Missy In Real Life: December 25th

Our Gondolier warned us, well maybe not exactly warned, more like mentioned. I don’t know why it still scared the holy crud out of me.

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We walked from our hotel in Santa Elena (a beautiful refurbished convent) which is on the ‘far east end of the city’ (as our reluctant water taxi driver pointed out), on Christmas Day in Venice and the city was pretty quiet. We had arrived at around 2 pm and were out exploring when we came across this little carnival right there on the edge of town (literally, the edge of town). We'd been on the road for a while and hadn't eaten so we looked for a food vendor to get some lunch. Spotting a decent looking place we joined the queue. Pickings were slim but we each found a meal to our liking. S had salted popcorn (as opposed to the more popular sweet popcorn) and I had a cream filled canolli (leave the gun take the canolli) and a Pepsi. Hey, what the meal lacked in nutrition it more than made up for in taste (and sugar).

I was quite surprised by the number of tourists we encountered, here and all over Italy. The largest group represented was the Chinese, hundreds of Chinese all over Italy. Anyway, despite it being Christmas day, a few shops were open to cater to the ubiquitous tourists and a few gondoliers were available to paddle us through the maze of canals.

Hunger satisfied and ready for adventure we approached a gondolier and asked what a tour would cost. He spoke English and quoted us some crazy prices and assured us that it would be the same no matter who we asked. It was Christmas day after all. The guide book had quoted about the same prices, but it's still a bit of a shock. But when in Rome (or Venice)… So we went for it.

Let me just say here that even though we were bundled into coats and under a flimsy little blanket that the gondolier provided us, I was still shivering uncontrollably. Lesson here is to wear more clothes when taking a boat ride in the dead of winter.

To be sure, steering a gondola is a true skill. Those little boats are only about three feet wide at the widest point and they are over thirty feet long; in some of the broader canals the gondolas can pass three or four abreast. And if you don’t think that that requires skill, you should try it. Our gondolier expressed a preference for the canals in winter because they are passable and because of less crowding he is able to take some of the narrower canals and show other parts of the city. I can’t imagine what it must be like in the height of summer in the main canal, with hundreds of gondolas, water taxis and water buses competing for passage in something as traction-less as water.

On our ride we encountered a gondolier in training; his trainer was standing in the center of the gondola rocking it, not too gently, from side to side while shouting instructions to the poor driver as he tried to negotiate a narrow turn without smacking into the far wall or the corner. Poor guy, we followed him for a bit and every passing gondola driver, including ours, yelled at him and taunted him by steering too close to him, sort of pinning him to the wall. Not a job for the meek or fearful.

Our driver did the whole ‘This is this, and that is that’ tour guide thing as we moved from canal to canal. When we commented on how low the water level was in some of the smaller canals he explained that it was low tide. He told us that sometimes the city does get flooded, you’d expect that since it is built over water, and that at those times a siren will sound to warn the residents that the water level is rising. He described the siren as an 'air raid siren' and let me tell you, that’s exactly what it is.

The siren went off the morning of the 26th at 4:00 in the morning. I think S and I both sat bolt upright in bed looking around wild eyed and trying to figure out what the ear piercing sound was. S regained his wits first and mumbled, ‘flood siren’ as he fell back to bed.

‘Are we supposed to do something?’ I asked in bewilderment.

‘Yeah, go back to sleep’.

As if I could!

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The next morning we packed up and prepared to leave.

Our end of the ‘island’ was not flooded, but toward the center of town and the famous Piazza San Marco there was probably a foot of water. The Venetians erect these elevated sidewalks to get from place to place and let me tell you, you have not seen anything in your life like 80 Chinese tourist trying to walk from their hotel to the water taxis on three foot wide sidewalks while pulling suitcase, holding umbrellas and dodging other tourists doing the same thing, but going in the opposite direction. You keep rooting for someone to fall off the edge and into the water. Or maybe only I would root for something like that.

The locals own hip waders and they just slosh right through the center of the water. Some creative tourists strapped plastic bags to their legs and joined the locals. The best part was when a local, who had been walking on the boardwalk, would get impatient with the crowd and just jump into the water splashing all the tourists on the boardwalk, and then walk away through the water.

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Venice gets two enthusiastic thumbs up. Next stop Florence!