A friend of mine recently got back from a European tour that included a few days in Venice. He and I agree that the place sucks.
The city is located on the saltwater lagoon that stretches along the Po and the Piave rivers in the mouth of the Adriatic Sea. When the preferred mode of transportation was by water, Venice was a pretty important place for world commerce. The Fourth Crusade was launched from Venice. Numerous fictional works have Venice as its centerpiece. For the pop culture conscious, Madonna filmed a video there (“Like a Virgin”). A quarter of a million people live there. It’s like New Orleans. A stupid place for a town.
Anyway, the main attraction now is that the streets are water and people take motorized water taxis or gondolas to get around. This is very nice, unless it is:
1. Cold…I’ve never had a more bone piercing chill than my 20 minutes in a water taxi.
2. Hot…the stench from the mixture of oil and garbage emanating from the river.
3. Windy…blowing stench or cold…see above.
4. Raining…self-explanatory, I hope
One thing Venetians seem to think is that everyone should pay 10 times the normal rate for everything. Bread, water, a chair to sit in, it’s all obscenely priced. To sit and eat costs more than take-out. They want you to pay, take your food with you and get out.
Wikipedia says: “In the 14th century, many young Venetian men began wearing tight-fitting multicoloured hose, the designs on which indicated the Compagnie della Calza ("Trouser Club") to which they belonged.” Not that there is anything wrong with that...
For the entire history of the town, they have been plagued with floods, but to their credit, they haven’t yet blamed George W. Bush. It took them until the 20th century to realize the place was sinking. Numerous engineering projects have attempted to keep this from happening. It amazes me that two of the more important landmarks in Italy are products of engineering that have made the news in the past twenty years due to efforts to save them from GRAVITY, for Pete’s sake…"Our City of Bilge Water" and the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
It seems to me this city is only there because it WAS there. The best idea, I think, is to just shove it into the water, back up 50 or so miles and start over. But keep making those blinds.
