High water and nothing walkways

Francine and Pippo came to visit us during Carnevale, from Geneva and Verona.  I'd met them in 2011, during the year of travels, and we'd had a wonderful time, mainly laughing, eating and being blissed out by the Carnevale.  Pippo doesn't speak much English, and Francine, fortunately, speaks everything.  As soon as they knew we were coming to Venice, they promised a rendezvous here, and also to meet us in Varenna, in May.

Carnevale had been busting along in full swing, San Marco swirling with costumes, confetti, and cameraderie.  After a few days we began to understand how the whole business worked.  There were those who hired costumes, and paraded around rather self-consciously, paying exorbitant amounts to be perved at, in their plumed hats and lace cuffs, through the windows of the 19th C tea house, Florian.  There were those who paraded before they attended grand balls, held in many of the palazzi that line the Grand Canal.  They wore splendid costumes, made from luxurious brocades, silks, velvets:  every detail historically perfect. They would have cost a fortune and were suitable for museum exhibits.   There were the more inventive costumes; one in particular that left me speechless - a hand crocheted creation in vivid reds and yellows that made the woman look like a warm medusa.  The super inventive creations, we later confirmed, were Parisian imports who used Carnevale to immortalise themselves - and to be hired out by photographers. On the last few days, when most of the spectaculari had left, the Queens from Queens - and Rio, (because I asked) came in their fabulous adornments, tripping over the diamante eyelashes and size 12 diamante buckled shoes.

But then the weather turned brutal. Grim.  Dire, as il Gazettino put it.  The clouds blackened, the wind came up, the hail came down.  What should have been a chance for the Four of Us to dance in the sun, and for my husband and I to parade, with masks, in our wedding clothes, could have become a dodge from the elements and huddling in our heated apartment sipping English tea.   Instead, we faced it head on:  bracing ourselves with gloves, scarves and umbrellas, and having the time of our lives.  We went to our local trattoria in Accademia, where by now the owner calls us carisissimi, and gives us a good table.  Wearing our masks, we had a glass of prosecco while waiting at the bar for a table, then huddled together at a corner table.  Francine started talking to the young couple next to us, who were Sicilian and told us the box of tomatoes that had been plonked next to him were grown by his father.  That opened up a riot of conversation between the three Amigos – I was left out because I couldn’t understand – into which another couple joined. Reno left our table to talk to them, and in a few minutes everyone in the bar was talking to each other.  Reno found that one of the men was a research scientist into cancer: Francine immediately suggested he contact her as her bank is always looking for people to invest in.  We were making such a racket that the two waitresses stopped working and stood by, listening. The owner came in to see what was happening, shook his head, and walked out laughing. When the noise and frivolity was at its height, Dante Alighieri, in velvet jacket, pantaloons and bejewelled beret, walked in to go to the toilet, chatting on his mobile phone.  We were putting our masks and coats back on outside, when the young tomato man came through the door and started singing O Solo Mio at the top of his voice.A voice worthy of an opera singer.  People smiled as they walked past him ... singing in the rain, masked ... naturally Venice.

We ate at a pizza place around the corner from our apartment that night, huddling again from the rain as all the unfortunate carnevale goers dripped into the grand ball at La Fenice; such a dismal entrance. But Francine and I skipped and danced in the rain, just a quick step away from the carabinieri who were watching us sternly with batons and guns ready in case we were to make a dash for the inside, between the bedraggled counts, lords, ladies, pompadours, bears and Casanovas.   A young Croatian man proposed to his girlfriend, the waiter cried, and when we asked him why, he said "but they are too young to marry!"

We walked to San Marco, along the semi deserted , misty, darkened collonades, and the piazza was filling with water along one side.  The plastic boot vendors were out in full force, to the chagrin of il gazettino the next day.  High tide splashed against the gondoliers, and fairy lights blazed from the ceilings.  Francine and I danced “Singing in the Rain” wherever we could, to the embarrassment of Reno and Pippo.  We’d packed so much into 48 hours that we were really sad to see them off at Ferrovia late on Sunday.  They took our wedding clothes, to be seen again in Varenna in May.

At 9.30 on Monday 4^th March, the last day of Carnevale, when the city was packed and most had been saving their best costumes for last, sirens and hooters blared across Venice. Aqua Alta.  A phenomenon that I’d promised I’d fly across the world to see.  We rushed out before the 12.30 high water mark at 120cm above the usual tide – extreme high water by Venice standards – and I bought a pair of rubber boots. The water was gurgling into San Marco, up through the bricks, like little geysers. Boot sellers were doing a roaring trade, bringing boots in by the trolleyload.  Thousands of people huddled along the collonades, between which bewigged and be-costumed people tried to pose for photos.  Probably the most sensible were those safe behind the steamed up windows of Florian, paying 100E for some prosecco and ciccetti, although they were seen through the lenses of thousands of cameras.

Wet and warm during Aqua Alta

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On the specially constructed stage, the organisers and performers were trying valiantly to keep the energy of the crowd positive, but after hours of sloshing around in freezing water, floating with confetti and caca del cane, with a dreary photographic light, I was ready for carnevale to finish. I have thousands of fabulous photos and memories of  Reno and I doing  some beautiful walks along darkened calli, and along the fondamente during the week.  When Stefano and Carmen (Reno’s sister and brother in law) were here for 48 hours, after exploring a small part of Cannareggio and the Ghetto, we went for what we thought would be a quiet walk from Zattere but all the hired Carnevale models and hundreds of photographers had the same idea.  The restaurants were overpriced, the lanes clogged, the boats filled to overflowing.  Masked people appeared from every alleyway.  Time for everyone to go home!    But not before the final event “spectaculare” – the flight of the winning costume from the Campanile .. which happened without the crushing crowds … very much a whisper, not a bang, as the whole final day had been a wet drippy “I’d rather be home dry and warm” day.  Under a cloud cover as dense as smoke, the acrobat came down from the Campanile – the clock tower – scattering confetti.  The music stopped, the men with their screwdrivers came out, and, just like that,  the show was over.

Grazie dieu.  We breathed with relief.  We rode the vaporetto the following morning accompanied by elegant, well groomed men, willing crystal canes,  who looked at if they could be your lawyer or dentist, carrying large boxes that could have enclosed anything from a pink chandelier to a dandelion to a white dazed rabbit.  A woman boarded carrying an enormous white paper lantern and a hooped skirt, stripped of its external coverings so that it now resembled a moth that had been left out in the sun. The woman in charge of the boat squished herself between the packed feathers and the sequinned shoes, the bulging bags and the faces with traces of glitter, to help the revellers off her boat and back to normal life. If there is such a thing, in Venice. 

For us, this meant a morning at Casa Pesaro, the 17^th Century palazzo that houses Miro, Klee, Kandinsky, Picasso, Pisarro, Monet, Moore, Rodin, Munch, and Klimt. I called Liza from the cafeteria, eating crostini and drinking coffee, with water lapping at our feet.  All of this, and culture on overload, but I wanted to give her a hug.

We walked back through the calli, seeing how the window dressings have overnight been changed to spring fashions, and the mountains of carnevale sweet treats have been replaced by bushels of Easter delights.  At Rialto, we walked into a church to buy tickets for Interpreti Veneziani who were playing Paganini.  As I put my hand on the door to point to the photograph of the cellist I’d almost fallen in love with when I heard him play the Four Seasons,  Reno thought it a good idea to close the door.  While my fingers were in the door jamb. I screamed for him to stop moving the door, and in his panic he moved it in the wrong direction.  I screamed like a mama who realised her son was marrying the wrong woman, and for a moment neither Reno nor the poor guy selling the tickets knew what was happening, but finally the door opened to release my squashed and bloodied, but unbroken, fingers.  That particular church had never heard such blaspheming, but hopefully the diety in charge only understands Italian.  

The church cleaner rushed out to find a hot pack for my fingers, while the ticket seller took me to the toilets to run cold water over them.  Tears poured down my face, and I fanned myself with my Venice map and wrapped the fingers around the hot pack. The ticket seller handed us a little bag. “Present for you,” he said.  “So sorry”.  It was a recording of the Interpreti, playing the Four Seasons.  Definitely worth getting my fingers mangled for.

We walked home over the Rialto bridge, and through our secret shortcuts, and played the music for the rest of the afternoon while I recovered with my hand resting on a yellow brocade cushion.  That evening we went to Accademia and the church where they were playing, and were once again brought to tears by the skill of the players.  At the end, we began talking to the man in front of us, who was greeted by each of the players, who turned out to be their London recording agent;  who said we should come to their recoding concert in st John’s, in June. Why not!  That's like, SO Venice.

Instead, we befriended the cellist Davide Amadio, whose concerts I attended whenever I could on my first part of this Venice journey, on Facebook, who by morning had friended us back.  And who wrote on my facebook page:

Grazie Susan è un grande onore contribuire a lasciare un bel ricordo di Venezia, perchè Venezia non avrebbe bisogno di me quindi è una soddisfazione doppia..vi aspetto quando tornerete!

What a way to end another remarkable week.

There's a myth - or fact - in Italy, that you never risk asking someone about their health, or the weather, for both means that you're likely to be held in a conversation far longer than you want to.  That you could miss your plane, boat, ferry, appointment, concert.  I like that you get to hear about the workings of people's lives, and I have been known to eavesdrop in the queue at the supermarket, and learn another way to cook my fungi or that Gabriela at the Lavanderia has had another grandchild.

However I realised the truth of this myth when I was fluent enough to start reading the Italian newspaper, which discusses any and all of these subject with equal gusto.

From Il Gazettino:

High water in Venice, illegal vendors of boots Carnival 2014

High water and nothing walkways . A mix that has made the happiness of illegal vendors that have flooded the old town of boots in order to overcome the peak tide recorded around 23 on Saturday . Were 105 cm , as reported by the Gazzettino , but many tourists despite the forecasts announced early in the morning there has been no surprise defenses. Even some young people from St. Mark's Square had to reach the Arsenal to make the night.

Nothing . O -paid fifteen Euros (even twenty) to abusive or was the victim of del'assenza runways ( in the period of Carnival nothing "pose" ) . Unless, like two Roman tourists have had the good fortune to obtain , the holder of a few bars not regalasse some garbage bags . Or you can not find some generous knight " equipped " who could carry on his back those who were devoid of boots.

But the business for the squatters is not finished here. The Calatrava bridge and the train station area Sunday was full of sellers of Maghreb origins ready for any weather condition . The morning rain again . So umbrellas at will. Then time is strained to beauty . Then appeared the usual darts of light. Disappeared in an amen when the municipal police transited to the controls . One of the sellers, however, would be blocked by agents of Finance .

Venice Carnival 2014, all appointments of Shrove Tuesday March 4
"Rain, wind and high water can cause problems, slow down traffic and make (literally) to pieces on the streets of the province, but they can not stop in Venice to have its Carnival, especially when we talk of Shrove Tuesday, the day of closing and highlight of the two weeks the most colorful of the year. Hence, despite the dire weather forecast, list of events planned for March 4 in the lagoon and the mainland is always longer, and between entertainment for children and dj-sets more transgressive, everyone will find that fun. "

High water and weather today Venice Carnival Mardi Gras March 4, 2014

"The weather does not seem to want to help this year, the Carnival of Venice. After the hail and storms Saturday that put the masks on the run from San Marco, in the day of " Fat Tuesday " forecasts do not bode well . At least for the morning . According to the meteorological center Arpav , in fact, the probability of precipitation widespread in the province is high. But finally the time has altogether righteous." 

ALL THE EVENTS OF FAT TUESDAY

At the same time the tides of the City Centre at 9.30am ( when the sirens are sounded in the old town ) has revised its forecast of the previous day , announcing a peak of tide at 12.30 120 centimeters ( 24 hours before they were announced 105 cm to 12.15 ) . It is then repeated in all probability the peak tidal last Saturday , with some discomfort more. Blame It on the bora wind that has " reinvigorated " the tide . A level of 120 centimeters ( code orange ) determines the flooding of approximately 28% of the national territory . As the weekend, also in this case there were no pedestrian walkways to ensure paths " dry " for locals and tourists . At the stroke of half-past twelve then , the actual level of the water has settled at around 110 cm .

The laying of the catwalk during Carnival is not guaranteed. " Manna " for the illegal vendors , who last Saturday did brisk business by offering those who have been surprised by the high tide boots rubber twenty euro . For the arrival of good weather stable will arm yourself with patience and wait for Thursdays."

Yep.

And the sun shone like there was no tomorrow.

Ohhhh.  I love Italy

Down the rabbit hole

Fellini is here.  And I have my camera.

There are times in my life when I look around and think I am truly in an altered state of reality.  Everything to do with Venice is extraordinary. A normal day is like being on the set of a Fellini film, where everything is fabulously beautiful but nothing makes sense in relation to the lives we're used to living. We wake up expecting a casual walk and a quick coffee, and the experience very quickly escalates into the most bizarre of experiences that, ten minutes later, you have to ask for proof that it actually happened that way.

We have hot chocolate and an Americano every morning at the cafe on our corner, where the stunning blond Italian woman knows the name of every patron, and those she doesn't know she calls carissima mia.  Or "amore!"  The jacketed workers with knitted beanies come in, smoking outside in the frosty air, stomping their feet on the slippery stones and arguing vociferously over the headlines in Il Gazzettino. This always escalates into a complicated, noisy novella of political intrigue while I sip the best hot chocolate on earth.  Lewd mildly pornographic images of semi nude women on throbbing motorbikes leer into my coffee, and straight across the calle into the pharmacy where little old ladies cross themselves while buying their Mylanta.

As this week is Carnevale, the moment we step out side, we fall down a rabbit hole, populated by hundreds of fabulously garbed characters in everything from metaphysical concoctions to historically perfect costumes. Serpents squirm from net entangled hats.  Coloured polystyrene shapes float around a human form with a blue mouth and red eyes.  Five giant jellyfish squish through the lanes, followed by The Count of Monte Christo and a giant teapot.

You can't rely on the weather for anything, not even a photograph. One moment the sun is out, next the ugly wind blows across and turns our lips blue;  the report promises sun but the skies crack, the buildings shake, the calli become dark and creepy, and our sills are peppered with hail. We look to the watery skies expecting rain, and the skies melt to blues.  We rug up with thermals and the sun comes out and we have to peel off and carry our clothes in puffy bundles;  we wear less and our ears freeze and we have to come home to thaw out.

The organisers of Carnevale have finished building the Roman Forum in Piazza San Marco that busied them for the whole of our first week.   It's made of beautifully carved solid wood, with heated boxes for those optimistic enough to pay $100 to sit in them and watch the daily show.  

Work was held up because of the rain and high water, but finally, on opening day, all was done in time, the sun beamed as hard as it could and Venice was packed to its gills with tourists.   Tens of thousands of frantic tourists, most of them frantic photographers with obscenely large lenses, descended on Venice for the weekend, to piss in corners, eat pizza, get drunk on Prosecco, graffitti the ancient walls and get lost. Particularly on the weekends, when trying to get anywhere is like being in Sydney on NYE. We wish they had got lost, gone home, leave this spectacle to those who have the time to look.

The mosaics on the walls of the Doges palace sparkle like diamonds, and bronze horses rear in mid gallop.  Dogs wear broderie anglaise and tartan coats;  women strut about wearing rabbit, sable, ermine, mink and fox.  Men wear lace cuffs and gold braid, children wear powdered wigs.  Teenagers have green faces. The carabinieri wear guns and Ermigliano Zegna uniform with equal dignity.  The queues to enter the Campanile and Palace stretch for 100 metres. People pay 13E ($20) for a coffee on the yellow plastic chairs of San Marco, facing out onto the lagoon and the Santa Maria Della Salute.  The fabulous costumes come out from about midday, to pose against the walls, or on bridges, or on the edge of the water. The photographers go nuts, pushing and shoving, and trampling, not caring who lies underfoot.  The bigger the camera, the more obnoxious its owner. 

It's the opening day of Carnevale.  Venice is thick with people - from the Ukraine, Russia, Korea, Slovenia, Japan. Tour guides rush through their itineraries - quick, the Doge Palace, then a hike up the Campanile for five cold minutes, then a plastic-wrapped gondola ride and a limp pizza before a photo shoot on the Bridge of Sighs with 20 other people a second. They buy cheap Chinese masks from the travelling vendors who drag their dreadful carts into the square at 8 every morning, weighed down by tea towels, aprons, umbrellas and t-shirts. The scourge of Venetians, an insult to their creativity, a blight on the Murano glass makers.  A female compere screams from the stage, where jugglers and mono cyclists draw the crowds' attention. Everyone waits for the 11.30 bells that will signal the start of the angel's flight from the top of the campanile,   for centuries a tribute to the Doge.  A young woman is chosen as a "secret guest" to fly on a wire from the top of the campanile to the stage below, where apparently she is welcomed into the arms of the - probably panting - Doge.  

The crowd thickens until we can't lift our arms above our heads ... and then all is quiet. The bells of the Campanile and the Doges Church peal madly, and the compere on the stage counts down.  There's movement on the platform, high up. A flutter of fabric.  A gasp and sigh from the crowd.  Then she glides down the 150metres to the square below, scattering confetti.  A glorious billowing butterfly, with a clear blue sky to herald her decent.  Breathtaking.

Along the fondamente, actors in astonishing imaginary concoctions mime and perform for the phalanx of photographers sycophantically grovelling at their feet, anxiously trying to get the iconic photo through their ten thousand dollar lenses.  I am pushed off my feet, by these desperate image grabbers, jabbed in the ribs, thumped in the knees, bandied about the head.  I wear my soft wooly hat for protection, my gloves to protect my fingers from boots, always on the lookout for someone who will rush in front of me and knock me far enough out into the water. Then I look down at my pink tights, strewn with confetti, and the bursts of colour also down my coat, and I'm happy.  I'm living my dream, even though Venetians shudder at the thought of such indecency and debauchery.  I'm in a technicolour rainbow of creation and imagination and if I get cranky for a moment that someone walked in front of me, I take a step back and want to cry with joy.

I always thought the people who paraded for Carnevale were the locals, or people dressing up for the balls and functions. But as the Venetians hate Carnevale with a vociferous passion, vitriolic that the money is "going to Mestre" and loathing  the tourists, not many of the participants are true Venetians.  The true performers, the ones who parade on the fondamente, or hang on lampposts, or walk slowly up the stairs and stop in an exquisite pose are French.  It seems they come as performers, because a few years ago, I almost enrolled to do a photography course where I was told that we'd go to secret places and costumed models would be hired.  When walking with Carmen and Stefano who came to visit for two days, we went to Santa Maria De La Salute, usually a quiet spot to view the Grand Canal.  That morning it was over-run with "models" who came in spectacular waves, and more heavyweight cameras than I'd ever seen in my life were snatching images as if it was the end of the world.  You can tell the difference between those tourists (or maybe locals) who hire, and those who do this for a living.   The most inventive costumes are these "models" whereas most of those trawling the streets wear typical 18th century high heel shoes with lace, cuffs, three pointed hats and hooped skirts. The difference is that the "models" would be holding bird cages or the insides of a clock, or a stuffed owl in their elaborately stitched hats.Those who hire costumes sit behind the frosted windows of Florian, enjoying their E100 tea and cakes, while being mobbed by iphones, smartphones, ipads and cameras of those outside who can't - or won't - afford it.


We shop for fresh vegetables and fish at the Rialto every few mornings, and while cooking our salmon (lightly grilled with EV olive oil, some thyme and a swish of garlic on our rocking frying pan, carciofi lightly steamed with tomato and capsicum) I opened the window to let the smell out. From the lane below I heard drums and whistles and Italian singing, and I looked down onto the top of a plumed hat , and a velvet coat that flared over  knickerbockers.  A woman wrestled her hooped, brocaded skirt through the lanes, and tried to let a bewigged judge and an executioner through.

We're less than 100 metres from La Fenice, the opera house, so we get the passing parade ... from flowing robes to majestic plumes, from pirates to jesters and jokers to the Queen of Tarts.

We walk every morning expecting a normal day. But we wake up in a Palazzo, that Goethe, the writer and philospher, stayed in.  Outside our door is a bridge under which gondolas - and kayaks - paddle.  We are three minutes to the Rialto and less to San Marco, both fantastic historically significant places where wars were waged, lives were auctioned, and people have spent their whole lives saving to see. We watch scenes that Vivaldi, Tintoretto, Turner, Goethe, Napoleon, Marco Polo, the Romans - composed, painted, eulogised, fought for and travelled the world to show off about. The grandest spectacle in the world is at my feet, and I'm on my knees with my camera, trying to get it all in one photograph. No sooner have I think I've seen it all, when a flock of giant jellyfish trail silk tentacles past me.  An ice queen puts her white gloved finger to her black lips so that people won't talk to her.  A headless chicken sits on a suitcase talking on a mobile phone, while a two year old Count woos an adoring crowd by insisting on seeing his image in an ipad.

Then we take the vaporetto down the glittering Grand Canal, accompanied by Madam Pompidou, the Count of Monte Christo, Casanova's consort, the Girl with the Pearl Earring, and Johnny Depp.  A pirate with a stuffed parrot gets off, replaced by a giant clock with a ticking hat,  and a heavily embroidered tea cosy that speaks a muffled French.  These glittering, feathered, brocaded creatures jostle for space in the vaporetto as we float past the giant chandeliers in the trembling palazzi through whose windows we can see shapes and shadows of every costume designer's wildest experiment.  There are kettle drums and violins in the echoing, dark lanes.  A man throws a bucket of water close to our feet, shouting Vai, Vai, pi pi, si, pi pi!   We walk where shadows follow and water tells no tales, over lacy bridges and under stern stones, take a new turn, and then there is tango in an inky dark square, lit only by lights reflected from windows, and people dancing to music from an iPhone. 

My new husband and I walk speechlessly through these days and nights, needing only to talk about the necessities like what we'll cook for dinner in our postage sized kitchen.  All else seems redundant. On the way to the supermarket, we passed an antiquarian book shop piled to the ceiling with Italian art and literature tomes.  A shop window filled with orchids and cyclamen.  An antique silver store. A collector of Moroccan silver who always has his back to his customers, petrified someone will buy something from him.  A table of waiters in their tall white hats, eating before the crowds. Tables set outside with white linen, and lily of the valley in pots.  Stravinsky crashed from beneath the heavy carved doors of a church in the square of La Fenice. We sat in the cold, near the ancient water well, listening to the practice for the show, later that night.  A light drizzle fell.  Then we bought tickets for La Traviata,  Le Barbiere di Seville for now,  and Tosca for our May return.  We went home to cook schnitzel we bought from the supermarket, dunked a strawberry in a Bellini, and ate a finocchio and apple salad with balsamico, lemon and olive oil.

Let's go for a walk, said Reno.  We put on our thick coats, and hats and scarves. We walked over the slippery stones and a bridge until we reached the church where the Stravinsky concert was on. This time Debussy crashed from below the doors and the cracks in the stained glass windows.   Reno found a way in, and we sneaked into the dimly lit church filled with crazed music of geniuses from centuries ago. A young woman and an old man played one piano with four hands.  I looked to the ceiling, and could barely breathe, for above my head were paintings so dense with age and history and value they gleamed in the semi dark.  Angels and cherubs, food and fortune, fabrics and light and shadows. There must have been twenty million dollars worth of Renaissance paintings above my head.  I wanted to move to a cushioned carved bench along the stone wall which would give me a better view of the pianists, but Reno whispered that I should wait for the break in movements.

A man sat on his own here, in a blue suit.  The music ended.  The lights came up slowly.   The audience applauded, shouted Bravi, Brava, Bravissimo. They donned their furs and their Borsalino hats, peered down their haughty Venetian noses as the two puffy Plebs, and waited for the man in the blue suit to walk out first.  He wore gold braided epaulettes, tight pants and high boots, and a tall hat with tassels and pom poms.  He also carried a sword. A very long sword, and a scabbard, tucked carefully into his belt.  The crowed hushed as he rose from his elevated seat at the side of the wall.  He left the church first, while I was still goggle eyed at the goings-on on the ceiling.

The perfumed crowd bowed as he left, stood back reverently as he passed through the ancient carved doors, into the piazza outside La Fenice, the most famous opera house in the world.

Great costume, I whispered to Reno as this elegant man donned his fabulous hat and threw his blue, fur lined cape over his shoulders.  But nobody else in this elite gathering would be so plebian as to dress in costume, gasp, even though it was Carnevale.

We'd gatecrashed a private viewing of the Venetian glitterati, attended by what we've speculated is the head of military. 

The music was pretty fabulous too.

Ten minutes later, we were home, in our apartment in the Palazzo Vittoria Regina.  Standing in the boiling shower, warming up, I called Reno.   Did I just wake up from a bizarre dream?

Venice is like that.   I'm black and blue from pinching myself.