VENICE -- All arrivals in foreign cities are difficult, but arriving in Venice is difficult in its own way.
Why, even so sophisticated a traveler as humorist Robert Benchley was moved to cable home upon first arriving in Venice: "Streets full of water; please advise."
Remembering this witty summation of Venice's greatest tourist challenge brings a smile to the face of one American in Venice -- we shall call her Signora S. -- as she notes the dazed looks of those just arriving in La Serenissima. It is, as the signora well knows, a not-so-serenissima experience.
First-time visitors to Venice are particularly distressed at finding themselves and their luggage deposited by a vaporetto -- the local water bus -- not at their hotel but at some nearby location.
There is no more forlorn sight, observes Signora S. from her vantage point at the San Marco landing, than that of a confused tourist attempting to drag several pieces of luggage through the maze of alleys in search of his hotel. Si, si, of course, there are porters who, for a price, will drag it for you; the trick is finding such a helpmate before someone else finds him.
And woe be unto the tourist who arrives at the Piazza San Marco during the acque alte, as Venetians call the high tides that occasionally flood the square. Signora S. has seen such a sight, and a pathetic one it is, too: Tourists, pulling their luggage behind them, are forced to walk across the square on narrow planks supported by metal trestles that rise a few feet above the water.
Water, it seems, is very much on the American signora's mind today. She is about to catch the No. 1 vaporetto, a water bus that stops at every landing along the two-and-a-half mile Grand Canal. She could take the faster motoscato, an express bus with fewer stops, but that would defeat the purpose of her trip: to continue her self-appointed task of cataloguing the 200 or so palazzi along the banks of the Grand Canal. Or, as the Venetians call it, the Canalazzo.
Si, si, of course such a listing of Venetian palazzi has been done before -- by scholars and the like -- but not by Signora S. If there is one maxim the American signora violently disagrees with, it is Gertrude Stein's pronouncement that "If it can be done, why do it?" Indeed, she approaches life from the other end, thinking always, "If it can be done, why not do it?"
So with great confidence and little justification for such an attitude, the signora has set out with a small satchel containing three reference books on the Canalazzo, its history and architecture; several No. 2 pencils with erasers; and a sheath of notes culled from such publications as Women's Wear Daily and Vogue magazine.
Also, in her purse she carries a dog-eared copy of "Harrap's Italian Vocabulary: 6,000 Words and Phrases in 65 Subject Areas." To facilitate her coversational skills, she has marked with little yellow Post-It notes several subject areas. Describing Things. Greetings and Polite Phrases. Likes and Dislikes. How Are You Feeling? Shopping.
The ride on the No. 1 vaporetto, which she boards at the San Marco landing just outside her hotel, takes 45 minutes each way. Signora S.'s plan is to look only at the palazzi on the left bank going up and, on the return trip, only those on the right bank. Focus, she has learned from studying her cat during his numerous daily mealtimes, is all.
As she looks about, a thought occurs to the signora, one she writes down in her notebook: If Florence is the city where one goes for a room with a view, Venice must be the place to come for a canal with a view.
It is like nothing else in the world, this broad S-shaped curve of water that runs through the center of the city. Although Signora S. has taken this ride dozens of times, the views still give her intense feelings of delightissima.
Palaces on both sides rise like cliffs out of the water in which their images are mirrored. Here and there one can see a secret garden through a gate, a bit of wisteria hanging over stone walls. Pots of red geraniums crowd the palace balconies, their flowers reflected like red brush strokes in the lapping water. Blue-and-white striped mooring poles, odd cousins to the lowly red-and-white barber pole, mark the entrances to each palazzo's private watergate. And all along the canal, tethered outside the palazzi are the gondolas, riding up and down on the water like restless black steeds.
The Canalazzo is the Fifth Avenue of Venice, a posh thoroughfare where the city's richest families built fabulous palaces to showcase their wealth. The history of Venice lies in the names of these buildings.
The 15th-century Palazzo Contarini, for example, is one of several palaces on the Grand Canal that belonged to the Contarini, a family that produced eight doges, as the rulers of medieval Venice were called. And the regal Palazzo Corner della Ca' Grand, to cite another, was commissioned by Jacopo Corner; his family produced four doges and a queen, Caterina Cornaro, who ruled Cyprus from 1472 until 1488, when she ceded the island to her native Venice.
Some of the great palazzi are still owned by wealthy Venetian families. Others became hotels such as the Gritti Palace, the Europa, the Monaco; or public museums, most notably Palazzo Grassi; or headquarters for private business firms.
But all this information, of course, resides in the books Signora S. has packed in her satchel. It is not her intention to duplicate such material, only to update it and add, perhaps, a more personal touch. Now, as the vaporetto passes by the dozen or so palazzi that line the Canalazzo between the basin of San Marco and the Accademia Bridge, the American signora can be seen scribbling furiously in her notebook:
Palazzo Dario -- Said to be owned for the last year by Woody Allen who is said not to live there. Very, very tilted in water. Tiltissima! as the Italians might say. Seems to have sophisticated satellite system on roof.
Palazzo Brandolini -- Owned by legendary beauty Contessa Cristiana Brandolini, sister of legendary Fiat tycoon Gianni Agnelli. Talk of the town is that San Francisco art patron and Chanel afficionado Dodie Rosekrans -- who has just leased an apartment in the palazzo -- is planning to install in it a full-size guillotine covered with the Chanel logo that she recently purchased in Paris.
Palazzo Venier dei Leoni -- Although most tourists know this odd looking one-story palazzo as the Peggy Guggenheim museum, it was originally intended to be an enormous residence for the Venier family. Alas, only the ground floor was completed, thanks to the interference of a neighbor who objected that it would block his view. For 200 years it stood empty, until Peggy G. bought it in 1949. She lived there with her dogs and her modern art til she died in 1979.
Just as Signora S. begins to write about the palazzo from which the poet Byron, after attending a dinner party, threw himself, fully-dressed, into the water to swim back to his own lodgings, something catches her eye.
Through the shaded depths of a calle leading off the Grand Canal, she sees a blur of color -- moving color -- ascending and descending. When she puts on her eyeglasses, the blur of color resolves itself into the figures of tourists, crossing a little bridge over a side canal. There are more than 400 such bridges in Venice, all with steps leading up on one side and down on the other.
She watches now as the tourists ascend and descend, the reflections of their brightly colored shirts moving across the sunlit water beneath. Why, it's just like Marcel Duchamp's famous depiction of "Nude Descending a Staircase!" thinks Signora S. Nothing less than the de-composition of motion! If only she'd seen this before Duchamp had taken paintbrush in hand. It might have changed the history of art!
Too excited to continue her scholarly work on the "Palazzi of the Canalazzo," Signora S. leaves the vaporetto at the Santa Maria del Giglio landing. She wants to enter the heart of the calli, to follow the tiny lanes into the dark corners of Venezia, to go where few tourists have gone. She also wants to find a good spot to have lunch. The signora is starving and, alas, has forgotten to pack a calcium-and-carob bar.
Her search for food takes her past the still-burned-out Teatro La Fenice, the once jewel-like opera house where La Traviata and Rigoletto debuted. Although the Campo San Fantin seems less lively than it was before the fire that gutted La Fenice, the signora is pleased to see there are a number of inviting trattorias scattered around the campo. One, in particular, seems pleasantly crowded. She heads in its direction.
It is not until the signora enters the cafe that she realizes a wedding party is going on inside. Standing in the shadows, she watches as champagne glasses are raised to toast the bride and groom. A sense of abbondanza fills the room. There is music and laughter, the tables groan under the weight of glorious food, little girls in long dresses dance with each other, young couples hold hands.
Only the Italians are capable of infusing life with such joy, thinks Signora S. as she turns to leave.
"Benvenuta, signora!" calls out a middle-aged woman standing nearby. She is wearing a white linen pantsuit, its jacket covered with an elegant white organdy shawl.
"Buon giorno," answers Signora S., explaining, half-in-English and half-in-Italian, that she is not a member of the wedding and hopes she has not intruded. She turns to leave.
"No matter!" says the woman in white who, it turns out, is the mother-of-the-bride. "You are alone?"
"Si, si."
"Then you are invited to stay! Come, join the party!"
From such chance encounters, Signora S. has learned, come the true rewards of travel. It is an afternoon -- one ending with the American signora taking a wedding photo of the entire Bertucci family -- that eclipses even her quasi-scholarly work on the history of Venetian palazzi.
Later, walking back to her hotel through a deserted calle, Signora S. hears the sounds of a clarinet coming from an open window above her. She stops, listens for a few moments to the scratchy sounds and then recognizes it: an old Artie Shaw recording of "Begin the Beguine."
She walks on, turning the corner that leads to the wide expanse of blue water in the Basin of San Marco. The clarinet's lilting voice follows, turning the corner with her. Never has the Cole Porter song seemed sweeter or more poignant to the signora than it does now, on this day of a wedding in Venice.
Next Wednesday: through the Hidden Venice, on foot and in a pair of new Pradas.
Reprints of "Postmark Venice," as well as the award-winning 1997 series "Postmark Paris," by Alice Steinbach, will be available at the conclusion of this series for $9.95 by calling SunSource at 410-332-6800.