La Serenessima - Why And Why Not

VENICE -- "See Venice before it sinks into the sea." This was one admonition I remember from my younger days in Mindanao. Like all aspiring rural geniuses, I was an avid reader of Life and National Geographic and there was one time when these magazines came to town on the devastating floods that threatened (and still threaten) to destroy Venice forever.

There were many photos of stately palazzos submerged in flood waters and precious art works of Tintoretto and Rubens damaged beyond repair. What grabbed my mind, however, was the thought of a whole city of stone and marble built on woodpiles sunk into the mud, somehow managing to survive for 800 years. One of the grandest Italian city-states, Venice was supreme in the 12th and 13th century, fully the equal of Florence and possible Rome itself, and mistress of a great empire reaching out to the Adriatic and the Eastern Mediterranean.

Of the faded Venetian Republic, Wordsworth once wrote: "Men are we and we must grieve/When even the shade of that which once was great/ Is passed away."

Hollywood filled in the gaps of my extravagant imagination of this dream city. There was the 1960s film, Death in Venice, based on Thomas Mann's novel, which was about old Aschenbach's obsession for a golden youth so close at hand and yet beyond his reach. Another was a Katharine Hepburn romantic comedy during the filming of which, I later read, she fell into a canal and developed a bad infection in one eye.

More recently, I saw The Talented Mr. Ripley with Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow slugging it out before she boards the waiting vaporetto on her long and sad way back to America after the mysterious death of her lover.

The first time I came to know Venice two years ago, it was like venturing into another world and another time, Sure, I came properly cynical about all the tourism hyperbole and the unabashed commercialization of the so-called Venice Experience. But I was still star-struck.

Survival is imperative for every city and Venice is no exception. Without armies of tourists who dutifully ride down the Grand Canal on the No. 82 vaporetto and feed the pigeons on the Piazza San Marco, Venice would have disappeared from the map a long time ago. Most Venetians now live outside Venice in nearby Mestre or as far as Padova. They only come in to service hotels, boutiques and restaurants that cater to the tourist trade.

Without those insatiable tourists, the glass blowers of Murano, the lace makers of Burano and other craftsmen of the city would have little to do and no incentive to stay. And what would those raffish gondoliers whistling Verdi's La donna e mobile be doing without crazy visitors paying inflated fees for a 45-minute round of the canals?

On that first encounter as well as the worshipful repeat visit I made the other week, I was determined to see Venice on my own unhurried terms.

Getting out of Santa Lucia rail station has got to be the most smashing introduction to any city in the world. The only one that comes close is getting out of the Cologne station and finding that city's great gothic cathedral practically staring you to the face.

Venice never fails to fascinate because, unlike such imitators as Stockholm, Amsterdam and St. Petersburg, it remains largely a pedestrian city and the canals have not been superseded by street or car traffic. You either walk or sail around. There are no cars and there are only few places where you can do some biking.

Only for its enduring moral victory against the automobile, Venice tops my list of livable and pedestrian-friendly places.

Much as I'm aware of the priceless art inside the palazzos and museums, I have so far restricted myself to the appreciation of architecture and public areas. I have been to the Piazza San Marco, once aptly described as "the living room of Europe," at all times of the day--early in the morning before the first light of day and the first tourist invaders, at high noon when it's literally swarming with camera-clicking humanity and late at tonight, luckily a moonlit one, after the string orchestra in the last café had signed off with Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

To go around the city, you navigate not so much through streets as through alleys and lanes, many so narrow the buildings practically touch each other and some leading to unnerving dead-ends reminiscent of the well-known maze in England's Hampton Court. But you're never truly lost because you will somehow always find a sign pointing the way to San Marco or Rialto, the most famous of only three bridges spanning the Grand Canal.

What's best to do in Venice when you have time to really soak it in? Spend the day cruising the vast lagoon. Get on the No. 12 Ferry to the Lido and its famed beach, once the scene of elegant 19th century social life. Then proceed from there to the quieter islands of Murano, Burano and Torcello.

Venice wasn't Queen of the Adriatic for nothing and her loveliest views are bestowed upon those who approach, in trembling adoration, from the sea.

Nelson A. Navarro's e-mail address: <[email protected]>