Venice Do's and Don'ts - Pt 2.3
June 3rd 2006 07:44
My trip to Saint Mark’s Basilica was fairly uneventful. Sure, I saw the outside, but as far as interior exploits go? The ‘When Good K-9’s Go Bad’ tour of Venice would have to wait for another trip. For a start, the line was incredibly long, winding its way all the way back to Milan. By the time I reached the front, my Swiss female friend had arrived on a ferry, having flown direct from Switzerland, and I was forced to jettison my site-seeing agenda.
That said, I’ve spoken to many travellers about their Venice experiences (when I say many I mean a few) and they all tell the same tale: a long line waiting to get into the Basilica. And do they remember what was inside?
Oh yeah – that statue!
Brilliant.
The thing is, all the interiors of great Italian buildings look the same. Sure, the trimmings vary, a little more gold in this one, a little more pewter in that one, some grey marble here, some blue marble there; but ultimately, without conscientious photography and parallel note-taking coded for each photo, you will never remember what you saw and where you saw it. I certainly don’t and I have a memory like an elephant on a dexie trip. All I have are a few postcards to prove that I was there. The ceiling of…something. The conical at….somewhere else. The archways, replete with sacred geometry, of…ah…its on the tip of my tongue….g-fff – fgrrrr..b.abba gg…lellellee…see that catch in the cricket?! Faaaark. Ponting has to be the greatest fieldsman of all time. Better than Jonty Rhodes. As if he’s not. He is! Get out.
I’m confident that my experience is not extraordinary. Most people waltz in with their tricky little guidebooks, and follow a fairly entrenched behavioural pattern: peer down, peer up; peer down, peer up; does it match the picture? Wow!
I never did this myself. But I watched countless others do it, time after time. Most of them were American. And that’s cool. I mean, it’s the tourist’s prerogative, right? Obstreperous backpacking huarache-wearing idiots trudging their tanned legs through the world’s most revered and sacred buildings. They have their vices, and I have mine. So my advice is this: either take your photos and your notes, and go home boasting about your knowledge of European cathedrals…or don’t, and accept that you will know no more than you did before when you was sitting on yaw ass eating fish fingers. A bilious image, if I do say so myself.
In the words of comedian Mike Wilmot: “How you going there fattie?”
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