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Aware that so much has been written through the ages about Venice, I could not avoid thinking that as I present this magical city I would perhaps omit some major fact from its rich history, forget to mention some important name from the world of art and science, pass over some significant detail of the city’s life, or that I would simply lose myself in my own impressions. And then I remembered a sentence I had read on the travel agency’s advertisement: "Discover Venice on your own!"
Russian Nobel laureate in literature Joseph Brodsky had been discovering it for 17 foggy Venetian winters, and after publishing a collection of essays titled Watermark, he set out: Do read the book! It is a remembrance using the scent of seaweeds of Venice and Saint Petersburg. It is a remembrance using the senses. (In keeping with his wish, Brodsky was buried in the San Michele island cemetery in Venice.)
 This kind of remembrance, using the senses, I have also experienced, although, not by invoking the scent of the Adriatic and seaweed. Brodsky’s partiality to this scent must undoubtedly be ascribed to his childhood on the shores of the Baltic Sea. My experience has to do with the impression of light across the wrinkled and shiny water of the Grand Canal in Venice. As an art history student, I travelled through Italy with a group of Italian Renaissance enthusiasts. Although lodged in Rome, during this unforgettable month of my stay in Italy we crisscrossed this beautiful country from Naples and Pompeii in the south to Florence and Venice in the north. We remained in Venice just one day, but the image imprinted in my memory remains alive to this day. After so many years, wandering through the winding little alleys around the city centre, I was unsure I would be able to identify the place from my memories. This was not the majestic St. Mark’s square, but some other place with a subdued light. As the yellow arrows on the intersections – themselves bent like the canals of Venice – because they are in fact the winding streets signs on water – brought me to the gigantic marble edifice of the Rialto Bridge, and in a flash I recalled that this was it – the view from the magnificent stone bridge on the Grand Canal overwhelmed by the dying sunlight over the city. I still remember us all watching the marvelous spectacle below us in silence and someone whispering: La Serenissima!
At the height of its maritime power (early 15th century), the Republic of Venice was named Serenissima – Most Serene – and the Doge of Venice – the Prince of Serenissima. But the fact remains that this magnificent city – located in the bay of Venice on more than one hundred mutually separate islets and crisscrossed by 160 canals and spanned by more than 400 stone, cast-iron and wooden bridges – is a city of special light. Some say the name Serenissima is derived from this.
 The very beautiful arched stone Rialto Bridge (from rivo alto or high bank) in the heart of the city was built in the 16th century where a wooden bridge once stood, the first bridge in the city’s centre. Being a very busy land artery, it gave way on two occasions under the weight of the mass of people crossing it every day. The most accomplished artists of the era, such as Michelangelo, architect Andrea Palladino, and sculptor and architect Iacopo Sansolvino competed with their designs to build a new bridge, but the relatively unknown architect Antonio da Ponte (1512-1595) won the contest.
The bridge later served as inspiration to painters Francesco Guardi and Antonio Canaletto, but also to Shakespeare who set his Merchant of Venice there. Three sets of stairways for pedestrians and two rows of shops between them, accommodated under the roofed colonnades, are frequented throughout the day by tourists who – like a live river flow – visit the city year round. According to statistics, as many as 14 million people from all corners of the world tour Venice each year.
The markets are the showcases of the city’s colourful nature. Should you happen to find yourself on Rialto Square, be sure to make it to the compound of buildings situated directly adjacent to the Grand Canal. The colonnades house a fish market where all manner of fish and other species from the Adriatic Sea can be had, as well as a green market offering fresh summer fruits.
 It is rather strange how fast and easily one gets accustomed to life on the water. In addition to the elegantly shaped gondolas sliding along the water ‘alleys’ of Venice, anything that can float moves along the main Venetian artery – the Grand Canal, when viewed from air, is shaped like the inverse Latin letter "S". The Grand Canal that divides the city in two is nearly four kilometres long and some sixty metres wide. There are just three larger bridges on it: Ponte degli Scalzi, Ponte di Rialto and Ponte dell’ Accademia. This is why public transport boats called vaporetti are important to tourists, affording them movement from one end of the city to the other and to nearby islets: Lido, San Giorgio, Murano, Burano... However, a careful observer is bound to notice on this lively water ‘thoroughfare’ floating markets, water ambulances, firefighters and police, garbage disposal boats, small delivery boats distributing freshly laundered linen to hotels each morning ... taxi boats and private boats the residents of Venice use to carry out their everyday affairs.
 At the time of its greatest prosperity, the Serenissima was Europe’s third largest city population-wise. From a population of some 150,000 some 50 years ago, Venice today has a population of about 65,000, some say even less. High housing and food prices (one square metre of housing is offered for sale starting at between 6,000 and 14,000 euros), but also a specific way of life without cars makes many young people prefer more modern land-based cities. Wealthy foreigners are thus becoming the proprietors of Venetian houses and palaces, as Venice itself slowly turns into a museum city. Renaissance, Gothic or Baroque Venetian palaces around the Grand Canal that were homes to doges, dukes and other dignitaries are now either museums or house public institutions. Each one of them has its own distinct story to tell. These are the houses in which painters like Tintoretto, Canaletto and Dürer lived, as did composer Richard Wagner and poet Lord Byron, who drew his inspiration from the likes of prominent figures in Venice. Napoleon was perhaps the Venetian Republic’s most infamous citizen, who ended the Republic several hundred years after its inception. Most of the palaces are of white marble, which submerged in the murky waters of the lagoon, hide beautiful gardens with fragrant Mediterranean plants behind moisture-saturated walls.
 It is hard to not wonder how this city survived, considering the fact that it was originally built so many centuries ago on a forest of wooden pillars immersed into salt water or in the soil of the islets in the Bay of Venice soaked in seawater. In search of a solution to this riddle, I came across a stunningly simple answer: when a pine tree is cut and shaped into a round log, it is left to soak in salty water for at least one, at the most two years. Because the wood lacks oxygen owing to the salt that fills all the wood’s pores, it is forever free of harmful insects. It becomes heavy, very hard and turns into an ideal and enduring construction material. And besides, the facades of houses in Venice are covered with light ornamental bricks, the interior, flooring and ceiling are done in pinewood or oak wood. Even the arches and ceilings in the Doge’s palace, although covered by stone on the outside, are built around a wooden structure.
 From the Rialto Bridge, a vaporetto carries one in a jiffy to the only square called Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square) – the other 127 squares are all called campo. Viewed from the sea, most tend first to observe the flocks of pigeons and numerous tourists feeding these birds despite clear bans not to. Ever hungry, the pigeons land on their heads and shoulders, as the latter try hysterically to get a picture of the scene with corners of the photos catching a glimpse of the imposing colonnades of the Doge’s palace and the approaches to Saint Mark’s Basilica. Although, seagulls fly over the Piazza occasionally, no one seems to notice them, even when they fly out to sea making that crying sound that overpowers the murmur of the multitude on the square.
 The Piazza San Marco, a square of unique architecture, is the very heart of the city. Named after the protector saint of Venice, Saint Mark the Evangelist, whose relics two Venetian merchants stole in 882 from the Mohammedans in Alexandria and brought on their ship to Venice. The Church of St. Mark obscures the eastern section of the square. In terms of its exterior and interior decoration and adornments, this church is the most monumental creation of the Byzantine spirit in the West. Above the main entrance are the famous copies of the four bronze horses (the renowned ancient quadriga) from the age of Alexander the Great that the Venetians removed and brought over from Constantinople’s Hippodrome. The originals are today shown in the basilica’s gallery. Napoleon took them to France and after their return the Venetians hid them during the two World Wars.
 As to the non-sacral representative edifices in Venice, the Doge’s palace is certainly noteworthy. A paragon of the Republic’s wealth and power, it is one of the most beautiful creations of non-sacral architecture of High Renaissance, perfectly balancing architecture and sculptural elements. Should you opt to tour it, plan an entire day and make ticket reservations in advance for the so-called Doge’s Palace Secret Tour. In this way, you’ll be able to see the secret chambers of the highest dignitaries and Venetian Doges’ top aides, as well as a secret section of the prison cells where the most famous Venetian prisoner Casanova was held, but who, together with another inmate, managed to escape. Part of the Doge’s palace is by way of the prison section connected to the small and enclosed bridge called the Bridge of Sighs, so named because it offered the last view of Venice that convicts saw before their imprisonment. Anyhow, the story goes that after his escape Casanova sat in the nearby Café Florian, had coffee and only then left Venice. The café interior smacks of bygone times and is famous for the regulars who frequented it, including celebrated writers and poets such as Byron, Dickens, Proust, Mann...
 Closer to the Grand Canal at the Piazza section called Piazzetta rise two columns carrying figures: one statue of San Teodoro, who was protector saint of Venice before St. Mark, and the other of a winged bronze lion – the symbol of St. Mark and Venice. This location by the columns, also accessible by sea, is where most tourists begin their tour of Venice: its palaces and churches, masks and carnivals, gondolas and gondoliers, museums and art galleries, paintings by Tintoretto, Titian, the two Bellinis, Veronese ... the story of Marco Polo who brought some innovations from China to the Republic, including the famous Italian spaghetti, famous glass from Murano, lace from Burano, the beautiful summer resort on the Lido islet... and everything else that this city – half fairy tale, half riddle – just touching the surface of the sea, holds in its bosom.
| Jat Airways flies to Trieste on Tuesdays at 3 p.m., Thursdays at 3:40 p.m. and Saturdays at 10:50 a.m. From Trieste, a fast train reaches Venice in two hours. Return flights to Belgrade from Trieste are on the same days at 5:15 p.m., 2:55 p.m. and 1:05 p.m. | |
