There and Back Again - An Unexpected Journey

Ah Venice – walking your streets with GPS - a blessing or a curse?  As we have slowly divorced ourselves from our natural instincts in favor of GPS direction – we have become more and more dependent on our cell phones to tell us where we are and where we are going.  I will admit that my natural hunting instincts in navigation have been somewhat dulled by my cell phone, and in Venice I was kindly reminded how quick we can go from predator to prey when we walk away from our instincts.  

 
When we first arrived our private water bus took us into town via one of the main arterial canals and then down the Grand Canal and up into another arterial canal and then down a couple of minor canals - and of course we were in awe (that is Gob Smacked in Scottish).  When we were dropped off the driver told us to go down, turn right, and our street will be just down the way - well having a good vision in my head from studying Google Maps before we got here I pretty much KNEW where we were and his directions matched that pretty well.  So off we went with our suitcases in tow, 95 degrees with similar humidity - we were drenched in minutes and after four or five turns were completely lost - GPS was not finding our street name, and it was starting to look helpless.  I then gambled that the street numbers might be helpful, saw that we were in the 4800 block and looking for 5003 - so after once direction got us into the 4700s we turned and started finding 4900s, the 5000s - and then - bingo! we found our house just at the  bottom of a set of canal steps - what a neat location.

Well, that little journey was the sign of things to come!  Navigating in Venice offers up some unique, but in a weird way, satisfying challenges, here are a few:

Horizons – there are rarely any beyond the four-story building directly in front/behind/both sides of you – and they all look similar – 200 – 500 years old in various states of decay. So finding land marks is not as easy as it can be elsewhere, so now all of your reference points become the distinct layout of an open court, a side street, a door, a bakery – and then seeing how there are literally thousands of those, putting them in context with each other is nearly impossible in the short term.

Street Signs and Names – well in Venice they are usually painted on the walls of corner buildings in a paint with a 1-2 year lifespan, of which I am sure most were painted 10-15 years ago – ok, maybe some in the squares were fresher, but many on the side streets were only partially present. And then the names are a form of art, Calle Banti, Calle Masena, Rio Tera del Cristo,  Fondementa Ghetto (you get the gist). Now one of the interesting facts is that many of the street names when translated into English are “street of the wine makers”, "street of the bakers”, etc.  And much to our dismay, we were told that in any given district (6 of those by the way) there were several streets with the same name, because there were several streets where wine makers and bakers, lived! So telling someone to meet you at the “street of the Baker” begged the first question, which district, and then the second question, next to which Campos (or field/courtyard) – because those are all named also – and with all of that information, if you are in the know, then you know where you are going.

So, Google to the rescue right?  Well not so fast my techno savvy friend - you see google has "most" of the names – the question now comes to which name did they use?  You see, it could be in Italian, or it could be in Venetian – which apparently is closer in many cases to Spanish – so IF you could read the street sign in faded/pealed paint, there was a strong chance that google did not use “that” name.  And remember how I said google has “most” of the names – that really means that about 1/3 of the streets on the map have no name on it – so in those cases you are completely on your own.

GPS Lag –  you know that periodic delay you get between movement and the phone telling you were you are (for those of you that have twelve cell towers in their line of site you just have to trust me that that kind of thing happens). Often times as I was following the “blue” dots to our destination, it would suddenly update and tell me that I was three streets to the (pick one) right/left/front/back – so I would stop cold in my tracks, try to use my boy scout skills, orient myself, start marching towards my new destination with new boldness just to be told 60 meters later that I have now officially strayed from my path and am now three streets in the opposite direction. Poor Jodi was getting whiplash watching me start/stop/stagger walk in circles, mutter to myself while appearing to hold the almighty cell phone out like it was some sort of divining rod in search of hidden water – which brings up an interesting question – would a divining rod work in the middle of a water slogged island structure like Venice?  I don't know, but I do know the answer for GPS – NO, it does not.

On our second day we took a free walking tour of which at the end of we were given a map of Venice made by the tour groups that actually labeled every street with the same names that were on the buildings, or at least what was left of the names on the buildings.  This map became priceless as I was now able to start playing chess – three to four moves in advance – I would plan out a route similar to “go down this alley, take the third right, cross over a canal, take the second left, cross over a canal, take the fourth right, cross over a canal – I would then fold the map up, and boldly march off with Jodi in tow– I was fifty/fifty with this approach, but was often rewarded with finding a gelato stand!  The trick I eventually learned was that a recessed door way could actually be marked as a path, which of course if you didn’t “count” that, then you would be off by one or two alleys!

As the days went on, we started getting a sense of general direction, not North, South, East, West mind you, but rather this side or that side of the Grand Canal, general direction for the big bodies of water, close or far from the fish market (nose helped a lot in that area), close or far from tourist areas – if you could walk relatively freely, you were not close, if the crowds were heavy, you were approaching the Grand Canal or the square, and if you felt like a sardine – you were within 10 streets/canals of St Marcos square.

Our last morning there we started to feel like Venetian snobs, laughing at the poor fools following their hand-helds like their life depended on it, and then a few minutes later seeing them come back in the opposite direction – or better yet, in the same direction after apparently completing some unknown circuitous route! Rookies 😊