Hidden Venice

One of my favorite snapshots of Venice shows hordes of tourists--in jeans, saris, djellabahs, chadors, lederhosen--in front of the Doge’s Palace on the Piazza San Marco. I vividly remember how it feels to be jammed among them, pointing my lens in vain over someone’s protruding umbrella. But I love this picture because I took it from a smug distance, aboard a Venetian vaporetto, a water bus that was whisking me to a nearby island monastery for a tranquil afternoon.

Crowds are not new to Venice. For centuries, the island republic was the proud center of a rich Mediterranean empire, fiercely controlled by its fabled ships. Its gondolas, waterside lanes and imposing squares were full of prosperous citizens, traders, couriers, diplomats, soldiers, entertainers and artists--and, of course, curious travelers. After the Venetian empire crumbled in the late 18th century, travelers kept coming, lured by the unique setting, artistic heritage and dazzling architecture. Although the full-time Venetian population has sunk to about 100,000, the city now struggles to cope with 9 million to 15 million visitors each year--in the busy season, more than 80,000 a day.

Most of these visitors do not stay long. Pushed and pummeled by their fellow tourists, they surge over the Rialto Bridge, throng to feed pigeons in the Piazza, shuffle through the Basilica of San Marco and perhaps hazard an expensive gondola ride down the Grand Canal. They may take a water bus to Murano to buy a glass vase, dip into the Accademia to see famous paintings or tour the Doge’s Palace for an insider’s glimpse of the Bridge of Sighs.

After a day or two, most visitors leave. They do not know that another Venice--mysterious, romantic and intriguing--hovers nearby. When, after two shorter visits, my husband, James, and I recently returned to spend a leisurely month in Venice, we looked in out-of-the-way places for the city we had dreamed about. There, along a hidden canal, in a dusky niche of a seldom-visited church, through the windows of an unusual museum or perhaps just around the next unexpected corner, Venice was serenely waiting. To explore it, all we needed was a good map of the city’s six very different districts (sestieri), comfortable walking shoes and a sense of adventure.

Our days quickly settled into a flexible pattern. After a leisurely breakfast in our rented apartment, we shopped at the Rialto Market. Just beyond the Rialto Bridge, in stalls that huddle close to the Grand Canal and spill into adjacent streets, we browsed among tiny artichokes so tender that we could cook and eat them whole, baby salad greens still fresh with dew, crunchy red radicchio, juicy blood oranges, fat white asparagus.

Near the fruit-and-vegetable market is the bustling Pescheria, or fish market, which reminded me that Venice is a city whose lifeblood has always been salt water. Few tourists lingered here, but if they did, they saw (and sniffed) an authentic Venice, far removed in spirit from the gaudy souvenir stalls strung along the Rialto Bridge.

After we had stopped for bread, cheese, olives, wine and perhaps fresh stuffed pasta, we would carry our packages home, then set out again on sightseeing expeditions. Although we chose one or two major destinations each day, much of our pleasure was in the journey itself.

Mostly we walked. Because cars are not allowed in Venice (those that cross the one bridge from the mainland can go no farther than the parking garages in the Piazzale Roma), the city is blissfully free of motorized traffic--except, of course, boats on the busy main canals. So we explored as if we were wandering through an enchanted maze. Narrow lanes zigzag across several bridges and change their names, wind through tunnel-like passageways, dead-end suddenly at unsuspected back canals or abruptly empty into large squares with multiple exits.

Sometimes the shadowy passages are jammed with people, everyone sliding by cautiously. But at other times, especially at night, a path along a deserted back canal--where the sound of lapping water mingles with the faintly pungent aroma of salt, mildew and centuries of stone--can seem ominous. Yet Venice usually felt remarkably safe. No thieves whip by on motor scooters, few beggars haunt the doorsteps, and police are not hard to spot.

We often got lost--not every day, but often enough that I kept my map handy. Even on our last day, as I was confidently leading the way back to our apartment, I found myself stalled in an unfamiliar corner of the city. The more I studied my map, the more confused I got. If a friendly Venetian had not noticed my puzzlement and stopped to adjust my mental compass, we might still be wandering along dark little canals that had all begun to look maddeningly alike.

But getting lost was usually fun. As we wandered through eerily quiet neighborhoods, I gazed longingly at the shuttered Gothic windows of faded but still-imposing palaces (palazzi) and wondered about the high-ceilinged rooms inside. Around each turn, I’d stop to savor a new view--a line of washing, hanging like bright flags between windows of a house whose patches of faint-pink stucco now revealed its old reddish-brown brick bones; an elegant arching bridge with worn stone steps and curlicued wrought-iron railings; a tiny pillared shrine to the Madonna, tucked into a corner wall and adorned by a fresh bouquet of pale-yellow freesia.

Eventually, spurred on by a quick cup of pungent cappuccino from a stand-up bar, we would find our way again. One favorite stroll took us to the Giardini Pubblici, or public gardens, and the adjoining Parco delle Rimembranze. Our route began just beyond the Doge’s Palace and continued along the Riva degli Schiavoni, the broad thoroughfare that borders the outer edges of the Lagoon. Although tourists poured over the first bridge or two, searching for hotels or the water-bus stop of San Zaccaria, 10 minutes later we would find ourselves almost alone.

Tucked on the far edge of the city, the Public Gardens felt very remote, a restful oasis (except during the Venice Bienniale, which takes place every other summer in odd-numbered years, when art-lovers flock to the international pavilions). A few people sauntered here and there, enjoying stunning views over the Lagoon, sitting on benches, walking their dogs or feeding the lean wild cats that lurk among the trees.

On our rambles, we quickly learned that every destination in Venice inevitably leads to another, just a short distance away, beckoning on the map. From the Public Gardens, we walked to the very end of Venice, where, on its own spit of island, the Gothic church of St. Elena stands. The church, not surprisingly, was closed; we had come to accept the depressingly familiar sign “In Restauro,” meaning “under repair--come back next year”--but I still remember its hauntingly serene cloister.

Through the bars of the fence, I could see the shaded ambulatory, whose graceful 15th century arches marched in an ordered procession around a square of lush green grass. An old stone wellhead overflowed with bright pink and yellow spring flowers. Though the cloister was empty, it seemed full of presence.

I thought of St. Elena on the day we visited a very different garden--a subtle space de-signed by the modern architect Carlo Scarpa. Sheltered at the rear of the Fondazione Querini Stampalia, this garden also was an unexpected island of serenity. The 17th century building, once a grand private palazzo, is now a library and a museum, open to the public. We discovered it when we took a wrong turn out of the Campo (or square) Santa Maria Formosa, a popular crossing-place between San Marco and the Fondamenta Nuova, a wide street on the landward side of Venice.

What attracted us immediately to the Querini Stampalia was its strikingly contemporary bridge and water-gate (a canal-level entry for boats). In 1949, we learned, Scarpa had planned this bridge and a remodeled ground floor of the palazzo, a project finally carried out in the early 1960s. Inside, the water-gate hall was light and airy, with a sheen refracted from the canal that flowed under the grill and lapped gently at the interior carved stone steps. As if to remind visitors of the ever-encroaching sea, Scarpa had invited water into the museum itself.

When we pushed open the door at the end of the corridor, we were standing in a secluded courtyard, enclosed on all sides and sheltered at the back by a high wall of mellowed brick, thick with glossy-green ivy. Within this enclosure, Scarpa had created an enchanting minimalist garden. It is centered on a rectangular carpet of mown grass, edged with a narrow stone canal. Water runs along the canal, murmuring softly as it drips into low alabaster labyrinths at each end. Throughout the garden, Scarpa played with geometric ideas: A brass rectangular pool is inlaid with mosaics, as though Mondrian had designed a floor of black, white and silver tiles. Under the high, ivy-covered wall, L-shaped stones lie among the grass in an eye-catching pattern that forms a walkway. Bits of Venetian history are unobtrusively included: two battered Corinthian capitals as seats, a Gothic stone lion astride the little canal, three grayish-white columns near the entry.

Inside the museum, we found other pleasures. Its galleries were high and airy, with light pouring in from the square outdoors. The Fondazione holds a collection of paintings by Gabriel Bella and Pietro and Alessandro Lohghi that show Venetian life in the 18th century--spirited views of a vanished Venice I could now begin to imagine.

But perhaps the best views of Venice were out the window. From the back of the museum, I found myself high enough to survey a panorama of red-tile rooftops that swept toward the Campanile and the Doge’s Palace in one direction and all the way to the church of San Zaccaria on the other. The sun was shining brightly that morning, and all of Venice sparkled.

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A few days later we sought out another small, beguiling museum. Tucked just behind the Basilica di San Marco, the Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art restores, preserves and displays art from closed or reconsecrated churches. The building was once a Benedictine monastery, and to enter the museum itself we first passed through the restored 14th century Cloister of St. Apollonia. The cloister, a rare Romanesque survivor, is a marvelously evocative space. Since I had not been able to experience the cloister of St. Elena, I moved around this darkened passage slowly, watching the shifting play of light as it filtered through the arches from a sunny brick courtyard.

In the almost deserted upstairs galleries, we peered into cases that held elaborate reliquaries and chalices, altar cloths, lace vestments, illuminated choir books and other precious furnishings. All the descriptions were in Italian, and I fumbled to read them. But we did not need Italian to study a row of portraits of the “Primiceri,” head chaplains of San Marco. James and I discussed their evident characters--one looked ascetic and saintly, another gluttonous and evil--and decided we might easily see similar faces in today’s Venice.

One afternoon, we decided to cross the Lagoon to San Lazzaro degli Armeni, the site of another former Benedictine monastery. The monastery still thrives, on an island just off the Lido (a sandbank island that functions as the city’s seaside resort), but it now belongs to an Armenian order that has made it into a research center for their language and culture. San Lazzaro is open to outsiders for two hours each midafternoon. Only one vaporetto, leaving San Zaccaria at precisely 2:55 p.m., would deposit us there on time.

As the boat slowly chugged across the Lagoon, we sat alone in the bow for a leisurely half hour and watched the outposts of Venice slide by: the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, the luxurious Cipriani Hotel, the island of Guidecca. When we drew close to San Lazzaro, with its distinctive onion-shaped cupola on a tall campanile, I could see that the long, low monastery buildings were set among green lawns and cypresses.

An Armenian monk guided us, taking us past a neatly tended garden in a cloister and into the church. The interior was filled with radiant color: an inlaid altar floor of gold, rose and cream marble; a sky-blue ceiling sprinkled with gold stars; walls ornamented and gilded with shades of blue, rose and green.

San Lazzaro was lively and genial, still a monastic hub of activity--although, at the time of our visit, the monastery held only 10 seminarians and 10 fathers. If the soul of the monastery was its church, its library was its heart. Here the fathers had collected 4,000 Armenian manuscripts dating back to the 7th century and many other books and illuminated manuscripts. The library also held an exceptional collection of miscellany, from Armenian liturgical antiquities to a brown and leathery Egyptian mummy.

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On another day, James and I arrived at San Francisco della Vigna, a large 16th century church designed by the noted architect Jacopo Sansovino, whose majestic library faces San Marco, and given a subsequent facade by the even more famous Andrea Palladio. Despite its architectural pedigree, I remember this cavernous church mainly for two of its artworks that seemed to suggest something of the fascinating contradictions of Venice itself: In one half-lit corner, a glass case appeared to display a large doll, perhaps four feet long, with lacy stockings and lace mitts on its hands. But as I looked closer, I saw that the doll was actually the preserved body of a girl. Her face was very sweet, though the flesh seemed strangely polished to a dark sheen, and her long black hair still flowed over her shoulders as if it were eerily alive. Struggling with my imperfect Italian, I read that this young saint had been tortured to death. Enshrined human relics are common artifacts in Venetian churches, but this one, so complete and well-preserved, was both disturbing and mesmerizing.

Near another wall, I was captivated by a different religious vision. In a painting by Fra Antonio da Negroponte, from about 1450, a rosy-faced Madonna sits on a sculptured throne holding a very composed little Jesus. This is not unusual iconography, except that Negroponte’s Madonna is surrounded by an explosion of fruit trees, vines and roses. The joyous painting is a celebration of life itself.

On the way home from San Francesco della Vigna, we stopped in a narrow lane where we’d earlier discovered, by once again making a wrong turn, a shop that sold single-serving pizzas with delectably fresh mozzarella, pungent herbs and crackly crust. Later that evening, we decided to walk to San Marco and search for a near-empty vaporetto. Day-trippers would be long gone, and at this hour, most other tourists would be in restaurants or in their hotels. Since we were sadly aware that our month in Venice would soon end, we wanted to savor a quiet hour on the water.

As dusk gradually deepened over the shining Lagoon, we swung down the Grand Canal. Shadows hid many of the palazzi, but lights gleamed in others. As sleek black gondolas slipped around corners and disappeared into the night, Venice looked both elusive and inviting. Whenever we passed a shuttered, peeling, water-damaged palazzo, I had to remember that the city was slowly, inexorably sinking into the sea. But as I thought about our month of excited, sometimes-bemused discoveries, Venice still seemed vibrant and alive.

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Guidebook: Venice Unveiled

Telephone numbers and prices: The country code for Italy is 39. The city code for Venice is 41. All prices are approximate and computed at a rate of 1,800 lire to the dollar.

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Getting there: Venice’s major international airport is Marco Polo (on the edge of the Lagoon). Alitalia flies nonstop from Los Angeles to Rome and Milan, with connecting flights to Marco Polo. From Marco Polo, airport buses whisk passengers to the Piazzale Roma, the square on the outskirts of Venice itself, in about 20 minutes. Hourly water buses will deposit you on the landing stage at San Marco. Luggage advisory: You will have to carry or drag your bags to a water bus and then through crowds, narrow passageways and over bridges. Porters with hand carts are very expensive (negotiate, but expect to pay $40 to $75 for a hotel or apartment some distance away). Pack lightly and use luggage with wheels.

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Where to stay: Hotels in Venice are not cheap, and they usually need to be booked far in advance. If you can stay a week or longer in Venice, why not rent an apartment? Depending on season, location, size and amenities, one will cost $500 to $2,000 a week, prices that compare favorably with hotels. Many agencies in the United States offer rentals in Venice. Here is a sampling: Vacanza Bella, 2261 Market St., Suite 281, San Francisco, Calif. 94114, (415) 554-0234, fax (415) 241-9686; Rentals in Italy (and Elsewhere!), 1742 Calle Corva, Camarillo, Calif. 93010, (800) 726-6702, fax (805) 482-7976; and Villas of Distinction, P.O. Box 55, Armonk, N.Y. 10504, (800) 289-0900, fax (914) 273-3387.

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Where to eat: Part of the pleasure of Venice without crowds is wandering through areas of the city where tourists seldom venture--and stopping at a canal-side family-run restaurant for lunch or dinner. One of our best meals was a lunch at the Hostaria Alla Pergola, along the Fondamenta della Sensa in the district of Cannaregio. For less than $20 for two, we watched commercial boats move by while we ate a delicious seafood risotto.

For more information: Italian Government Tourist Board, 12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 550, Los Angeles, 90025; (310) 820-0098, fax (310) 820-6357.