Piano Rialzato, Fondamenta Gheradini, Venice, 4th May 2000
The number 1 vaporetto growled its way up to Ca’ Rezzonico and nudged its way in with the grinding of reversing engines and a bump; the boatman twisted the mooring rope around the stanchions with practiced ease, the pale sisal creaked and he pushed the gate back with a clang. The sounds of the vaporetti and the slap of water against hulls and banks came to orchestrate the atmosphere of Venice (the sibilant rub of gondola oars was a gentle undertone.) We swung out into the Canal Grande calling at Giglio and Salute before entering the Bacino di San Marco at bustling Vallaresso, a favourite stop for visitors going to San Marco. Then the quintessemtial Venice of the Piazzetta, the domes of San Marco, the Doge’s Palace and the Riva degli Schiavoni, before pulling into San Zaccaria with its confusing concentration of embarkation points. We changed to a number 41 and set off on a long trip to the cemetery island of San Michele, via Arsenale, Giardini, St Elena, Celestia, Ospidale and Fondamanta Nove. On the port side, a very different Venice passed, a panorama of gardens, institutions and the high blank facades of the Arsenal; a more working Venice, remote in spirit and place from the glories of the Grand Canal, invisible to most visitors. To starboard the flat verditter blue calm of the lagoon, studded with stout tripod navigation markers, stretched towards the horizon and the shimmering campaniles of Burano and Torcello.
Getting around Venice is civilized. Walking, of course, and perhaps the luxury of an elegant black gondola or gleaming mahogany water taxi. Using the vaporetti has none of the ghastliness of bus travel. The services are regular and reliable; and if you have to wait it’s beside calming water with an entrancing view, not by a stream of noisy, fume belching traffic lumbering by office blocks and tacky trading estates. They are egalitarian, everyone uses them and at busy times you literally rub shoulders with fellow travelers as your boat sways in the wake of another service. Here are students and retirees, priests and nuns, parents and toddlers, artists and accountants, rich and poor, the relaxed and the stressed. The distinction seems to be only between locals and visitors, the latter sometimes ignorant of the boarding etiquette and a little too keen to get into the open bow and stern sight-seeing seats. And vaporetti always give way to gondolas. Imagine buses always respecting cyclists!