09 Nov

How is Venice, Venice and not anywhere else?

Since coming to Europe, I have found myself traveling through many cities that I am entirely unfamiliar with. While it has not always been easy to find my way through these cities, whether I have a map or not, I have always found a little comfort in the fact that I can always find someone who can guide me towards where I need to go if needed.

Traveling through Venice was an entirely different experience. Upon asking a native Venetian for directions, I began to realize that I was not going to get very much help. While he had lived in Venice his entire life, and knew exactly where I needed to go, he was completely incapable of giving me directions (other than a couple abstract landmarks along the way).

The streets of Venice are practically a maze, changing direction and street names at any moment. Even if you are lucky enough to happen upon the Grand Canal on the way home, you must still find one of the four bridges in the entire city that span across it and then continue further through the maze. It was not long before my classmates and I began finding their way around solely by the recognition of restaurants and unique items located in store windows, referencing these to each other like we normally would reference street names. While Venice is a city packed full of tourists, it is only the locals who truly know where they are going as they weave in and out of the buildings and over the canals.