The groan of the water taxi. I grip the arm of my plastic lawn chair.
With a lurch, we began to motor down the Grand Canal. I’m sitting first on the bow the lights of Venice pooling past. Purple-white glittering on the water’s chop. There, a statue in the vestibule of a building submerged to the waste. What to do but photograph. I photograph. Ahead of us a high marble bridge from which tourists snap photos their periodic flashing some signaled way of saying “we wish to capture it too.” Riding the water taxi felt like winding through a museum watched by visitors.
It was a long ride to San Marco. I disembarked. A warm muggy night with water on the air. My expectations were not high — they had been high but after two days they had lowered. Venice had been told to me by almost everyone not just the airlines or HostelWorld but also my parents. They had honeymooned here — each gushed in their own way of its particular beauty. Was it beautiful? Yes. But a strange place to visit alone.
How did I get here? By plane. Then crowded bus to crowded hostel to crowded bus to crowded water taxi and now, a square, somewhat breathable. Before that, where had I been? Stockholm — where I’d made a number of pleasant acquaintances that became friendships I hope to sustain. Then Dubrovnik, with old friends, no effort required.
I came to Venice low on energy and wanting friends without wanting to make friends.
This paradox was compounded by the fact that Venice may be the last place in Europe hospitable to solo travelers. I came to this realization after my USA running singlet had been stolen, my A&O hostel bed given to somebody else partway through my stay, and my attempts at amicability met with steely disinterest from more than a few day trippers who only wanted to say they had seen Venice. In and out. This was all a numbers game. Ride the number 2 bus. So crowded the driver didn’t bother to ask for tickets. Hands in pockets the whole way mind trained to sense any disturbance to the zipper of your backpack.
Despite this all, I was in Venice. And yes I’m prone to overthinking but action is the best anecdote to misery. So I made a night of it. I rode the water taxi (just as good as the gondolas but far less expensive). I ordered a glass of wine in San Marco. I sat and listened to a quarter of men including the most animated clarinet player I had ever encountered ring off classical tunes with a gusto that made me smile. I raised my glass. Cheers.
There were children in the square who ran and splashed in the tide which rose and filled the square and reflected the myriad lights of piazza San Marco like one thousand gold lily pads. I watched the children chase and shriek and fall willingly into the water to make liquid snow angels. This particular gleeful spontaneity reminded me of something that had happened to me earlier in the day. During my run in Parco San Guiliano, I had stopped to do pull-ups with a group of strangers. They did not speak English and I did not speak Italian, and yet we encouraged each other, bumped fists, cheered and jeered, did the things that friends might do and this brought me the closest to feeling un-alone as I had in Venice.
I walked once around the square and admitted to myself this was a beautiful place I did not like very much. How different was Venice from my parents’ Venice? Was the island’s increasing commercialization to blame? For what really is a place where 70 percent of the local population has relocated? Is it the same?
I thought briefly: Trade gave Venice art and buildings and culture and now its trade was tourism. Those tourists obscure the very thing they come to see: Venice, whatever that means to them. Maybe the merchant island had fallen at the hands of the same force that shaped it.
I considered this fancifully while waiting to board the last water taxi to the Santa Lucia station. The ride back was long and dark and not nearly as cheerful. I boarded a bus destined for the mainland. It took a round-about-route back to Maestro, where I was staying. For nearly forty-five minutes I gripped the sweaty metal railing above my head and considered tightlipped and tired there’s nowhere more lonely than a bus filled with strangers.
I boarded a van to Ljubljana the next morning and after extending my stay here to almost a full week and making a handful of new friends and exploring this green capital-city-college-town interlaced with running paths and affordable street food I can assuredly say I’m doing much better. Slovenia is my sleeper-pick for “place that will explode and potentially be corrupted by the forces of tourism” in the future. So buy real-estate in Ljubljana while you can. You’ll thank me later.