Venice- Trading on Romance.

In a brief departure from news and newsy-led features, here is a short but sweet travel article, produced after a recent three day trip to Venice.

The article was sent to the Realbuzz.com web site, with a view to writing a little more regularly for them at some point in the future.

Travel writing has always been a huge passion, though I've barely had time of late. Getting away, even though only for a few days, gave me the chance to experiment a little further through the Realbuzz.com site. We shall see how it goes...

Venice- Trading on Romance.

Small yappy dogs with legs woefully too short to match the brisk pace of their owners move purposefully through the narrow maze of alleyways, clad in snug fitting Dolce and Gabbana jackets. Hang on a minute; The owners?…or the dogs?

Welcome to the city of Venice, where even the canines are decked out in this season’s latest.

In a place where image is everything, Venice has worked tirelessly over the years to cultivate a reputation for continental passion and simple romance.

The Italian state tourist board tells of a city whose “fragile beauty and romantic history succeeds in transporting the visitor back in time”. A city where “romance and water intertwine”.

These labyrinthine waterways continue to fulfil their historical role as the life giving veins and arteries of the city.

Alongside the ever-present iconic gondolas, motorboats chug by bearing the logos of Venetian laundry firms, making their deliveries and collections at the canal side service doors of the hotels and hostels.

Council workers pass in the opposite direction, taking away the city’s refuse by means of a crane attached to the deck of their small craft.

Venice itself is something of an oasis in global terms, in that the city is virtually traffic free. The many cars, buses, and trains that make the 4 km trip across the historic causeway from the Italian mainland to the Venetian centre remain at the western tip of the island, journeys continuing on foot, or by boat, leaving the city’s infrastructure to function around the maze of waterways.

It is this permanent presence of water that has served the city’s romantic reputation so faithfully over the centuries. Life moves noticeably slower if it floats by. The familiar inner-city sound track of blaring horns and wailing sirens is replaced by the gentle chug of an outboard engine, and the age old toll of bells echoing through the alley ways from any one of the city’s myriad churches.

Venice in 2007, however, is a city struggling beneath the weight of the pre-conceived notions held dear by its millions of visitors every year.

Despite the encroaching chill of winter on a crystal clear November morning, gondoliers fight over our custom like vultures over a scrap of meat. Competition for the tourist coin is cut throat.

My friend and I manage to find a couple to split the not inconsiderable 80 Euro cost of a 40 minute ride. As we move lazily through the canals, I expect to turn and watch as our gondolier spends half his time propelling our gondola, and the other half attempting to joust passing gondoliers into the cold, murky waters.

The city also suffers somewhat from its overt fashion consciousness. As dogs pass by in Dolce and Gabbana, immigrant workers lay their wares upon row after row of pavement stalls, no more than a collection of blankets, spread with Prada handbags and Yves Saint Lauren sunglasses. The goods are offered up to tourists at a fraction of the cost of the real thing.

In Venice, it is so easy to feel you have arrived at an exclusive party in your best Primark sweater. The curious Venetian propensity for hanging line upon line of identical underpants out to dry in a shameless display of routine taste is therefore most refreshing.

I am almost tempted to reveal my “Instant Lover- Just Add Beer” underpants, and declare myself "best dressed man in Venice".

Combine this with the vast collection of tourists clad in anoraks and baseball caps, and Venice succeeds in creating the air of a perpetual down market fashion show masquerading as upmarket glamour and designer savvy.

The many restaurants and cafes that line the streets cater again to tourist expectations. This is no bad thing however, as eating in Italy is a joy, with cheap but good quality red wine and the ubiquitous pasta and lasagne dishes, drizzled with olive oil and fresh garlic.

Sitting and watching the people go by, enjoying the sites as thousands of commuters pass aboard the regular boats on the canals is a simple but entertaining way to round off what is often a long, tiring day spent on foot.

Despite the lateness of the year, and the cool temperatures, Venice remains a teeming city. It is easy to see that in the height of summer, when the vast majority of tourists flock here in search of solitude and romance, the number of people crammed onto the small island would go some way to ruining exactly that.

Venice is the ideal case study of an all too common tourism conundrum: The thousands drawn by their pre-conceived expectations inevitably cause the very collapse of the experience they have travelled to find.

In short, if a thousand people join the search for a single contact lens, the lens is more likely to be crushed underfoot, than recovered untarnished.