First Impressions

Through the window of the Alilaguna, the water shuttle connecting the airport to the Venetian lagoon, I received my first sights of Venice. Seabirds on wooden posts establishing the flow of traffic greeted me to their island, while water taxi drivers zoomed past, disinterested in the next boat full of tourists. After landing on the northern end of the main island of Venice, I walked along small canals, over short bridges, and through tight alleyways on my trip to the south of the lagoon, much as I had imagined. However, every few blocks or so, I’d encounter a large open square, known as a “campo”, where locals would gather to chat, sell tourist items, or play soccer. The contrast in space between the alleys and campos was both disorienting and refreshing. Entering and leaving a campo was akin to escaping and starting a hedge maze, respectively. Each housing complex in the city seemed to don a different color, similar to the canal houses in Amsterdam.

Burano. Photo credit: Amanda Mark

Calle San Biagio. On the Waterfront.

Based off of my first impressions, the Venetian people seem mellower than I had anticipated. They are highly welcoming, but not as temperamental as in the movies. I’ve also experience the sounds of Venice to be more coming from vaporetto engines and conversations than from birds and the sea. On the island San Servolo, once a monastery, then psychiatric hospital, now student and artist community, where I am staying, complete silence is the predominant sound outside, even close to the shore.

By actually traveling to Venice, I have learned that the size of a city is not correlated to the assortment of history, architecture, and people a place contains. 

View from Basilica di San Marco. Doge's Palace on left. Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana on right.

Piazza San Marco