The family went on vacation for a few days, so I was able to go to Venice. It's a holiday weekend here, so many people were traveling. It was very difficult to find a hotel; not only is Venice very expensive, but because of the holiday, it was a popular destination for Italians and tourists alike. It took me almost two hours on the internet to find something (there were options, if I wanted to pay $300 and up), and I booked a hotel in the area by the train station, where I had stayed my first and only time in Venice, during my first trip here. I had stayed just for a day and night, but I always remembered what a magical place it was, so I was excited.
Many hotels in Italy are small, and sometimes they use an "annex", which means you don't stay in the hotel but in an apartment nearby. I did this once in Florence and the apartment was right across the street. There are pros and cons; the pros are you can still go to the hotel for breakfast, you have a lot more space, a full kitchen, and it really feels like you are living there. So I was okay with the idea. When I booked it.
I arrived in Venice in the evening, and when you walk out of the train station there, you are thrust into the vibrancy and beauty immediately. The Grand Canal is right in front of you, and the big cathedral is across from it, and there are the arching footbridges (ponte), there is the hustle and bustle of locals and tourists, and there were lights everywhere, and boats passing in every direction....the place just sparkled.
I found the hotel with only one directional error (pretty good for me) and checked in. The guy told me that the apartment was close to the hotel, but that I would be escorted by boat to get there because it was easier than walking there. "By boat? It can't be that close if I have to take a boat," I said. "It's maybe 15 minutes, very easy, you can walk," he said, "But easier by boat. There is a man with a boat; he will take you." "It sounds far," I said. "Not far," he said, "The apartment is very beautiful. You will be in the ghetto."
It's hard to describe the feeling I had. I still can't articulate exactly what I felt, but it was a mix of a lot of things. It's hard to explain to someone who isn't Jewish, but it's like saying to a black person, "You'll be staying in the historic slave district." There are ghettos in most major cities in Italy; they have been restored, and are significant to the city. Local Italians live there, and they are frequent destinations for tourists. The first ghetto in the world was this one, in Venice.
But they are ghettos. Unlike other historic places, ghettos were not happy places. Jews were forced to live there and nowhere else. The gates locked at 7pm and everyone had to be inside. There were guards to make sure of this. Ghettos are small. Imagine being restricted to a few blocks of your neighborhood. And to only 3 or 4 different professions. Imagine not being able to go anywhere in the evening outside of those few blocks. Or being somewhere and realizing the time and having to race there, with no room for wrong turns or last-minute tasks or completion of what you were doing, if it was closing in on 7pm.
My head was spinning; I did not know what to expect. I follow him through the few streets to the Grand Canal, where there is a motorboat with three people in it. The water level is much lower than where we are standing, and there is no real dock, and it is night, and I have bags with me, and I can't see how I am going to get into this boat. "You know, maybe I will walk if it is that close," I said. "This looks......I am not a good swimmer." "It's fine, it's fine," they all said, and everyone seemed so merry, I couldn't say no. They asked me to hand over my luggage, pocketbook, and coat, and somehow, with the help of the guy's hand below, I was able to semi-jump into the boat. He put my bags behind our seat in the back part of the boat, which was a level surface with no rail that invited immediate thoughts of how easily they could slide into the water during a sharp turn. New Yorker that I am, I kept my hand on them.
But I was in Venice, in a boat on the canal, and it was night, and there were lights everywhere, and it was a great feeling.
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