Modern world, Italian style

I've always found it curious, even troubling, when reading guide books and travel articles about certain Italian cities. "Uninteresting," "hideous," "nothing to see" and so forth. So I have seen Mestre described, for example -- it's the large industrial suburb of Venice, where the traffic comes to a halt on the autostrada. Mestre is certainly no beauty spot, but it has an attribute that Venice lacks: it's a real city, where ordinary folks live. And it IS interesting because it's an example of the modern world, Italian style, with all its good and bad. After you've traveled all over Italy and seen dozens of jewel-like medieval and Renaissance towns, a place like Mestre is almost a relief.

On a larger scale, you can say Milan is like Mestre in that isn't beautiful and doesn't exist for tourists. It exists for itself, it's busy and in places looks like a hundred American cities. But you go there to get business done, to make money and to live well (Millanese lilke the place a lot: it works well for them).

You can say similar things about plenty of unglamorous Italian cities -- Genoa, Naples, Pescara, etc. The Italian take on the modern world. An interesting antidote to an overdose of quaintness when you've been tramping around San Gimignano, Radda and Urbino.

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Comments

[AC]

Enough with the lamentations about uninteresting cities and being quaint or whatever you're ranting about. We want to hear about the gondolas.

[terence]

Ha ha Alfonso. Cheap payback, this comment.

Anyway, I'm not lamenting, I'm celebrating Italy even in its crappier manifestations. Well, hell, we got Newark and Dee-troit City to laugh at.

I still wanna hear about your spider invasion. By Ziggy and the ones from Mars, certamente.

[Mike Tommasi]

Dear Terry

as you know I was raised free-ranging in Venice, and as an expat I feel the need to go back at least twice a year (I'll be there for a week in july).

I return because Venice still IS a real city with ordinary people, though only about 50,000 of them today. They happen to be surrounded by tens of thousands of sandwich eating bussed-in-for-the-day tourists, plus probably over a thousand foreigners - I include the Milanese in this category :-) - who have bought up posh property there and keep prices up and out of reach of ORDINARY venetians.

If you stay out of the main routes that funnel that flow of protoplasm to San Marco, you can still find areas where people are speaking with the distinctive accent of Cannaregio or Castello. The Rialto market is no longer a wholesale market (it was!), but shopping there is a privilege that ORDINARY Venetians still appreciate, despite having to crawl over the sandwich eating hordes to get there.

Most ORDINARY Venetians that were forced by prices or by the tourist crowds to move to Mestre spend the rest of their life trying to get back to Venice.

@Alfonso - GONDOLAS. As a native the last thing you want is to be caught on one of the tour gondolas, notably one with the guy singing, usually Neapolitan songs for some reason. Having met friends there (foreigners) once I had to succumb. If you HAVE to take a gondola ride try starting in a less central location and ask for a "different" tour, a good spot is at the Maddalena church, along the Strada Nuova well before Ca' d'Oro. Even better, go there with someone that speaks Venetian, you will get a big discount. Or else just take the "traghetto" often - because there are only three bridges across the Canal Grande, there are several gondola crossings, for example at Ca' d'Oro or at Rialto market.

A couple of things you should notice about Gondolas. First, most people think they are being pushed with poles along the canal bottom - they are in fact being rowed in a double movement ("voga veneta") that ensures that even a single rower on the starboard side can get the gondola to go straight. Second, to help single-oar operation, gondolas are quite noticeably curved so that seen from the top they look like this: (

[th]

OK, it still doesn't seem like a real city to this outsider. But I get your points. The Venetian accent is really a big help, as when we went with Paolo (of Paolo and Dana) to various watering holes in town.

Maybe they dream of going back, Mike. But it's like if you leave Manhattan for Brooklyn. You're gone for good because, unless you win big in the lotto, you'll never be able to afford return. So it's, like, Mestre for life.

[tracie b]

and in mestre you don't have to have the secret code to find a GOOD restaurant. venice is much, much harder. sifting through the japanese-owned pizzerie to find the real cucina veneziana takes a trained local eye, i imagine.

[th]

I know which Japanese-owned pizzeria you mean! Been there, ate that.

[Mike Tommasi]

You mean chinese owned surely, I have no record of japanese owned pizzerie in Venice.

While it is extremely easy to fall into horrible tourist traps, there are still very many good places to eat in Venice. Like I said it is a difficult place, but no worse than Florence.

[tracie b]

i am SURE that there are many, well-hidden gems in venezia, mike. i'm just sayin' that it's damn hard to find them if you aren't from the place.

and you're right, on the list of "just as bad" are firenze and roma. i had to spend a total of 6 weeks in rome to finally mangiare bene.

[th]

I second that emotion. Rome -- really, in just 6 weeks?

The food there really disappoints.

Oh, Puglia! Oh, Napoli!

[Mike Tommasi]

If the restaurants are hard to find in Venice, good wine is even more of a problem. In many places you get asked if you want Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon or Tocai, with no mention of the winery unless you ask. At the other extreme you find these wine bar places that are almost obsessional about their wines, maybe to justify the high prices and the 10 litre tasting glass.

[Jeremy Parzen]

TH, just catching up now on the blogs. It's important to remind Americans that Italy is not Disneyland. So many of our countrymen treat it as such. I believe that one of the reasons why Italian cinema failed to resonate with American audiences in the 80s and 90s is that serious directors dealt with serious social issues in Italy. Such topics can really spoil a dish of linguine al pesto in Rome or tagliatelle alfredo in Milan.

Great post...

[th]

You are so right about the Disneyland thing. I try to disabuse our fellow countrymen of that notion.

BTW, I've been home a few days and already miss that maddening, ramshackle place. Also beautiful and fascinating place. You know the feeling.

[Alfonso Cevola]

I recently was offered a wine, the server called it a greco di tofu.maybe it would be good for the folks in venice?

[th]

ha ha Affonso you numbah 1 funny!

[tracie b]

any relation to the greca di tufa? the niera di aVOLo?