Destination: Italy

The people who run the big sights in Venice have generally welcomed us to film, but only when they’re closed to the public. Consequently, we populate big, vacant halls with me, our producer Simon, and — if we can talk him or her into it — a reluctant guard. On this morning, we were on the balcony of St. Mark’s Basilica. The church was closed for 20 more minutes, but I noticed the line had already formed and was growing rapidly. It was fun to see how everyone had their various sources of information to prep for the experience. I didn’t see any of my guidebooks…I’d like to think it’s because my readers find ways to avoid these lines. (In the case of St. Mark’s, you can check a bag nearby for free, and your deposit receipt lets you slip directly in.)

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

This year in Italy, when I comment to locals that I’ve noticed no decrease in crowds even with the slow economy, they say, “Yes, but spending habits are much different.” Many more tourists are blitzing in from cruise ships and cheap mainland hotels — meaning there are fewer overnights in hotels and fewer dinners sold. So, the cafés on St. Mark’s Square may be pretty empty in the evenings, even with the allure of their orchestras, but crowds still fill the midday streets and blockbuster sights. Getting up to film for a 7:00 a.m. appointment at the Doge’s Palace (what a treat to be in there all alone!), I was struck by how the square is an entirely different experience without the mobs. The simple moral: Get up early and stay out late, and you’ll have Venice all to yourself…except for a few joggers.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

Forgive me for not dressing up for this, but while showering early one morning, the spirit moved me to share a peek at life as a tourist in Venice — and to show how the demand for private bathrooms in once-spacious elegant rooms has resulted in rooms that are less spacious and elegant, but more convenient.

If you can’t see the video below, watch it on YouTube.

I’m in Venice doing a few days of research for my guidebook and preparing for our TV shoot. I’ll be meeting my crew soon to make two new shows on Venice. I shaved the beard and got a haircut, and am excited to switch from guidebook-research mode into TV-production mode.

Venice feels wonderful. The city’s packed, there’s very little scaffolding to frustrate our filming, and I’m learning lots from great local guides.

Enjoying a walk, I decided that when you pass over a bridge, you should look both ways — as you may be hit with a lovely view. At a restaurant, I was offered wine sparkling or flat and water with or without bubbles. I like my water with bubbles and my wine without. It’s fun watching people in a restaurant carefully look like they are not enjoying the music when a wandering accordionist plays for tips.

Things are changing in Venice. I passed a characteristic old man with a cane…whistling “Yellow Submarine.”There were once four McDonald’s in town, but now there’s only one. Most of the glass trinkets that are sold are Chinese, and it’s undercutting the economy of the local glassmakers to the degree that there’s a strong push to encourage people to buy genuine Venetian glass with the Murano seal. The population continues to drop. An electric readerboard in a pharmacy window ticks down with each person who moves out or dies. Today’s population: 58,756. Yesterday, it was 58,759. Immigrants are taking the places of those moving out. Sometimes it seems that restaurants and market stalls are run by as many Sri Lankans and Chinese as Italians. There’s a huge increase in Russian tourists, and when a menu appears in several languages, one of them is often Russian. If you see a wedding party posing in front of a famous sight, it’s most likely a big shot from Eastern Europe or China, not a Venetian.

Enjoying a six-hour tour with Michael Broderick (Venicescapes) on Venice’s Age of Decadence, I learned that the notion of “Exceptionalism” is not unique to Tea Party Americans. Venetians believed that God led their forefathers across the lagoon to found a “New Jerusalem”. Unlike any other great Italian city, Venice was Christian from the start. When the Enlightenment challenged the whole notion of Christianity, it undermined the Venetians’ self-image, and the ever-conservative government wanted nothing to do with it. With the establishment of trade routes outside the Mediterranean and the ideas and spirit of the Enlightenment bringing on the modern world, Venice chose denial, and — like the string quartet on the Titanic (or climate change deniers today) — they just kept playing.
I also learned that every big shot with a palace needed a den of iniquity in the town center — a “little house,” literally a casino. That term originated here, although gambling was among the tamest of the activities that took place in many of those original casinos. Husbands and wives generally each had their own. Men did the business-networking thing. Women hosted entertainers, writers, and artists. While there were about a hundred casinos in Venice in the 18th century, almost none survive.