Venice despite Venice
The places must be deserved. If someone decides not to go to the Parthenon because there is a queue to go up, perhaps that someone is not worthy of a Caryatid looking at him.
If another person, or the same person, deletes Venice from his list of destinations because-it-is-filled-with-people, it is because that person does not deserve Venice.
Venice is above its circumstances, of the cruise ships that flood it (the joke is easy), of the prices of Harry's Bar and of the overcrowding of Saint Mark's Square. Venice is above its rulers and above us.
About this city everything has already been written, filmed and painted. This is not the place to review its history, its architecture, its painting (ciao, Canaletto) or its legends. It is the place to claim it , although it is also above our clumsy demands.
Church of the Redeemer, designed by Palladio, in Giudeca
If there is a place for which the adjective magical seems to have been invented, that is Venice; it is outside of time and space.
No matter how far you've traveled, the arrival through the channels, if possible in a Riva, always impacts; It's like a blow to the heart. It only takes a few minutes and some facade to understand that this trip has already been worth it.
Also, Venice It neither bothers to look modern nor to evolve: it has enough to survive. When traveling to Venice contradictions always arise: should I contribute to “overtourism”?
Original edition of the book Venises, by Paul Morand (1971)
UNESCO monitors the city to verify that its threats do not increase. They arrive on several fronts: excessive tourism (the latest official figure speaks of 30 million visitors a year), cruise ships and the passage of time through the city. If no progress is made, UNESCO considers inscribing it in the List of Heritage in Danger.
This leads us to think: if I live the rest of the year according to values of respect and sustainability: why do I have to betray them when I travel? It is not necessary to do it, nor to beat ourselves up because we feel like Venice. We can do it right: spend on local businesses, use guides in the area or travel out of season.
Winter (let's ignore Carnival) is a delicious time. Venice is overwhelming with the gray sky. Paul Morand, in his book Venises, quoted Whistler with his "Venice must be visited after it has rained".
What happened to the Louvre happens to Venice. There are too many people in La Gioconda, but that is not why you should stop visiting it. There is a quiet and local Venice just a few steps from the lethal core that encompasses San Marcos, the Academy and the Rialto Bridge.
We have already visited those places. because you don't go to Venice, you come back. Maybe today we won't sit down, as we used to Katharine Hepburn in Summertime , to record videos with gloved hands in the Piazza.
Venice despite Venice
We will record videos, but in a more prosaic way. If the actress (and the character) landed there today we would tell them that Saint Mark by day it is beautiful, but we have a better trick to enjoy it: walk it first thing in the morning and at night.
In those two moments Venice is empty of tourists and travellers, since the vast majority do not sleep in the city. Helios Herrera, a Venetian based in London, reveals how the locals enjoy it: “We hide during the day because you can't walk and wait for the night when the city empties. So we went out."
His family has lived in Castello, one of the six neighborhoods of Venice, for almost half a century; permanent residents are estimated to be about 270,000 , according to World Population Review.
This university professor of Macroeconomics says that “many local people have boats and move through the canals, where there are always fewer people. Also, it gives you the dimension of water, which tourists do not have access to”.
He also knows, of course, where to find “the perfect meatball, the best pumpkin flower or the richest sardine”. He keeps these secrets to himself. We understand.
Italian ice cream? Always, no matter the season
The quiet Venice is tasted very well early in the morning. Then the city wakes up: the garbage truck (excuse me, the gondola) passes by, the students go to school by vaporetto.
A place to catch such a feeling is Dorsoduro, a neighborhood or sestiere facing the Giudecca canal in which Venice is very Venice and less intense than the central one. Here there is foundations, wine bars, secluded squares (campi) and hidden gardens.
One of them belongs to the hotel The Experimental Palace, open this fall. Situated in a Renaissance palace that was also a shipping company (L ́Adriatica) , has features that can only be found here, such as seven-meter-wide corridors.
Entrance to Hotel II Palazzo Experimental
Venice is hardly touched: if you open a hotel it must be adapted to what is there, which is usually, luckily, a beauty. Il Palazzo shakes up the local scene, much more historicist, proposing a decoration with touches à la Wes Anderson.
the artificer is Dorothée Meilichzon , decorator of the entire Experimental group that has one of its strengths in staging. Here there are references to Venetian design in the marble floors, in the terrazzo (so fashionable) of Carlo Scarpa.
The palette is a gift from the city; there are terracotta tones, sky blue, pale yellow, silver gray and cream. The kettle is Alessi , the phone is retro and the cosmetics, a summary of different brands of indie cosmetics. This is how this spirit collides, without disturbing anything, with the hotel offer in Venice to which we were accustomed.
Trattoria Anzolo Raffaele, in Campo dell'Angelo Raffaele, Dorsoduro
Let's go back to his garden, which is in the back and open to all. Sitting down at the end of the afternoon to have a cocktail will make us feel like Venetians. And there is nothing that a contemporary traveler likes more than this: being mistaken for a neighbor.
This corner is one of those that Dorsoduro gives us. This is also the neighborhood of the art foundations, because the Peggy Guggenheim Foundation has been here since 1951 and here François Pinault opened his own. It comprises two spaces; the Palazzo Grassi , opened in 2006, and the Point of the Dogana , which he did three years later.
The French businessman has shown exquisite taste in choosing Tadao Ando for rehabilitation and located in one of the emblematic points of the city. Standing, right at the top, looking in the direction of St. Mark's Square, it makes us feel at the bow of a ship.
In 2020 they have scheduled a major Cartier Bresson exhibition, Le Grand Jeu. That can be a good excuse to put Venice on the calendar even if any of the scheduled shows will do.
Visiting the Guggenheim and the Pinault can take us a whole day. In the middle, we will have an ice cream in the Nico's Gelateria , we'll buy a souvenir (there's always someone who orders something from Murano that they broke or lost) or maybe some venetian blinds, and we'll sneak into the Jesuit church of Santa Maria del Rosario, a majestic baroque building located in the Zattere, the pier that overlooks the Giudecca. We will see a lot of hanging clothes: Venice has no shame. A morning walk through Dorsoduro will make us say: "Where is the crowded Venice from which the cynics flee?"
Work by Damien Hirst in the Palazzo Grassi
Giudecca belongs to Dorsoduro, and the Canal that separates them and bears his name is one of the largest in Venice. You can cross it by boat; what nonsense: you can't, you must. Both areas are full of churches, trattorias and campi. And you won't find hardly any people in them.
An example is the Trattoria Anzolo Raffaele , on the Dorsoduro side. In the square where he is alone you will come across people who come and go to his house and students, since It is the quintessential university neighborhood.
there you can order pickled vegetables , which have the poetic name of l'orto in agrodolce, and bigoli mori in sauce , a Venetian pasta that will fill you with endorphins
When we have overcome the drowsiness of food and wine we will go out to wander around the neighborhood. in Giudecca there are two churches designed by Palladio, the Redentore and the Zitelle ; We're going to pay our respects.
Excursions and cruise passengers will be agglutinated around San Marcos while we walk through quiet squares where children play in the street. We will come across women with an air of wanting to recreate the adventures of Hepburn and we will not be the ones who take away their illusion. They still comply.
Part of the charm of the city lies in the island hopping. For this reason, every visit to Venice goes through a boat and some wobble. From Dorsoduro and the Giudecca we can go to Murano. No need to be scared: there is also a quiet Murano beyond its shops and glass furnaces and, like everything quiet in Venice, it is two steps away from the hustle and bustle.
An example of what happens when you dig a little is the Berengo Foundation . No one can guess that this space, which opened in 2012 to explore the artistic possibilities of glass.
Liquor in Anzolo Raffaele
Adriano Berengo commissions artists of the level of Ai Weiwei and Vik Muniz for pieces made in this material. The foundation space is huge and surprising; initiates know him and, when there is a Biennial (the last edition has just closed), it fills up. The rest of the time the visit will be peaceful and we will feel like inhabitants of that empty Venice that we always seek.
Rain or not, in Venice we must walk at night. It is the other moment, along with dawn, in which we will reaffirm ourselves in the belief that there is a city just for us. That must be enjoyed with a (another) cocktail.
There are cities with two drinks: Havana is the daiquiri and the mojito, Jerez, the fino and the manzanilla, and Venice... the Negroni and the spritz. In the Zattere we find the Experimental Cocktail Club ; it is small and stylish, like all the bars in this group. Designed by Cristina Celestino , in it we can start or end the night delivered to the local drinks; we will do it surrounded by mirrors and marble, as appropriate.
Another option is the Piccolo Mondo , a club also located in Dorsoduro that calls itself the only and oldest in Venice.
In this night walk we will verify what the locals defend: most of the visitors have left and the minority sleep exhausted after a day raffling herself.
that's when the squares are delivered to us, the spritz glasses are emptied, the talk is prolonged, the churches seem decorated and the water rests. It is at that moment when we know that we deserve Venice.
Cocktail at Experimental Cocktail Club