Where Have All the Venetians Gone?

Venice,

There is the feeling that you exist solely for us, the tourists, and that deep in your watery heart you are sleeping and dreaming of your former days of grandeur.

I didn't find you spooky, like others have. The sun was so bright, there was so much noise and heat and voices, even in the churches, which are normally always always the quietest most solemn and musty of places.



From top left: inside the Basilica di San Marco; the queue outside the clock tower; the Piazza San Marco; view from the Basilica.

Who are you, Venice? Where are your people? All I can see (and smell) is tourists, for miles and miles. Getting lost down your alleys and lugging bags of purchases from your glitzy glass, lace, antique and paper shops. Tourists with deep, deep tans, long legs, gigantic sunglasses. Looking for places to sit. Devouring gelato with something almost like desperation. Clicking photos with little silver digital cameras, angles that can never be original.



From top left: Restoration workers; gondoliers arguing; gondolier waiting; the only way of transporting goods - no cars here.

It cannot be that your people are only here to serve the tourists. But however hard I looked, all I could see were people wedging gelato into cones, pushing carts to carry boxes through narrow alleys, paddling gondolas, sanding away at old buildings only to put on layers of preservative to keep them precisely in their crumbling state.



I get the feeling, Venice, that you keep your real heart hidden. The real Venetians are hiding away somewhere inside and all we tourists can hear is the sound of their televisions humming and the scrape of forks on plates.