“Where’s the nearest parking lot for St. Mark’s Square?” – 1000 tourists’ questions about Venice
By: Lia Contesso
Submitted: 2010-06-23 05:07:32 | Word Count: 554
As they arrive in Venice, the whole city suddenly becomes a source of questions: from “how do they bring the mail?” to “do the firemen even exist in Venice?”, the list of questions is infinite: can you go by bike? How do they collect garbage? How do the shops supplies arrive? How do mothers do with baby buggies? Can Venetian people drive a car? Do they all have boats? ...and how many other questions can a “campagnolo” (countryman) remind of – that’s how Venetians humorously call people coming from the land...thousands, and the expression of an inhabitant of the islands when hearing that visitors can have curiosities on things that for them are natural is always the same: amazed, they observe them as they would with an alien – which, after all, is the same expression of the tourists when they discover that Venetian buses are stream-boats, that, taxis, ambulances and police ride the canals with their motor boats and youngsters, instead of motor-scooters, ride small motor-boats. Not to mention the disappointed expression that some have when discovering that there are no parking lots near St. Mark’s Square nor in other places. And if you wonder if in Venice there’s a Highway Code, the answer is yes: there’s a ...Canal Code that rules the water traffic, giving instructions on which side of the canal you should occupy and on the maximum speed you can reach in order to limit the wave-motion, very dangerous for the city; and there’s even a traffic light.
The truth is that staying in Venice for some days is not enough to answer to all the questions a tourist reminds of while wandering through the city, and the easiest thing, for those who cannot stay for at least some months to see the practical functioning of the city, is to ask. So, questions arise, and after all they are not so strange: in any other city things work in a completely different manner, and people hardly use to consider canal as roads, boats as cars or trucks and so on.
The best sid
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e of the city, other than for couples on a romantic tour that will have everything they need to spend their sentimental journey, is for children: no cars, no dangers: Venice is a big amusement park at their disposal. Every “campo” (so they call the squares in Venice, that gave its own names to each kind of street: apart from the famous “calli”, there are the “fondamenta”, a road following the course of a canal, the “rio terà”, a canal transformed into street, and then “sotoportego”, a covered walkway, campo and campiello, big and small squares, calli “lunghe”, long, calli “larghe”, wide, and so on), is perfect to run and play with a ball, and the biggest danger is to get lost or to fall in the water...and you know? The last question with which everyone leaves Venice is always the same: “how would it be to live in Venice?”; the most common and realistic answer is “you either love it or hate it”.
