 I
am recovering from a first visit to Venice, but only slowly. The most
amazing thing about the place was that it is far more Venice-like than
one could ever have imagined. I’ve seen the photos we’ve all seen --the
picture postcard views of the Rialto Bridge and the Grand Canal
architecture and a number of the famous paintings by Canaletto from the
eighteenth century. So I did expect those historic views to be preserved
rather jealously and commercially and I was not wildly surprised or
disappointed there. But it all goes on and on for mile after waterfront
mile! Hundreds of elaborately decorated buildings, Moorish influenced
architecture in confectionery colours, huge wedding cake churches,
hundreds of little canals and simply thousands of boats. Every street
and alleyway seemed both clean and picturesque, every square had its
church, outdoor café and market stall and every little canal bridge and
reflection was worth a photograph. As you can perhaps tell I am more
than a little smitten – nay, besotten.
For anyone even
mildly interested in boats and water transport the place is heavenly.
The Grand Canal slices through the main island of Venice proper in a
grand S shape that acts as the main artery for the network of smaller
canals that service the whole city. Some of those are quite wide with
plenty of passing space for a couple of delivery boats as well as moored
boats on either side, but most are smaller, barely a couple of barges
wide. Barge is not really the right word for although carrying capacity
is important to earn a living they are also built for speed,
manoeuvrability and seaworthiness to cope with the weather and wider
waters of the outer waterways and the outer lagoon. They are also built
with an eye to traditional utilitarian grace, as you would expect from
an aesthetic Italian eye and the only truly clumsy things afloat were
the municipal rubbish boats. Like British Waterway work boats, they seem
to have dumped the tradition and tried to reinvent the wheel, cheaply.
A trip along
the central waterway is a startling eyeopener to an English canal
enthusiast. There must be rules of the road, speed limits and rites of
precedence but they were impossible to work out by observation. Every
thing is moving so fast. The mototopo delivery boats churn along quite
unconcerned by anything or anyone whilst graceful varnished wooden taxi
boats skim in and out within a couple of feet of each other. (We’d call
them speedboats.) The Vaporetti, the big waterbusses drive relentlessly
from stop to stop roaring to a halt at each pontoon with a powerful
burst astern where a single mid-rope is dropped over a bollard by the
conductor, the driver engages forward gear again and the boat is driven
firmly in against the floating jetty. The sliding gate in the bulwark
clangs open and the passengers surge ashore with the same everyday
assurance of Londoners leaving the tube. In almost as little time as it
takes to describe the process new passengers have embarked, the gate
slides shut, the mooring rope is slipped and the driver is accelerating
away at full throttle. He has to get away quickly because another bus is
already arriving from the other direction. Meanwhile a builder’s boat is
reversing blindly out of a side canal into the fairway and a scattering
of gondolas are sculling about with utter disdain for anything else,
however big and noisy. It seems like navigational chaos, but it is all
gracefully managed with Venetian skill and bravado.
It would surely
do British Waterways a great deal of good to take all their staff there
and chain them to one of the Grand Canal waterbus stops for a few hours
to see water transport operating at full speed and full efficiency, day
in and day out. There must be a hundred thousand person journeys by
water every day in the height of the season but there seems to be no
sign of panic, no plethora of lifebelts, lifejackets and railings, no
warning signs or sirens. It all seems to be left to common sense which,
refreshingly, seems to work very well. Have we got something to re-learn
here?
Of course the
Venetians have been doing it for a very long time and, even more
importantly of course, they have no other option. There are no vehicle
roads after the bridge to the bus station and most of the canal bridges
have steps to make it even more awkward for wheels of any sort. Although
the place is basically flat it is difficult for pushchairs and must be
almost impossible for a wheelchair user. So absolutely everything is
moved by boat to the nearest canal wall and barrowed the last hundred
yards to the shop. However it seems to be an efficient system and
although the transport costs must be absorbed somewhere the average
prices for food or a meal in a café seemed reasonably comparable to a
holiday town in Britain. But never has that remark about Birmingham
being the Venice of the Midlands seemed more ridiculous.
A couple of days
after my return I had the opportunity to watch a series of canal
programmes made by BBC Wales that were broadcast a few months ago. A
personable presenter called Iolo Williams steered a hire boat from
Llangollen, crossed the Pontcysyllte aqueduct with excited enthusiasm,
wound up lift bridges and described the wildlife. On foot he and his
film crew set off to explore some of the closed sections of the
Montgomery canal and went to meet a British Waterways spokesman to
discuss the restoration. And suddenly, there they both were trying not
to look embarrassed, both dressed in regulation BW safety lifejackets.
Where was this dangerous situation and what scary hazard were they
discussing? They were on the towpath near the Vyrnwy aqueduct,
discussing rare water plants. Would the BW health and safety executive
survive an hour in Venice without dying of a heart attack? |
