The Merchants of Venice
May 22nd 2006 12:14
My next stop on my Italian jaunt is Venezia. Venice: one of few cities literally built on water. Laneways are replaced with canals, cars with gondolas and people with fish. Ok, so that last bit isn’t true, but the street vendors will do everything but make guppy faces to sell you a dancing Mickey Mouse. A close friend of mine was hoodwinked by such a salesman within minutes of being in the island lagoon.
“How does he make the Mickey dance? Is it on a string?”
“It’s the music!” the salesman insisted. The velveteen Mickey continues dancing in front of the boom box seemingly without aid. And my poor gullible friend bought it. When we found a quiet nook to test the dancing Disney icon ourselves, lo and behold – a limp pile of Mickey. Well what a shock.
This is not to suggest that the Venetians are charlatans. Not by any measure of the imagination. But the steady flow of ignorant tourists with Euros to burn attracts cheap and nasty mementos on every corner – and voluble salesmen to go with them. That’s the bad news. The good news is – the cityscape is like an idyll borrowed from some children’s book fantasia. C.S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll would have done well to have conjured up such beauty.
Just getting around Venice can make you feel an artist in residence. Should you choose to take a gondola – that sweeping timber arc divinely slicing open the crystalline floor – you will have the privilege of travelling in style and grace.
Some say that the history of the gondola is the history of Venice…
“How does he make the Mickey dance? Is it on a string?”
“It’s the music!” the salesman insisted. The velveteen Mickey continues dancing in front of the boom box seemingly without aid. And my poor gullible friend bought it. When we found a quiet nook to test the dancing Disney icon ourselves, lo and behold – a limp pile of Mickey. Well what a shock.
This is not to suggest that the Venetians are charlatans. Not by any measure of the imagination. But the steady flow of ignorant tourists with Euros to burn attracts cheap and nasty mementos on every corner – and voluble salesmen to go with them. That’s the bad news. The good news is – the cityscape is like an idyll borrowed from some children’s book fantasia. C.S. Lewis and Lewis Carroll would have done well to have conjured up such beauty.
Just getting around Venice can make you feel an artist in residence. Should you choose to take a gondola – that sweeping timber arc divinely slicing open the crystalline floor – you will have the privilege of travelling in style and grace.
Some say that the history of the gondola is the history of Venice…
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Comment by oodie
Reading your stories makes me almost feel I was there with you! Great writing!!
Comment by Anthony
I appreciate the feedback. Very kind of you.
Cheers
Anthony