Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
6. Venice: The Meeting of East and West
When the Venetians stroll out in the evening, they do not avoid the Piazza San Marco,
where the tourists are… The Venetians go to look at the tourists, and the tourists look
back at them. It is all for the ear and eye, this city, but primarily for the eye. Built on
water, it is an endless succession of reflections and echoes…
— Mary McCarthy, Venice Observed , 1961
Venice! The word immediately conjures up a collage of wonderful images—romance, in-
trigue, exotic travel, Carnival, a cappuccino or glass of wine at a café in Piazza San Marco
while strands of classical music from a nearby quartet float past. Marco Polo, East meets
West, narrow and grandiose canals (but not roads), and most of all, gondolas slowly mean-
dering through these waterways, rowed by high-spirited young men dressed in the familiar
blue and white uniform of the gondolier. As the wise traveler sets foot in Venice for the first
time, all of these images compete for attention, causing the mind to jump from one sensory
experience to another. Arthur Symons once remarked that a “realist, in Venice, would be-
come a romantic simply by mere faithfulness to what he saw before him.” [72]
No matter how little travelers know of Venice, anyone who has ever contemplated a vis-
it to Italy is aware of how completely different Venice is when compared to other Italian cit-
ies and to urban areas across the globe. These differences are defined not only by the city's
totally different contemporary visual images but also by its unique past, a past so at variance
with all other urban centers that Venice occupies a critically important spot on the list of
must-see places in the world. As the noted American author Truman Capote once observed,
“Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.” [73]
 
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