Silence in Disneyland

Just one further thing that I have to mention before I stop crapping on about Venice.

Talk to people about Venice and the first reaction you tend to get is a 'wow' if they have not been there, or you get a kind of sneer and a remark about 'Disneyland for Grown-Ups',which is the precursor to the slightly embarassed admission that they have.

Its is true that the really touristy bits are genuinley and dismayingly awful. One night, when we where sitting in our rose garden, looking over the grand canal to the people dining on the opposite shore, we had a thought that maybe it would be nice on a sunny evening to eat while watching those glossy water taxis drift by. Perhaps, we reasoned, even though the restaurants in question were off the the horridist street we had found, once you were in looking out it would be alright.

So, we slipped past the African guys selling fake handbags and ventured over the Ponte Scalzi,the density of persons-per-square-foot increasing with every step. We peered past the glitter of gelati vendors, walls festooned with low-rent mini-masks and bad t-shirts and through to the restaurants mining the bottomless income-earning potential of their canal-side tables. The first three or four didn't warrant a second look. We were about to turn back, but dedided to creep ahead just a bit more.

Suddenly, to our relief,we were greeted with lovely old rugs draping over antique furtniture in a rather peaceful and elegant looking hotel lobby. With the confidence that stems from Green Coat Magic, we strolled in. Through the glass doors directly in front we could see white table cloths, tragically empty glasses and sunlight glinting on the water. This was more like it.

We had nearly reached the door to the restaurant when suddenly it came. With a pant and a crackle, a slightly off-key 'O sole mia'(sic) boomed out from the terrace, tune favoured of advertising industry gondoliers the world over (though apparently its not even a Venetian song). Worse, it was accompanied by the amplified puffs, clicks and crackles that accompanies bad cabaret acts the world over. Yes, there was a live (though possibly only just) singer in a bad suit creeping his way between the tables.

I looked at J. He looked at me. Without breaking silence or stride we pirouetted on our heels and walked straight out again, back through the souvenier stalls, back over the bridge, back to the safety of Santa Croce, on OUR side of the canal.

Which brings me, after that rather lengthy and unintended digression, to my point. Which is silence. In amongst all the Disney madness of a city that lives and breathes tourism, is was surprisingly easy to find silence. It was in in Santa Croce, San Polo and Dorsoduro, anyway. All the tourists didn't seem comfortable with the notion of getting lost in this maze of lanes where no car has ever rolled, so in that part of town all it took was a little wander down a narow lane,and suddenly you would be in the cool shade, with the old walls like canyons brushing your shoulders and geraniums glinting from widow-boxes in the top floor. A square opens in a glare of light and there is women playing with their babies, boys doing their best to skittle old men with their soccer balls, and old women watching over it all. Turn down another lane and you meet an old lady with a walking stick who waves and says something to you in Italian. You smile, continue on your way, and reach a dead end: canal and no bridge, and which point you realise she telling you that down there was only 'aqua'.

You thank her sheepishly as you return,and she smiles tolerantly in a way that looks like it probably translates as 'the idiots never stop and listen'.