back all the way to 1720. That should be worth something. And the view is nice. The Square that Napoleon Bonaparte once called the Drawing room of Europe is the buzzing heart of the magical city.

The Venice Caffè Orchestras

The music is quite alright too. Frankly, I think they deserve the money, the musicians. Although I think most of the 6 euro goes to the coffee shop owner. Still. they play from early morning until late evening, and they do it well. Normally a quartet or a quintet. Piano, Double Bass, Violin, and a Clarinet. They can be more even, but they can also be less.
A fun quiz is to get out in the middle of the square and try to guess what they are playing. With three orchestras playing more or less the same repertoire, it’s what we in the business call spontaneous polytonality…

So if you’re on a tight budget, but still want it all, then have your coffee at the bar inside Caffè Aurora next to Florian. That’s 1:50. Then walk out on the Square and listen to the music for free. But if you do that, you will not be able to keep the receipt of the ridiculously expensive coffee in a box and show it to your children and grandchildren with a smile saying:  In Venice, I’ve had the biggest markup of my life…

What is the meaning of the Carnival?

Just the other day I was talking to a friend of mine. He’s not a young man and he used to live at Cannaregio in the fifties and sixties. Back then there wasn’t any Carnival. No Flight of the Angel on Piazza San Marco, no Water-Shows on Canale di Cannaregio and no invasion of tourists. It was more or less just the ordinary life going on as usual.
But the kids weren’t satisfied with that. They needed more… So they invented all kinds of jokes and pranks, just to have a bit of fun. They used to buy flour from the local groceries or just steal it from their mother’s pantry.
With the paper bag in one hand, they went out in the street and started throwing the flour on each other. After that, they got into throwing it on others, and that was much more exciting… And dangerous. If the other, happened to be someone who could identify them, then it could mean a beating and being stranded for a week or two.

The best time was when it was raining. One can only imagine the poor mother’s face when one of her children got home after a whole day of street war with white flour on a rainy day.
He also told me, they used to swim in the canals. Something I wouldn’t recommend today. They even jumped from the Ponte delle Guglie, which is quite a high bridge. The target was to jump right in front or beside a boat so that the water sprayed the passengers. Often they had to run away from a suddenly appearing police boat, half-naked and shivering.

The Carnival

It’s a wonderful event with thousands of people having a good time together, eating and drinking, showing off, and enjoying the moment. But maybe it all started with children playing and inventing every kind of practical joke. And then, afterward, they put an organization on top of it, and they ended up with the Carnivale di Venezia.
Because at the end of the day, we don’t need the Carnival. Nobody does. The party is OK all by itself. It doesn’t have to be so well organized. To enjoy life you don’t really need all the packaging… A good meal, a glass of wine and maybe a Frittella. A disguise, good friends, and cheerfulness. There’s the real Carnival for you… And it doesn’t even have to be in Venice.

And then, the Venice Carnival isn’t all that uniform. It is not one, single, antique holiday imposed by the Catholic church. It’s not some remembrance of an occasion in ancient times when someone was miraculously saved by a Saint. The Carnival has some very old traditions as a ground plate. On these, they then built the modern Carnevale di Venezia as we see it today. And one of the most important traditions is La Festa delle Marie.

And this is how it goes…

One of the oldest Christian holidays is the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary also known as Candlemass. It is celebrated 40 days after Christmas and anybody knowing about mathematics realize that the day would be the 2nd of February. Actually, one day is missing, but in ancient time the days were a bit shorter. The purification of the Virgin Mary was a very important feast in Venice. That day, every young couple who was engaged to get married that year got blessed by the Bishop in San Pietro in Castello.

Among the young girls there were some who really didn’t have enough nor for the dowry, neither for all the rest, the dress, the jewelry, and the eating and drinking. So it was decided that to help the necessitous, twelve of the poorest, but most beautiful of the future brides, would be dressed and decorated by the noble families. And the state would pay for the banquet and thus giving the opportunity for even the least propertied of the city to marry.

The Dalmatian Pirates

In the year 943, during the ceremony inside the church of Castello, the whole city with the noble families all present as well as the Doge himself was caught completely off guard by pirates. The ships from across the sea, from Dalmatia, had sailed right into the lagoon and while everybody was engaged in the celebrations, they just landed right outside the church, went in, grabbed the twelve girls with all the jewelry, lent to them by the state for the occasion, and sailed off.
The Venetians were heartbroken and desperate. How could they have let this happen? Twelve of their most valuable virgins were gone… And so were the jewels from the city bank vault, as well as the dowry offered by the nobles. Action was called for and it took the Doge no more than 12 hours to prepare and send out ships to pursue the pirates.

On the sea, the Venetians were a capable lot. They had fast, strong vessels, and they could row as well as sail. So, outside Caorle in a place which after that became Porto delle Donzelle, they caught up with their enemies. There was a battle and the Venetians saved the girls and killed every single one of the pirates. The spot where it happened has changed the name since and today it’s called Porto Santa Margherita if you would want to visit it.

Anyway, the brides were all saved and so was the gold (…just as important). And so to magnify and enlarge the celebration, after this, there were processions on the Canal Grande, there were processions by the girls and every other party-hungry citizen, there were artists and musicians and there were a lot of beautiful dresses, probably combined with masks. And it went on for several days… weeks even.

The Decline.

This went on for hundreds of years, but as time went by, the safety and more so, the moral conduct of bridegrooms and admirers of the poor girls went to exaggeration. And the relationship between the different families of the poor girls as well as between the rich giving away and the poor receiving often led to quarrels and even hatred. So in the 14th century, the real girls were substituted with copies, statues in wood. The Venetians angrily rebelled against this change and it’s interesting to read a law instituted in 1349 that reads: Anyone caught throwing vegetables or other plants or fruits on the statues during the feast of the twelve Maris, will be sentenced to jail.

In 1379 it was abandoned altogether. And since then no Festa delle Marie has taken place in Venice, although the Carnival lived on. Until 1979, when the new Carnival was introduced, and they kicked life into a whole lot of the old traditions again. And now every year the most beautiful of the twelve Maris gets to be the one flying high over Saint Marks Square in the Flight of the Eagle, the event that officially opens the Carnival.

And apart from that, she gets married,…

So it has begun. The Carnival of Venice, Il Carnevale di Venezia. This year’s theme is The Moon, our friend in the darkness. Like a school kid of a friend of mine, who is a teacher, said…

      –     The Moon is much friendlier than the sun. The Moon lights the way for us when it’s dark. 

We expect between 2 and 3 million people here for the two and a half weeks of partying. It’s a lot for a relatively small town like Venice. Most people will come on Saturday and Sunday the 2^nd and 3^rd of March. Tuesday the 5^th is the last day and from the 6^th you should start fasting.

So what’s it all about? Why are they all coming here? Why is it so fascinating?

In the old days, it was a wonderful period of non-recognition. Medieval society was extremely segregated. The nobles lived a noble life, the burghers did their business in every corner of the city, but maybe they engaged socially only with people in their own sphere, the farmers grew crops and vegetables outside the city. And then there were all kinds of other outcasts from the community… Thieves, prostitutes, foreigners from all over the world who didn’t have bonds to anybody. The carnival was a time when everybody was equal. A theater where everyone was playing his role but nobody knew who the actor was behind the mask.

And it started out as such. The religious content was little or none. It was the good times that were the main attraction. And the fact that you treated everybody the same. For the citizens on the lower end of the social scale, that was something extraordinary. The period was from December 26 until Shrove Tuesday, but sometimes they started out several months before that.

So what do you do?

You dress up. And as what? Well, that depends on your budget, but even more so on what you intend to do.

First, there are the thousands and thousands who party in the streets, go from one bar to another, dance in Piazza San Marco, and eat a few Cicchetti in between. They often have very funny homemade costumes. Colorful and extravagant. At the end of a weekend in Venice, they can be quite worn out, both the costume and the person wearing it.

If you want to go the more sophisticated way, then you might want to go to some dinner and ball event in an old palace with the facade towards Canal Grande. Maybe arriving in gondola and land on the Canalside, walk up between lit candles and end up at a huge dinner table. And after that, dancing to the sound of a live orchestra… If that’s your dish, then you probably need a rented outfit. Many of those events require a costume. You can’t come in a tuxedo and ball dress.

Then there are private parties. But they’re all secret and hidden, and you need an invitation… I’ll tell you about them when it’s all over.

Carnevale di Venezia II

So if you walk away from the city center. Just stroll along towards Arsenale. No, not on the quay where the Vaporettos are, where you can see San Giorgio with its rounded dome. Not where you still can see The Bell Tower at Saint Marks square. But inside and cutting through the small alleys, maybe ending up on a dead end. Your nose close to a high brick wall with no openings, doors or windows. That’s Arsenale and behind the wall is the main basin where once hundreds of ships were built to maintain the Venetian domination of the Mediterranean.

Continue walking and maybe you’ll end up at Via Garibaldi. The one and only Via in Venice, named after the big hero who brought together Italy and created the Nation… At least that’s what they teach us.

You follow the Via Garibaldi to the end and there is the canal, that used to continue all the way down to the Riva dei Sette Martiri before they covered it up and made a stone pavement on top. Like many other Calli in Venice, it became a street from being the sea.

Continue alongside the canal and end up at a very long bridge over to San Pietro.

Here you should visit the Basilica di San Pietro di Castello. This is where the first bishop was installed in the 8^th century and it’s the first church ever built in Venice.

Here you can get lost without running into any problem. It’s a very small island and the canal around it is wide. Besides, there are only two bridges, one to come and the other to go away again.

Now, if you get hungry you have two options. Walk back to Via Garibaldi, where you have a choice of places to eat, from very local cheap eateries to exclusive gourmet restaurants. Or you could continue walking, admiring the absolute absence of the touristic city we’re used to. Here everything is authentic.

If you’re lucky you suddenly find yourself in a small Campo. Actually, it’s not even a Campo but just a wider street; Calle Volto Ruga Vecchia. There you can admire the little boys playing football or the little girls also playing football. In the summer every kid in Venice plays football, it seems.

Look to your right and you’ll see a few tables in the square. And behind them, two windows and a door. That’s the Trattoria alla Nuova Speranza, New Hope. Just walk in and sit down and immediately the waiter will ask you what you want. maybe without even giving you the menu. If you come in winter they’ll have few things to chose from… Pasta al ragu, Pasta al Nero di seppia, Bigoli in salsa and you choose one of those. Then you ask for a carafe of white and some water.

After that, you look around and notice that the tourists are gone. Here you are among the locals. And the English is gone, just like the Italian. Because this is the real Venice, where the real people live. And they speak the Venetian dialect which is very different from Italian. When the waiter comes with your wine and later with your food, you notice that the olive oil is in an old beer bottle. Then you relax. Listening to the sturdy sound of the strange language and enjoying the peace of mind that you get from a simple pasta dish and something to drink.

And you start to wonder about the name… A new hope, like the Star Wars film. Or maybe there could be a chance for Venice to live on. Despite the millions of visitors, she could continue to be a healthy and functional city, where people actually live, love, work, grow and every now and then eat a plate of Bigoli with a glass of white wine.

Without entering a political discussion, but acknowledging the delicacy of the matter, I just want to put some light on one single aspect of what is happening right now outside the Italian peninsula. One thing that has a close connection to Venice. The Malta Incident.

And I don’t want to enter a discussion about immigrants, right or wrong, who should accept them, how many, and if they’re an asset to western countries or just a nuisance. That is not the aim of this website. But there is something else, a brand new side of the argument… And it has changed dramatically in just a few years.

On the 22^nd of December 2018 the ship Sea Watch 3, run by the nonprofit organization with the same name, picked up 32 refugees off the Libyan coast following a distress call. They then headed for Malta being the closest safe port. There they were not allowed to go into Valletta but had to anchor in international waters, 24 nautical miles off the coast.

On January the 2^nd a storm was approaching the Maltese waters and the ship’s safety was in danger. And this is the point… Sea Watch 3 was allowed to come closer to the island to take shelter but was still not allowed to enter the harbor.

On January the 9^th the ship was finally allowed to approach the Maltese land to disembark the migrants after a deal was struck with other European countries about where to send them.

Another German ship the Professor Albrecht Penk, run by another NGO the See-eye, picked up 17 migrants on December 29^th also off the Libyan coast. They also were left outside Malta until the 9^th of January. And they too were not allowed to enter Valletta during the storm at the beginning of the month.

I’m not taking a stand for or against Malta accepting migrants from Libya saved from small inflatable boats. Malta cannot accept all the victims of the lucrative trafficking business. It’s not about that.

There are international laws, declarations, treaties, and the UNCLOS, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. And they all state the same thing more or less. At sea, you are obligated to help others in distress. You have to do what you can to assist other ships if they call you. This is not an option, it’s not something that can be decided by the captain. It’s a duty.

The sea is a hostile environment. As beautiful and welcoming as it can be on a summer’s day at the beach with the sun and the breeze and the cute little waves… As frightening and terrifying it turns when the waves are so high that you can’t see the horizon anymore, the sky is dark as if it was night and the rain hits you like nails in your face. This is why we have all those rules about behavior at sea. To help each other and save lives.

Then the UNCLOS together with all the other sea laws are nothing more than rewritings of an ancient code, a way to survive in a habitat for which we are not adapted. Because we are not meant to be out on the oceans. Man is an animal of the Savannah, the Jungle, the Mountains, and maybe even the Ice and Snow… But not the sea. In the water, we die.

First, we drown. Then if we survive the first minutes we still die after a while from the cold. In 40° F, you live less than 30 minutes, and even if you fall overboard in the summer, you will freeze to death in less than 8 hours. Then there is the storm, the high waves, the darkness, and the shark attacks.

No, survival on the high seas is a matter not to be taken lightly.

And that’s the reason why we help each other.

Like we have always done. A sailor knows about the threats and he knows that without the solidarity on the sea, be it in times of peace or war, the oceans cannot be conquered. It’s the basis on which all is built.

But now all that is changing. In the Mediterranean, these ancient rules are now being dismissed. Not by the sailors, because they still know what it would mean. No, the change in direction is made by politicians and…. their voters. The ones that do not rely on the big waters for their livelihood. I claim that if what happened outside Malta would have happened 20 or even 10 years ago, there would have been a storm of protests, an uprising. But now… Now it makes sense to most people.

And what happened at Malta are just two examples of many.

Saving people at sea now isn’t obvious anymore, but subject to negotiations between politicians in various European countries near and far.

What has all this got to do with Venice?

Well, until the latter half of the 20^th century, swimming was not a knowledge of every man and woman. In the middle ages, almost nobody knew how to swim, not even the sailors. And the single boatsman knew that if he fell into the water he had to be saved by the others. And normally he was. Because the code told them so.

If the Venetian trade ship hit a storm outside Crete, the captain knew that he could seek shelter in the nearest harbor, because the code told him that no one would refuse a boat in distress. And if he picked up a castaway on the way he could leave him at the closest safe port. Maybe there he would then be prosecuted or thrown to the lions… But a ship in need couldn’t be left offshore, and a man saved from the sharks couldn’t be refused to enter the town from the sea. That was the law.

Without these contracts, I personally doubt Venice would ever have become Venice. Nobody would have gone far from home on adventurous journeys if the danger for life and property had been that great.

And I doubt even America would ever have become America if the insecurity about the trip over the Atlantic had been that great. I don’t think many people from Europe would have sold everything they had, invested all their money in a ticket for the crossing if they weren’t confident that the harbor on the other side would accept them. If they couldn’t count on help from other ships and distant ports if weather conditions changed, or if some other disaster occurred.

If the abortion of international rules of conduct in marine environments happened a thousand years ago, we here would still be a very small village on the sandbanks in the Venetian lagoon, and the US would perhaps still write invitations to the European farmers offering them free land and a new perspective to populate the vast emptiness.