Venice is magical.
Yes, Venice is special… And dreamlike. Anyone who has spent more than a few days here knows that you can never free yourself from her. She haunts you. You go away but she keeps her grip firmly around you, like a rubber band stretching and stretching but never breaking. You’re stuck.
I live in Venice. I wasn’t born here but I came here, fell in love and got stuck. I’ve tried to leave, I’ve gone away for weeks, months, years but eventually, I always come back. And the reason for this is of course, that she is magical.
Not the most beautiful city in the world. The most beautiful town in the world is this one.
But Venice is special. And in many ways:
What makes Venice unique?
There’s no traffic.
Think about it. In almost every town, city or village in the world there is always the sound of traffic. Sometimes like in New York, Paris or Rome it’s an oppressing, frustrating blanket of sound from which you never escape. It’s always there in the background even if you try to run away from it inside your soundproof house or deep in the city park.
Sometimes it’s more like a whisper from the parking lot in your neighborhood, but it’s always there, or at least almost always.
In Venice, we only have the sound of traffic around Piazzale Roma, where the bridge from the mainland comes in. Further away from that square the sound dies.
There are still motors in the boats; taxis, Vaporettos and others but no street sounds. And that gives her a totally unique atmosphere.
She is old
At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, industrialism rolled over the western world swiping away the small town structure and mentality. The big cities became even bigger and they grew out into suburbs surrounding the cities and other suburbs surrounding the suburbs. The centers became modern and concrete downtowns flourished. Then came the shopping centers, the industries, and the traffic. And the traffic needed more roads and bigger roads, longer highways, and wider avenues…
The Water
The presence of water is a huge problem. Houses smelt. You can see it on the walls. Up to a meter and a half, the color is darker. That’s where the wall is humid, and it makes the houses smelt into the lagoon. Venice is special also in this sense. The cost of maintaining a Palazzo on Canal Grande and preventing the ground from just floating away is enormous.
But the water creates a sad, sleepy mood and it makes living in Venice a dream-like experience. It’s like being inside of a film or a book by Thomas Mann… Yes, I’m thinking of “Death in Venice”
If you come here in November or January, the only time of the year when Venice isn’t crowded with people, and you find yourself in some distant corner of Cannaregio or Giardini, maybe looking out over the grey lagoon that disappears into the fog, then it’s possible to enter the second level of consciousness. You become one with everything and you suddenly understand it all… The reason why we live.
Just bring a warm coat. January is cold.