The other Venice: City of Bells, Boxers and Bare Breasts

For the last several years Ariba has been accusing me of being deaf – or at least suffering from chronic selective hearing. I now I have a perfect excuse. Yesterday we were in the clock tower in Venice admiring a bird’s eye, 360 degree view of this picture postcard city, when without as much as by-your-leave, 2 of the 4 bells overhead began to oscillate. Slowly at first and then faster and faster until the gong|striker|whatchamacallit made contact with the bell itself.

Some religions say that on Judgement Day a loud bell will awaken the dead souls from their sleep. I now know what that is going to sound like. The bells were no more than 6 feet above us. Made of heavy duty cast iron, each of them is about 5 feet in height; the whatchamacallit is a little longer than that. Together they surely weigh a few hundred kilos if not a ton. Together with the massive pulley-like wheel that turns back and forth to give the bell its oscillatory movement, the entire contraption is about 8-10 feet in height.

The audio-visual impact is hard to describe. The ear splitting sound consumes your senses. As if that is not enough you have these massive behemoths moving back and forth at perhaps 1 oscillation every second. The combined impact is a complete suspension of the sense of space and time. I was transfixed for several moments before I turned my camera overhead and started taking photographs (Photos are attached in order of their reference here at my personal blog (http:\\nissar-bologna.posterous.com). Unfortunately the motion was so rapid and so close that I could not get any great shots. In any case photos cannot do justice to the experience.

For those of you who have not been here, Venice is everything you have read about, heard about and imagined. And more. In the morning the Grand Canal is like a busy street – water buses, water taxis, refrigerated boats delivering fish and meats to the hundreds of restaurants, assorted cargo boats complete with cranes to hoist their loads on to dry land, garbage collection boats, cops on the beat – the usual hustle and bustle of city life.

The Grand Canal itself is a picturesque tourist trap. As it snakes through the city, hundreds of little canals some grandiosely called Rios radiate outwards, sometimes meeting up with each other, sometimes reconnecting with another bend in the Grand Canal and some ending up as cul-de-sacs. Some are marked “no entry” while others have speed limits. Throughout all this is a maze of "streets". We walked for hours, always totally lost, yet always sure of finding our way out when we wanted to. I estimate that the narrowest one that we walked through was no more than 3 feet wide. The wider ones were about 8 feet and a couple of busy ones near the famous Rialto Bridge were a little more than that.

Walking along, every 50-75 yards you encounter a little bridge. Most are old – we just saw 2 newer looking ones. Some have interesting histories. One called "Pont dei Pugni" has no parapet on the sides. In the good old days, this was the arena on which members of feuding families literally thrashed out solutions to their problems. It is not particularly wide and I am sure most bouts ended in the water. They say travel is very educational. I now know why boxers are referred to as pugilists.

Another bridge with a bit of history attached is called "Ponte delle Tette". Sometime in the 1400s, the City Fathers decided that sodomy was becoming too rampant. In an attempt to curtail what was deemed to be immoral, they encouraged the prostitutes who plied their trade near this bridge, to "display their wares" from the windows nearby. I now know the root of a well known slang word as well.

It was dark, unlit and deserted when we got there. As I walked around taking photographs, a pot bellied, elderly gentleman clad in an undershirt and undies suddenly opened the ground floor window behind me. He had no idea we were visualizing the history of his neighbourhood and so could not understand why Ariba and I collapsed laughing.

The Venetian monuments are truly outstanding. At one time the city was ruled by a `Doge`. The Doge`s palace has a priceless collection of statues, massive oil paintings, exquisite frescoes on the ceilings, suits of armour and heavy swords that would give me carpel tunnel syndrome in a week. The breathtaking sight was that of the staircase. Called the Ca’ d’Oro the frescoes on the ceiling are painted with real gold.

The Basilica is most interesting. While firmly steeped in the Roman Catholic tradition the murals and frescoes are most definitely Byzantine. In fact the rich gold paint and the images of a seated Jesus Christ wearing a robe and surrounded by his followers or with Mary are almost identical to those we saw in Istanbul a few months ago. Even the expression on his face, seeming to glance slightly to the side, is the same.

As I write this blog we are speeding through the Italian countryside on our way to Florence. This is our first experience of a high speed train. The speed is about 200 miles an hour (320 kmph). I wish I could open a window and feel the wind in my face. Another time, not very long ago, I would have said hair...