1936 On the Continent

Station, which is the railway station of Venice.
Venice
    It is a risky undertaking to write about Venice with such limited space at one’s disposal, and I will say at once that as far as the art treasures of the Pearl of the Adriatic I will not make the attempt. A whole volume would be too little. You probably know the anecdote about a famous writer living in Venice who was asked by visiting friends to show them over the town. “Unfortunately,” replied the writer, “I’ve only been living here for forty years, so I do not know Venice yet.” The travel guidesare not so modest, for according to them three days is sufficient for the tourist to get to know the art treasures of Venice. However, when he comes to the itinerary the tourist finds that this is only possible if he sets out in the early morning and dashes about all day, until the churches, museums and galleries are shut for the night. The inevitable result of this method is that when the tourist takes a train at the S. Lucia station or a luxury steamer at the port, he realises that he has seen almost nothing of Venice and only remembers the Palazzo Ducale and San Marco.
How not to see Venice
    No! Even at the risk of being excommunicated by the compilers of guide-books I advise you that if you have only three days to spare for Venice you should only see the most important sights. Walk about in the Doge’s Palace, in St. Mark’s Church, in S. Giorgio Maggiore, in Sant a Maria della Salute, go into the churches you happen to pass and, if you are interested in glass manufacture, you may spend an afternoon at Murano. But if you are wise, gentle reader, and you want to
understand
Venice, you will not dash about Venice with a guide-book in your hand from dawn till dusk. Instead, you will dress at leisure in the morning, then you will take breakfast at one of the cafés on the Piazza, say at the Florian or the Rosa. Then you will have yourself carried up by lift to the top of the Campanile, from where you will survey the city. After this you will walk about until you tire or, in winter, until you get hungry. In the summer you may quite safely leave the churches and pictures alone and take a “vaporetto” to the Lido, the sea-bathing beach of Venice. After a spell in the sea you can have a good meal on the beach, followed by a good rest, after which, if you are so inclined, you can return to the town and continue your walk. For dinner you can go to one of Venice’s characteristic little
osterias
, as, for instance, the Colomba, the Fenice, the Trattoria del Elefante near the Riva dei Schiavoni, or the Trattoria della Vida, which is not far from the Salute, and where you can obtain the special wines we have already mentioned in connection with Verona. For supper at a Venetian
osteria
I would recommend thefollowing. Hors d’œuvres: risi e bisi, motto di zucca, risi e scampi. Fish: Baccala a la Veneziana, bisato su l’ara, bottarga. Meat: Feggato alla Veneziana, cavroman (liberally peppered), lingua alla Veneziana. Vegetables: tegolme, melanzane, patata alla Ven., polenta. Fruit: pere spadone, angurie. Sweets: zaleti or gialetti, crema fritta alla Ven., crocante alla Ven.
    In these small Venetian
osteria
you come to know more about the life of Venice in an hour than by a few days of dashing about.
The Gondola
    Speaking of a knowledge of Venice I must say a few words about the gondola. I have met many foreign tourists in Italy who have declared that they had never floated in a gondola on the maze of Venetian
rios
because that was “so banal.” They preferred to hire a motor-boat! Which is a horrible thing to do. I advise you to ignore what your “experienced” or blasé friends regard as banal or hackneyed. The sole criterion should be what you yourself feel like seeing or doing. A thing experienced by ten thousand other people will be no real experience to you unless you pass through it yourself. And it is in Italy that you will realise fully the meaning of this “banal” truth. Those who have not glided through the Venetian
rios
on a moonlight night, preferably with a companion of the opposite sex, cannot really understand the true atmosphere of this wonder city, and will remember Venice as a combination of dirty water and old stones. The most enjoyable thing you can do in Venice is to float in a gondola. The next best thing is to walk. You need not worry about getting lost, and you need not clutch your map in order to find out every now and then where