Another Season in Venice

As faithful readers might remember, The Spouse and I made our first visit to Venice about a year and a half ago, not long after arriving in Switzerland.  We had a perfect long weekend in that fabulous city, in part because early November is low season in terms of tourism.  Despite rain and flooding, we loved feeling as though we had the place to ourselves.

Earlier this year, several Philadelphia friends contacted me to say that they would be in Venice in May, and wouldn’t I like to come and meet them?  They had signed on with a tour that enabled them to row in a regatta called the Vogalonga.  Another Philadelphia friend now working in Brussels also hoped to join us.  I welcomed the opportunity to see friends and to return to Venice.

Later, I learned that friends from my new rowing club in Zug (more on that another time) would also be participating in the Vogalonga (Italian for “long row”).  I’d never heard of this event, and when I first saw pictures of the canals filled with all kinds of colorful boats I assumed it was an ancient religious festival, especially because it fell this year on Pentecost Sunday.  Later I learned that it had begun in 1975 as a protest against motorized boats, whose waves contribute to dangerous erosion of the city’s foundations.

Its organizers envisioned a non-competitive parade of all sorts of human-powered boats, beginning in St. Mark’s Basin and winding some 32 kilometers (18.75 miles) around a number of islands surrounding Venice.  It would finally come through the Canal di Cannaregio from the north and conclude with a tour down the Grand Canal.  For once, during the period of the regatta, no motorized boats would be allowed on the water.  In its first year organizers were astounded when some 500 boats showed up; the event soon became popular with locals and visitors alike.   This year, the 38^th, saw more than 1800 boats carrying 7226 rowers; 18% were from Venice, 27% from the rest of Italy, and a whopping 55% came from around Europe and as far afield as Australia and the U.S.

So, on the 25^th of May I set off by train from Baar.  This was my first experience with Italian trains since moving to Switzerland and I must say it reinforced all stereotypes about Italian inefficiency.  Eventually I did make it to the train station on the edge of Venice and emerged into a golden late spring evening. 

There is something to be said for being able to visit a place like Venice several times.  This time I knew exactly where to go to get my three-day pass for the Troncettos, the boats that serve as buses along the main canals of the city.  (Okay, the first one I took went the wrong direction, but after that I was fine.)  I knew exactly how to get to where I was staying just off St. Mark’s Square.  And when I woke early the next morning I knew more or less how to navigate the maze of lanes to reach the wonderful market near the Rialto Bridge where I could get a good breakfast and buy a few things for lunch.

The cold, wet Venice of our first visit had been transformed; flowers gleamed from pots and window boxes everywhere, the sun warmed the old stones and gave a golden hue to many of the buildings. 

But with the warm weather came crowds, jostling each other in the narrow inland lanes, forming long lines outside the major sites and making the simple task of crossing St. Mark’s Square on the way to my room almost impossible.  During my weekend there I often thought how glad I was that my first visit had been in the off season.  Having taken in the major tourist sites, I could now simply savor the ambience of the city.

Unfortunately, my friend from Belgium had to cancel because of illness, but I was able to meet up with my U.S. friends on Saturday morning for a leisurely stroll through new neighborhoods that I hadn’t found in my first visit.  At one point, we encountered a group nattily outfitted in pink striped boating shirts and hats with matching pink bands.  We asked if they were here for the Vogalonga and found they were a French dragon-boat group from Nancy. 

As the afternoon wore on we saw increasing numbers of boats in the process of preparation along the city’s many side canals.  This was clearly going to be a big event.  After lunch we met up with others from the tour group for a visit to a gondola workshop.  Its owner, a third-generation gondola maker, explained the fine points of the craft.  It is surprisingly exacting, because each boat must be made to fit the particular gondolier’s height and weight (to ensure that the boat will be able to fit under the innumerable bridges) and shaped to allow the boat to be rowed with a single oar.

In the evening, I was invited to join the group for its pre-regatta dinner at a small restaurant in the Cannaregio neighborhood, where there were fewer tourists and more permanent residents.  It was interesting to observe the pre-regatta planning, which was made more complicated by the fact that most boats would include rowers from both the U.S. and Germany who had never rowed together.

The following morning I re-crossed St. Marks’ Square and walked to the edge of the water.  More or less at nine (this being Italy not Switzerland) the boom of a canon announced the beginning of the Vogalonga.  Slowly, the vast flotilla began to move eastward in the first leg of the trip that would take them around the Castello district.

Meanwhile, I had been advised that the best place to watch was from the Canele di Cannaregio.  This was toward the end of the course, so I figured I had a lot of time, but I had also been warned to get there early to secure a seat.  So I gradually made my way through the maze of narrow streets toward the Cannaregio District.  Many others were walking the same way, but most were tourists who had to walk the long way round to the train station because the motor boats weren’t running.

When I got to the Canele it was still early.  I took a table at an outdoor café and ordered cappuccino and mineral water – anything to secure my place for a while.  I read the Sunday New York Times on my iPod (downloaded earlier thanks to the excellent wifi at my hotel) and soaked up the sun as a light cloud cover burned off.  After a while a group of German tourists joined me at my table.  They were surprised when I greeted them in German and we chatted in a combination of German and English – inevitably, their English was better than my German.  I explained about the Vogalonga – like most non-rowing tourists, they had not been aware that it was happening – and together we cheered the first rowers to appear on the canal, around 10:30.  They had clearly been training for this event.

Gradually, the numbers of boats passing increased and a steady stream in a bewildering variety of colors, shapes and sizes passed by.  Rowers too were all shapes, genders, ages and nationalities.

As the density of boats increased so did the crowds on the sides of the canals.  Most were locals and the atmosphere began to take on the air of a water-side block party.  Watchers cheered and clapped for many of the boats that went by, most enthusiastically for rowers who were old or young, or wore distinctive outfits.  

They called out to friends in the boats – it quickly became clear that Venice must have many clubs whose main function is participating in the Vogalonga – and in return rowers raised their oars in salute.

A View of the Logjam from the Zug Boat

Eager to identify my friends, I carefully examined each boat, but after several hours had passed I began to fear I had missed them.  Finally, I decided it was time to get out of the sun and move to the shade of the other side of the canal.  As I crossed over the bridge I realized that there was a massive logjam on the other side as thousands of boats tried to squeeze into the narrow canal and under the even narrower bridge.

In an amazing coincidence, I saw my friends from Zug in the jam – having tried to get through the smaller arch only to find it blocked on the other side, they were having trouble getting back into the main stream of boats going through the main arch.  Finally, they got through, and glided into the relative openness of the rest of the canal.  I cheered them on and took lots of pictures.

By 3 pm the stream of boats began to dwindle and I left for my hotel without seeing my American friends.  When I joined them for dinner I learned that after trying to get through the jam for several hours they decided to return to their dock without going through the Canele, thus missing the chance to row down the Grand Canal.  They were disappointed but resolved to return in the future and try again.

I too hope to return and row the Vogalonga myself, perhaps next year. The event is an appropriate salute to a unique city, a day that unites Venetians and Venice-lovers from all over the world.