Eat, Gay, Love: Romanticising Myself in Venice
I leave the gallery and head further down the side streets, intending to visit a church I like called Salute. On my way I walk past one of the two Fortuny shops and I can't stop myself from going in. Fortuny is an exclusive fashion house famous for its interior decor and textiles, including its collection of dresses made from pleated silk to look like the garments worn by Greek statues. They were a favourite of Casati, and I have been receiving their e-newsletter for a few years now, daydreaming about buying a Delphos dress or a velvet kimono jacket.
The shop is silent, with only one very chic assistant folding scarves. I walk to the rack of clothes and just look, not touching anything. Eventually she asks if I’d like to try anything on. I almost say yes but chicken out at the last minute, I know I’ll never be able to afford anything I really want. I ask if I can take pictures and she smiles and shakes her head. I stop to look at a book on my way out. I have a birthday coming up, maybe if it’s good enough I can treat myself. It’s very thick with lots of pictures but is actually quite dull, focusing on the textile production side of the design, not the fantasy and imagination of the clothes. I leave with nothing.
I arrive at Salute, a huge dome on the canal side as the island comes to a point facing out into the lagoon. The church façade is being restored and is hidden from view by scaffolding and a gigantic advert for Louis Vuitton. I don’t stop, instead I walk past to the edge of the lagoon. A single ornate lamppost stands here and I am suddenly reminded of the entrance into Narnia. I sit on the quayside, my feet dangling about the lapping water. I can see the Campanile tower from here to my left, Giudecca and my hostel to the right, and some of the grand hotels on the Lido across the waves. The sun has started to set and it feels warm on my face. I feel content. I sort of want to cry.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___
I’ve felt like I wanted to cry all day, at various points when walking around the city. It’s a kind of relief that I made it back, a thankfulness to be by myself, a joy in just letting myself exist in such beautiful surroundings, but also an indescribable sense of loss, of spiritual loneliness. It’s not that there is something missing, but perhaps a question of is this it? Is this everything my life is leading me to? I decide I want a drink before dinner, so I go in search of a bar.In one of the alleys I walk down is an inlaid mosaic tile that reads Salviati with an arrow pointing north; I read it (wrongly) as Salvation, this way.
As Evelyn Waugh wrote in Brideshead Revisited, Venice is the one town in Italy where no one has gone to church. Joy here is found in dark corners and shady courtyards. I stop at a street stand selling Aperol for 2,5 euros and drink it on the steps of a bridge. They don’t add soda water to the spritz here like they do at home. The barman just takes a bottle of Aperol in one hand, Prosecco in the other, one, two, done, then it’s yours, sweet and refreshing in the dusty sunlight. I carry on with the vague idea of visiting a canal side bar where as a child I remember being entranced by two of the most glamorous Venetian women I have ever seen.
It is easy to spot true Venetians in the city, they are always old, rich and exquisitely dressed. No one else can afford to live here. It’s one of the reasons Venice famously has no real nightlife, all the workers have to get the last boats back to Giudecca or Jesolo on the mainland. There is one nightclub called Piccolo Mondo Disco, open only one day a week, and even then is closed by 1am. I finally find a table at the bar in Campo Santa Maria Formosa and have another Aperol. This is a great place for people watching. I observe a young couple laden with designer shopping bags sprawl out in their chairs, drinking Camparis. Old women in linen dresses and silk scarves greet each other. I dip into my book on the Unfinished Palazzo again. An old man with an accordion sitting by the church starts playing Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Is this real life? I order another Aperol.
The woman dining alone was fascinating to me. She wore a cream silk shirt and had gold chains on her neck and wrist. Her hair looked as though it had been worn up all day but let loose during this meal.
The restaurant I choose for dinner is one that I know well, the Barbanera, close to Santa Maria Formosa. I had thought of finding somewhere else but it looked inviting and I was worried that I might have left it too late to look for something new. Walking in I can see a decent amount of other customers, some Italian families, a few couples, and a middle aged woman, also dining alone. I am thankful for my choice, relieved that I wasn’t the only person in the restaurant. I am immediately given a complimentary peach Bellini and a basket of bread sticks whilst I peruse the menu. I order a pizza and a carafe of white wine and let my attention travel over the other diners. The families are chattering away, straw gondolier hats bought from tourist stalls stacked on an empty chair. The children looked tired but are absorbed in their plates of fresh pasta. A stylishly dressed couple arrive and are lead to a table in the window where they order cocktails and fried squid. The woman dining alone has her own bottle of wine and is working her way through a delicious looking selection of seafood. She calls the waiter over to ask him something about the fish, which she writes down in a notebook on her table. She tells him it was divine. My own food arrives. The pizza is hot and the wine is cool. I feel very comfortable.
The woman dining alone was fascinating to me. She wore a cream silk shirt and had gold chains on her neck and wrist. Her hair looked as though it had been worn up all day but let loose during this meal. I wondered if she was in town for the Biennale, as I was. She looked like someone who spent time in galleries. Her face was a little flushed, either from the heat or the wine. Her hands moved elegantly. She reminded me of Katharine Hepburn in the 1955 film Summertime.
“The woman dining alone was fascinating to me. She wore a cream silk shirt and had gold chains on her neck and wrist. Her hair looked as though it had been worn up all day but let loose during this meal.”
Hepburn plays a middle aged American woman who travels to Venice for the first time by herself and falls in love with a married Venetian shopkeeper. The film is incredible, by far the best and most evocative film about the city that I have ever seen. Directed by David Lean, it’s filmed completely on location, following Hepburn through sunny piazzas and down winding alleys, lingering on bridges and sighing with happiness and longing into espressos in the San Marco cafes. Before this, Hollywood made do with weird stylised mock ups of the historic buildings, as can be seen in the surreal Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers film Top Hat, black polished floors representing the canals.
But location shots aren’t the only thing that makes Summertime great. Hepburn’s performance is piercing, a woman overjoyed to finally being seeing the world, but still quietly overwhelmed by a sense of loneliness and isolation. Even when she is in the throes of passion in her love affair, there is an underlying sense of sadness, unbridled joy underscored by abstract longing. What is she longing for? More. More what? What am I longing for? Am I Katharine Hepburn? Is that why I’ve felt like crying all day? Is this a feeling that Venice itself invokes? Will I fall in love whilst I am here and then have a tearful goodbye at the train station (or boat stop)?
The shop that her lover presides over is in Campo San Barnaba, next to a workshop that made masks where my parents once bought me a birthday present, a black velvet cat mask with silver whiskers. I don’t order a dessert. I’ve never liked Italian desserts, too much of an artificial sugar taste, gelato from a street vendor is much better. As I ask for my bill I feel expansive and tell the waiter that I first came to this restaurant fifteen years ago, and it’s still the best in Venice. I sound like the woman dining alone. The waiter smiles a lot and brings me a free Limoncello. The whole bill for my meal is just under 25 euros. Incredible.
I walk back through the dark streets to San Marco, stopping to pick up a gelato on the way. My favourite flavour is Stracciatella, a creamy vanilla with pieces of dark chocolate embedded in it. The square is lit up all round the edges where the bars are. The quartets are still playing. I walk past a couple waltzing to the Blue Danube. I sit on the steps that encompass the grand piazza.
Water has started coming up through the drains in the middle of the square, it must be high tide in the lagoon. The lights twinkle in the puddles it makes. I see a girl crouch down next to it so she can take a picture of the basilica and it’s rippling reflection in the dark water. I check the time. It’s after 11, I need to catch a boat to Giudecca by 11:30. I stretch out my legs and feel the warm paving stones under my feet.
This morning I woke up in rainy Brighton and now I’m here, extravagantly fed and watered, full of emotion, already artistically rejuvenated and excited for the days that lie ahead. I get up and head towards the boat stop. This time the vaporetto does stop at Zitelle and I walk into the hostel lounge and bar. It’s busy and inviting. I order one last Aperol thinking that at least it will help ensure a speedy descent into slumber in that hot room. I sit at a table by myself and make some notes in my travel diary of the things I saw that day. I half listen to a group speaking English near me. A group of Americans on a gap year are making friends with a group of Australians, also on a gap year. It sounds hideous. I finish my drink and head up to bed. The overhead bunk is still empty so I change into sleep shorts quickly and easily before climbing into bed and closing my eyes. Tomorrow I will visit the Biennale, but today was artistically fulfilling too. All days can be artistically fulfilling, but this one was excessive in the best possible way.
Words: Misha MN
