The weather was not very pleasant, nor was it gloomy either. The sky was not clear blue, with some haziness present. But now and then there was some sunlight, otherwise it was a typical grey winter day. The temperature was around 6 degrees. As we made our exit from the St. Lucia Stazione, the first surprise you meet as you come out of the station is, there is no large street filled with taxis, buses and pavements, instead you see the Grand Canale - the largest of the lagoons of Venice. Yes, its just water, water and more water everywhere you look. ofcourse on the other side of the canale are shops, buildings etc. The city is just like every other, except that black roads and streets are replaced by blue water, canals, bridges, boats etc. Venice is essentially the worlds largest pedestrian zone and with the absence of motorized vehicles there is no threat to keep people on their toes. As a result there is a ridiculous amount of random stopping, turning, and chatting causing blockage after blockage of frustrated pedestrians. Venice is Europe's largest car-free area, unique in Europe in remaining a sizable functioning city in the 21st century entirely without motorcars or trucks.
Venice is famous for its canals. It is built on an archipelago of more than 100 islands in a shallow lagoon. In the old center, the canals serve the function of roads, and every form of transport is on water or on foot. The classical Venetian boat is the Gondola, although it is now mostly used for tourists, or for weddings, funerals, or other ceremonies, due to its cost. Most Venetians travel by motorised waterbuses ("vaporetti") which ply regular routes along the major canals and between the city's islands. The city also has many private boats. The only unmotorized gondolas still in common use by Venetians are the traghetti, foot passenger ferries crossing the Grand Canal at certain points without bridges.
We bought a day-ticket for 10 euros, and took our 'bus' to the Piazza San Marco. Its a journey of about 30 mins. As the boat wades through the canal, you can see all the marvellous buildings on the either side. The magic of the oriental architectures, century old marvels of construction who have stood the test of time keep you spell-bound. I do not have a digi-cam at the moment, so my fingers were twitching like hell. There were many I-wish-I-had-a-camera moments all around me as the Bus (boat) floated around. Some of the beautiful scenes were when you are coming out from under a bridge, the sky slowly opens up above you and you see the famous Venice Skyline. I bet all directors shooting in Venice must have taken a shot or two in this manner.
Eventually we arrived at the grand attraction of Venice: Piazza San Marco and Basillica di San Marco. I can see why people flock here. The Basillica is ornate on an unsurpassed level and the grand square is a great place to watch people run screaming towards the thousands of pigeons waiting to be fed. The endless colonnades of the Procuratie Vecchie and Procuratie Nuove add a feeling of antiquity to the site giving it an exquisite Italian/Ancient Roman feel. We also fed the pigeons, and took some snaps with Sridhar´s camera. The pigeons reminded me about the Trafalgar Square in London - you stand still with your arms stretched and soon you will find yourself covered with pigeons. Well you have to keep looking your coat for any droppings of these thankful pigeons!
If you walk a little south from the Basillica, you come across the bridge where the chase sequence was shot for the Italian job. The particular scene when the group manages to steal the gold and flee under water, while their partners give the police a wild chase was shot here. I spent some minutes visualising how it was all done, the camera positions, etc. I could have continued a little longer, but Sridhar and Haroon would not let me. While walking around the city later we also saw that old building which was used as the Library in the Indiana Jones movie.
By this time, we were hungry and so made our way to the immediate pizzeria in our vicinity. We had a meal with a Quarter Pizza, Fries and a drink - costed around 6 euros. The guy serving was a Bengali. Haroon was complaining that "yaar itnay desi hai yaha, jaha dekha waha desi". I replied "haan yaar, subah utho, mirror mein dekho waha bhi desi!". Apart from numerous desis (sub-continent people), there were plenty of Chinese and Japs everywhere. I wonder what the Italians would say when they see so many Chinese, Japs and Asians. When you observe the tourists around you, you can see all the popular gadgets in use - digicams, handycams, camera-phones, etc etc. Some of them are real pros into photography. They take great pains to get that perfect shot. I felt jealous seeing those great lenses around me. We had good fun looking at people making some interesting poses. Well one thing worth observation was the use of Video messaging and Video conferencing by many tourists. They had some 3G phones from Motorola, Nokia and were doing live video streaming - UMTS is slowly finding its base among users, a good sign for someone like me.
Venice is one of the places on earth which exudes romance. All around me where tourists with their better halves, their special someones and were busy kissing away. I was feeling a bit lonely, and the heart was yearning for that someone to be beside me at this special place. Maybe a Raaj Aaryan would imagine his Aishwarya and sing a song, but this is no movie scene. I wish she was here! hmmm - deep sigh! To add misery I had the company of two guys!
Human traffic comes to a complete stand still just outside of Rialto Bridge. A classic destination which overlooks one of the more Venice-esque photo ops and which is also lined with a million kiosks filled with everything from miniature toy gondolas to Dantes didgeridoos. The ambience around it is very similar to the one you find in descriptions of the markets during the British-era of India. To be more vivid, more like the movie shots from the sets of Pakeezah movie, or similar to the bazaars of Old Delhi, Aligarh or Lucknow. The most prevalent and artistic items for sale were the masks from Carnival. These intricate and hand-made masks are truly works of art! If you have read the novel - Kiss the girls, there were many masks which fit the descriptions to the one used by Casanova in that novel (which was later made into a Hollywood movie, starring Morgan Freeman and Jodie Foster). There were many glasswork articles as well. One of the islands of Venice, Murano is famous for its glass workshops. The craftmanship of these is just amazing, just amazing. I could not buy them however owing to the price, unless you have someone special with you, it makes no sense to spend on buying something so beautiful and costly.
As we were strolling in the by-lanes, it was as if we had ventured into a maze, that is the size of a city - Venice. It is an interesting city, if you want to see around on foot. As you round a corner you never know what will be there; it could be a church, a canal or more likely an impenetrable wall of people. Since it was Chirstmas day, there were not 'many' tourists in the city. Still you would find people all around you. more Chinese and Japs to be precise. Infact when we did not see any of them around we were wondering if this particular corner is worth seeing or not. Being a Christmas day, the churches were elaborately decorated, and by evening wore on, we could see arrangements for the Concerts being made. Ofcourse we had no time to listen to any of them, but it was great to see the arrangements with bells, lights, and cones.
It had already become dark long ago. On our way back to the Stazione, we had good fun. We had lost our way and we were stuck somewhere in the maze of the city and its bylanes. We decided to go by the Audience poll option (KBC style), and follow the streams of the people such that we could somehow come across the Grand Canale, from there we could take the boats to the Station. But as we took our paths through the narrow shadowy lanes, by-lanes, narrow corridors, small bridges, it was as if we are doing some Treasure Hunt Game. Occasionally when we come across a sign stating 'Alle Ferrovia' meaning all ways lead to the main station, we would be happy that we are on right path. At any bifurcation, we would decide by following the direction taken by any pretty girls. At that time we saw Venice up-close. We saw all the possible faces of this city, its various lanes, city squares with fountains, there were many of those I-wish-I-had-my-camera moments as we walked along. We were also chatting that incase we had something like this in our countries what would we do. Haroon came up with a doubt about where could we play cricket with such narrow lanes and water everywhere. I was wondering how the day-to-day life went by here. How were the marriage ceremonies held, how were funeral processions carried out. Yes life is different here in 'Venice - the City of Lagoons'. Then came up an interesting conversation, we were thinking 'what-if I lived in Venice and owned a boat, what would I name it?' well we came up with many crazy names. My craziest one was 'Dhanno'.
After reaching the Stazione, we had some dinner - again a pizza with drink. Then we boarded our train back to Trento. As soon as we took our seats, I reached out for my notebook and made a note of all the key observations I had made during the day, so that I dont miss out on anything. We had some good sleep on our way back, with many memories being made in our minds about what we had seen during the day. I am pretty sure of returning back to Venice, hopefully with that special someone.
