So, I became attached to the city and I enjoyed many of the traditional sights. It has been a tourist city for longer than the United States has existed. It had enough real life and citizens to keep it from being a theme park.
La Serenissima–Wired!
La Serenissima–the Most Serene One, Venezia–has all its old charm. I missed it years ago when I was hours away in Trieste and rushing to meet family for Christmas. It was one of those "I'll be back soon" that was not to be due to schedule changes. When I finally did get there I was indeed taken by the place. If for nothing else the constant contact with water and the boats. For a lover of old cities, sea and vessels it is perfect.
Unique is over used. This city is unique. I've been in quite a few "Venice of" places. They are not! They are land with canals and the buildings are not in the water. The feel going across the causeway to real land after a few days on the boats and in the street maze was much like I had when leaving a ship after weeks at sea. I'd changed worlds.
I'd also become fascinated by the idea of this city, a "republic" in the age of royal dominion. La Serenissima also had an unserene reputation for diplomacy backed by a strong and far reaching intelligence service that struck some fear into opponents. This city, ruled by a merchant class in place of kings and landed nobles also fought for her religious independence. That entire thing about St. Mark and the winged lion representing him was a calculated move to separate the city from nearby Rome. Venezia was an Eastern Empire city on the margin of Italy and it wanted domination from neither the Eastern nor Western church. It sort of invented its own in the cult of St. Mark. It is no accident that people such as Galileo found freedom to express ideas here that got them into trouble elsewhere.
So, I became attached to the city and I enjoyed many of the traditional sights. It has been a tourist city for longer than the United States has existed. It had enough real life and citizens to keep it from being a theme park.
The art and architecture are wonderful, but the real sight is the city itself. The ambience is there in full force and I believe each person will find it is individualized. The city is like that, sort of misty and variable. My strongest memory of that effect and the blend of old with new was a dampish evening in San Marco on the last night when we happened through as the huge flags were being lowered. There was the modern European Union's circle of stars and Venezia's tailed standard of the Lion of St. Mark flanking Italy's national flag. There were police doing the honors and a soft and an unusual melody from Florian's orchestra. There, in the great square that Napoleon described as Europe's finest drawing room, we had the new EU ring of stars and ATMs issuing Euros. Among the police were policewomen who were quite attractive despite their machine pistols. Europe's finest Byzantine building and symbols of a power that faded as the Americas were attracting European attention were standing in what is a very modern infrastructure. And here we get to the point.
In this old city, no longer the world power since losing it to the new trade routes forged by Portuguese and Spanish explorations, one would think wiring would be ancient. Well, among the older warning markers in the channels, those for water pipes, electrical cables and such other utilities is a new marker.
Markers between Fondamente Nuove and the cemetery island of San Michele
The tall poles with various globes on top are warning markers for submerged utilities. According to photos an aqueduct pipe and electrical cable run to the right in this photo. I did not note the ones on the left, but they may be telephone. This was all interesting and expected infrastructiure for this amphibious world, but there were new markers.
Attention
Fiber Optic Telephone Cable
The lagoon and city have been wired for 21st Century communications.
In several old European cities I've noted a visible effort to modernize infrastructure without destroying the city's atmosphere. In Porto a few years ago I looked down a long steep street that was simply gone. The stones had been removed and stacked. Metal and wooden walkways had been erected over an excavation of the entire street that generally appeared to be about three times a person's height. An entire park was excavated with trees and monuments on islands. Into those were going highly organized new sewer, water, power and communications hubs that were also apparently designed for future maintenance and upgrade. Against that I have to compare efforts in the United States to upgrade aged infrastructure that are piecemeal. The streets in Washington were chaos a short time ago (Not much better today and one's suspension can suffer serious damage even if slowed from "Caution - Steel Plates" signs.) with multiple diggings and patching by the various private enterprises involved that appear to only apply partial fixes to the system. There were apparently cases of one patch hardly having set when another digger arrived.
It was odd to be in a 13th Century building watching high speed Internet on fiber optic systems and think those are not yet accessible or even really on the horizon for those of us living in the suburbs of our nation's capital. Yes, there are problems with those old cities; however, one can enjoy ancient charm and modern conveniences in most of them.
Some links:
Michael Reeve's pages on the city
Copyright © 2004, 2005 by Ramon Jackson
All images are greatly reduced versions of my originals.