Co-teaching English Literature and English Language | Creating a sense of time and place

Upon first arrival at Venice Marco Polo airport, it’s quite easy to be disappointed.
Considering the city after which the airport is named – frequently described as one of the
most romantic cities on earth – the muddy waters and countryside over which the
plane soars is an beginning to say the least.

But Venice was the reason that I had decided to come to Italy: to glimpse the winding
canals and elegant bridges and historic, charmingly decayed buildings that had been
described so in so many books. There were lanes with tourists, like
cattle, and squares that were eerily quiet and streets full of business-like Italians,
unappreciative of the beauty surrounding them. It is a city to get deliciously lost in, where
every new turning yields a glittering canal, or a garden hidden in the midst of
jumbled townhouses, or a palace, its distinctive ‘Oriental’ windows subject to
decline.

And the food – I’ve been told since there is better Italian food to be found in other cities,
but when pasta is your favourite meal what can be better than sampling its delicious
night after night? The food was mostly exceptional, and you can’t really go wrong in a city
where it’s perfectly acceptable to have pizza for breakfast, slowly consumed as you
along streets. The cocktails too – Spritz, with its main ingredient of white wine, is
the cheapest all over the city, and bars allow you to take your drinks outside, to be sampled
on romantic bridges overlooking twisting canals.

There is, of course, the main tourist checklist to be ticked off: St Mark’s Square, teeming
with pigeons and overpriced cafes that serenade visitors with four-piece bands (unashamed
to admit that I was in by the offer of a strawberry sundae); the Doge’s Palace,
showcasing the grandeur of Venice at its height and boasting a stunning courtyard, and St
Mark’s Basilica, ornate and breath-taking, its treasury crammed with tenth century
Byzantine treasures.

Campanile San Marco towered over the square , impressively silhouetted
against the endless blue skies. Then there was Ca’ Rezzonico, with an extensive collection
of Venetian art and eighteenth century interiors, and St Mary of the Friars,
beautiful, reverential and mostly tranquil, except for the odd American whose loud snores
manage to throughout the entire church…

For a fascinating, but perhaps less popular, look at the city’s history, there is the Jewish
museum in the Campo del Ghetto – small but informative, it describes the lives of the Jews
who made Venice their home, and how they were impacted by the widespread European
persecution. The islands, dotted about the Venetian lagoon, were –
Murano, larger and stylish and everywhere exhibiting its famous, multi-coloured
glass; Burano, my personal favourite, picturesque and dreamy with each house painted a
different colour; and Torcello, whose lazy canals and could easily be a
product of an earlier century.

A gondola ride, fetching a hefty eighty euros per half an hour, was an expensive cliché, but
one that had to be done. Seated in the sleek black boat, floating about
Venice’s canals in the blazing sunshine – canals that had once looked and glassy
but now looked decidedly misty up close – our gondolier recounted to us and
episodes of Venetian history and told us of his own adventures in Scotland.

There were speedboats and rowboats and tiny, sturdy boats that somehow managed to
navigate the bewildering of Venetian canals; but none could possibly compare to
the feeling of sailing along the Grand Canal, in the dazzling array of beautiful
buildings and their majestic facades. It’s almost possible to picture Venice as it was in the
sixteenth century, at the height of its glory, and to imagine its richer citizens docking at a
magnificent palace for a masked ball…

But then Venice is really romantic enough without the additional and throughout
my five days’ stay I was continually wishing that I had booked up for another few. I mean, I
could have afforded that, couldn’t I? Just enough to let me wander around the city for a bit
longer, taking too many photos and gazing at too many views (if there can be such a thing).
Because Venice’s appeal isn’t about its museums or its galleries, it is the indefinable
essence of the city itself and that is something to which I shall continually want to return.

Travel Writing: The Essence of Venice by Rachel Walker; https://bit.ly/2LUXaNz