Setting foot in Venice, I was excited to see the glittering domes of San Marco and the gilded ceiling of the Palaccio Ducale. A feast for the senses, my guidebook promised. But the first moments felt less feast and more affront. Piazza San Marco was crammed with tour guides waving umbrellas and rival hen-parties stabbing the crowds with their selfie sticks.
I felt stuck in a Where’s Wally, or (if I’m feeling cultural) Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights.
So I dismissed my students (for it was the end of year school trip) and improvised an escape route; speed-walking past shop windows which were crammed with magnets and socks and glassware and pasta and spices and lace, and then I crossed paths with a pushchair filling the width of the alleyway and was absorbed into a queue of muttering backtracking tourists.
Turning back, turning a few corners, I was spat out onto a tiny bridge, under which a stately gondola glided, the gentleman-gondolier in full golden garb (plus cigarette) and a huge drooling hound beside him, surveying the turquoise waters. I looked up, and there it was, the Bridge of Sighs, which I would later visit and see the preserved scrawls of prisoners nail-scratching their final words. For now I turned around.
I glimpsed an alleyway, and from there my escape unfurled. I selected the smallest alley whenever I could, and soon lost the crowds. Without them, the air felt immediately cooler, and the shade soothed my headache. Venice seemed to expand before me. I noticed things. The uneven dusty cobbles, the curls of peeling paint on shop fronts, the fresh laundry dangling from an upper window, and the breathes of salty fishy air.
I almost missed the unassuming doorway sunk into a brick wall, beside which a chalkboard promised Prosecco & Cicchetti for 5€. I ducked down the steps. The air inside was tomb-damp. It was dark. It was marvellously silent. I drank a deep in-breathe, letting my eyes close, feeling my blood rush. I became aware of my body, of how my shoulder blades trickled with sweat, of how my temples pounded. My hips were tight from walking. I eased my feet from their sandals. They were hot and itchy with blisters.
The exquisite relief was interrupted by the cough of a waiter. With a terse smile, he offered me a bulbous-shaped bottle. It was so chilled the condensation trickled down the outside. I shook my head and pointed to the San Pellegrino. With the kindly yet disappointed sigh, he added ice to a tumbler.
I closed my eyes. The cubes clinked as I took my first sip. The pleasure of the cool bubbles, sparkling enough to cut my tongue!
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