Taking a Second Look at Venice
Stepping out onto the steps of Santa Lucia train station to gaze over the hustle-and-bustle, the pastel shades and stillness of the buildings lining the Grand Canal you achieve a glimpse of the beauty of this once powerful maritime city. By following the signposted streets towards the Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s square to the native Anglophone) it is unsurprising that Venice is invaded by thousands of camera-wielding tourists every year for it truly is littered with sight seeing opportunities; just the sheer quantity of canals is reason enough to come. For me however, this is not where the true beauty of Venice lies.
If you visit only the designated ‘tourist sights’, you may end up missing half the delight and magic of the city for its splendour and finery is great, but becomes all the more special when it is arrived at by accident or offset by the grimness of reality. The real experience of Venice is observing the ordinary Venetian who isn’t struck by the magnificence of the surrounding buildings, he’s the one that opens his rucksack, pulls out a can of paint and begins spraying political graffiti on his makeshift canvas. It is the experience of turning off the busy tourist trail to find yourself alone in some Ivy-clad yard with crumbling steps leading up to the rotting doors of beautifully derelict buildings with empty wine bottles resting against them. Sights such as these remind you that Venice is not the museum that some treat it as, but rather a dynamic city alive with all the practicalities of daily life. Seeing the rubbish being taken away by boat from a house fit for royalty only adds to the magic of Venice and illustrates the division of the city – between the façade of ostentatious architecture united in stark contrast with the reality of everyday activities.
I had been to Venice before and on this my second trip, I felt as though I was coming to a completely new place. During my first excursion here I was stunned by the graffiti, the crumbling buildings, the lack of magnificence that was not violated by fading paintwork or a slightly disagreeable smell. This was not the romantic, and clean, Venice I had imagined. And the harder I searched for this idyllic fairytale city, the less I found it and the less I was taken in by Venice.
Returning to Venice allowed me to see the beauty and romance of the city that had always been right in front of my nose. Like those distant objects in the sky that can only really be seen through the corner of your eye and not observed directly, the cities charm was elusive when pursued, but when I simply accepted what there was it made itself clearly visible. The cities magic for me is this: almost the entire place smacks of decaying grandeur, of a city well past its formidable prime now sinking slowly into the murky depths of its own canals but still, all the while, retaining a mysterious sense of dignity and grace in its decline.
