Magic Venice
Do not believe the guidebooks: that Venice, which they tell, do not exist. On the place where it should be, on the map flicker immediately Three, ten, fifteen cities. And it is not known whether there is among them at least one real.
The first city is bright, almost plastic, basher cheerful, with a fussy grandfather, which is so good in photographs, with openwork arches sparkling from time Palazzo, with stormy rivers of tourists. On the map it looks like a fish – such Venice and Draw on magnets: Roasted Doard, cutped in the Grand Channel.
City and masks
The main square of the city – Square of St. Mark – always clogged with people. They take pictures of the Cathedral and the Palace of the Doings, feeding the brazen pigeons, buy gilded masks and multicolored glass – the same as two steps from here, but more expensive because it was here. Do Infinite selfie Against the background of the bridge of sighs, without thinking about the fact that it is one of the most non-inactive places in Venice – after all, he connects the palace of the guild and prison, and all these sighs were not about beloved, but about the life itself. Run over your guides from one cathedral to another, although only one Santa Maria Gloriosis dei-Frari with Tizian Madonna can blind all day, if not for life. If there is time, go to the island of Murano, where glass is done, Fragile souvenirs are bold, and then do not know how to panic them in the suitcase.
In the evening, they are all sitting in the same restaurants, where it smells like the same meal, – pasta and pizza in this city Almost anywhere do not know how to cook. But people still require pasta and pizza, sometimes fish, Venetian liver or Bellini cocktail, Invented here. And not pleasure, but only satisfaction: Another item has been completed from the section Guide "What to do in Venice". In this city, everything is for tourists, and his symbol is not lion, but the illegal street traders Africans, who lay out on all the main routes of the blanket with the goods: masks, fakes of expensive bags, mini-iggatives for cameras, small buzzing toys, pulsating blue light, scarves and umbrellas with lion images or Rialto bridge.
This bridge is the oldest of those who are transferred through the Grand Canal, one of the main attractions of this Venice. Lavochen bridge. Here Skin, jewelry and souvenirs. In each souvenir shop there are key chains or magnets with Rialto Bridge, and if you look at, souvenir benches are visible on each such key chain. Know that in each of these drawn shops there is the same key chain, to which the drawn buyer is watching, and so indefinitely.
Rialto Bridge – Symbol of endless trade, self-reproduction, self-removal. Like all this Venice – detailed, loud, multicolored, loving himself, living at the expense of tourists and not giving them to see. Summer here is too hot and crowded, In September – the historic regatta and the film festival, in the winter – drooping and carnival. Crowds, crowds, crowds. Giant cruise ships pass on Venetian Laguna, As shrouded whales, the yachts of celebrities in sharks attack the port of Arsenal, Gondollars, Die delighted Japanese, are animated only at the sight of other gondolors, shout something on their opera language. These locals are becoming less and less, and who remains – working as gondolors, keep small hotels or restaurants. But they are prefer to settle somewhere nearby, Not on the island. For locals it is too expensive.
Saints and strong
And here begins Second Venice: also partly tourist, but completely different. This is the perfect, unborn city of texts, movies and music, the place where the aristocratic high-level history lives. Bispanic city of saints and strong. And mortals. It is this Venice that is majestically goes under the water for two centimeters every five years. It is for this Venice Toscut the winter carnival, When San Marko Square is clogged with sewages, ladies in crinolines, men in black semimas, by some Austrian medieval musicians, Venetian celers in rascoats, people with animal heads. They cost close to each other as books in the library, and continue to arrive, and the area settles under their feet – everyone is waiting for the traditional flight of angel over San Marco Square. It is said that this tradition of several centuries: once during the carnival an acrobat passed over a rope area in a suit with white wings. Since then, an angel must be every year.
This Venice is trying to give up his own history again, conducting Historical regatta – also with costume participants, with parade of elegant gondola, When the lagoon is blocked, and it’s almost no anywhere. Film Festival on Lido Island – also historical, even older Cannes, invented Mussolini in 1932, than the Italians are not even proud of. From summer on November in museums and on the streets of Venice – Exhibitions of Biennale, architectural and artistic. Six years ago on San George-Maggio Island, Right opposite San Marco, a giant gigantic grown, hardly with the church of the height, an inflatable sculpture depicting a seated figure, and at sunset she was blown again. A couple of years ago on the Grand Channel appeared Sculpture Lorenzo Quinna – Two huge hands stretching out of water, as if supporting Palazzo.
In this art-Venice, the Grand Canal Palaces seem to be the cows of giant animals, and Bridges hurt from gravity Texts addressed to this city. Khodasevich ("Venice – the city of separation"), Thomas Mann ("… And if the whimsical beauty of Venice has already fascinated him again, then the mercenary trading spirit of this fallen queen sled and angry him …"). And of course, Brodsky who caught this city for the tail. But Venice did not release him. On the embankment of inexperienced, there is a memorial plan for Brodsky, his text "Embankment of Insechensible" – one of The best and minor confessions in love for this city. Those who come to this Venice walk on it slowly, as in the museum, do not go to tourist Murano and Burano.
These tourists go to the far island – Torchello, which was once densely populated, and now almost unused. Here, in the Cathedral of Santa Maria-Assunta, you can see the best in northern Italy Byzantine mosaics of the XII century. Once on the island lived more people than in Venice, but then the Harbor Torchello turned into a "dead lagoon", in a swamp, and the inhabitants had to run from here. They took with them and buildings.
Splash and emptiness
There is another Venice, simpler: City of locals and students. Here the most delicious food (there is nothing more delicious seafood in Acether to Nova Fondate and pasta in the family restaurant on Jardini), the most fun bars, the loudest neighbors. Markets-boats – fruits, vegetables, greens. And between the houses bezed in the wind underwear. Summer Evenings on Santa Margesey dance elderly diligent couples, in the corner house near Via Garibaldi meets the local compartment – Complete Miley Smiling Olders. If you are a tourist in Venice, then here – where there is no crowd and expectations where time does not flow, but quietly splash.
But there is another way to avoid tourist Venice. The human rivers flow according to the same rivals: from the station to the Rialto bridge, from the Rialto bridge to San Marco, from the Academy Bridge to Santa Margherit Square, from San Marco in the city or by embankments to Arsenal or up – to the fins of giant fish.
If you take a step to the side – you can escape and lose, it is necessarily, but it’s from the other city. It will also be cathedrals and pearl-green muddy canals, bridges and palaces, gondolas and rotting algae, sharp, unexpected smell of fried fish. But all this will be like in theater, When no one came out on the stage, in an unreal, airless, twilight space, where it is possible to breathe only "raw oxygen" – by definition of Brodsky. Venice will give up you: Stone and water, endless splash and emptiness. Only somewhere far away will roll the buzzing tourist crowd, flashing the lights of smartphones. From this darkness and silence will become more confident, and you will give Venice, and then it can happen anything.
Real Venice exists. She always shines through the tourist, she herself the theater itself and the text itself. It can be seen – it is only necessary to measure two minutes in the middle of a human stream, move away for two steps from the tourist trail, to lose the guide – and she will look like you straight into the eyes.
