Gondola Ride

Savina Villani

Staff Writer Abroad

Foggy green water divides the streets of a city famous the world over. People saunter around the roads, holding phones above their heads like lighthouses. They stop amid bridges for photos, slowing the pedestrian traffic––a frustrated Italian woman shouts scoldingly about their bad etiquette.

I walk through tight streets lined with shops selling souvenirs and artificial luxury goods, and large squares surrounded by restaurants offering twenty-five euro pizzas accompanied by jazz bands using overplayed music. Boat buses packed with tourists moan across the canal.

An old couple on a gondola smiles dimly at the crafty little recording they use outdated phones to shoot, intending to brag to their kids and grandkids. A family of five poses for a selfie on their boat, as the cross-armed moody kid looks boredly at the camera. On another, a young man proposes to a woman, prompting the streets to shout jubilantly. Struggling to understand why these rides are so popular, I wander over to a station.

A man with a white and blue striped shirt approaches me.

“Gondola ride, great views of the city,” he says with his clumsy English.

The prices loom over my head on a large, worn green sign as I timidly hold my wallet. I hesitate as he motions me over to the boat.

“We worry about the price later.” He smiles, his bloodshot eyes thirsty for the contents inside the wallet. Self-conscious, I stuff it back into my pocket.

The gondolier steps onto the boat, and reaching his hand out, he says, “you are about to have the best gondola ride in all of Venice.” I take his hand and feign a smile as I wobble onto the boat. He begins to row.

“Twenty years ago, there were 150,000 people living here. Now, there are only 50,000,” he said. “They moved out because of the water, which in 2019, rose up two meters above where we are now.” I wonder where the dwindling population goes to the grocery store, where their families send their kids to school, and where the adults go to work.

I pick up some pedestrian words as we float under a bridge: “everything’s so expensive,” a five or six year old kid complains to his father. His observation is less surprising to me than the fact that he knows the word ‘expensive’ and can use it in a sentence.

The gondolier continues the tour: “Here is the hotel gym,” he says, pointing to the room with algae reaching the window, “but that is not my gym. This is my gym,” he spreads his arms wide, holding the oar out, “my job, in the canal. Very heavy work,” he grins.

As we approach the corner, he yells something aloud.

“That is the turning sign,” he explains, “just to explain to you the Venetian culture.”

The boat turned right, offering a view of a beautiful basilica from afar. “This is the basilica of Santa Maria della Salute,” he says, “the best basilica in the city.” Ant-sized tourists crawl around the building which was under repair. Even from afar that basilica seems to cry for help, a cry to save an entire city from drowning. I stare with pity as the boat takes another right turn, back into the original station.

The advertised thirty-minute tour ends after only fifteen, and the man makes me cough up more cash than what was originally written on the board.

He smiles broadly, flipping through cash in his hand.

“Thank you very much,” he says, “remember to tell your friends to come ride here with me,” he says.

But I know the ride is a simple object of amusement, something to get bored of after a little while. I walk away with pity and an empty wallet.