The Pillars of Hercules

I stepped from that screaming into the green fields of Rovigo and caught another branch-line train, even smaller, the spur to Chioggia by way of the tiniest Italian villages I had seen so far, the farms and settlements that feed the appetites of Venice. It was a happy discovery: in the midst of all the celebrated cities, this obscure corner, reachable on a little rattling two-car train. The land was as flat as Holland, it had the look of a floodplain, and garlic and onions and lettuce sprouted from it.

At the end of this branch-line railway was the small ancient seaside town of Chioggia, the last, most southerly island in the chain of narrow barrier islands that form the eastern edge of the lagoon of Venice. The lovely city hovers in the distance like a mirage on water, dreamlike spires and domes in the mist.

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Chioggia is Venice with motor traffic. As a consequence it is scruffy and noisy, not livelier but more chaotic—few tourists, lots of locals, only dogs and children in the backstreets, and only one hotel that I could see. I was not planning to stay. I had arrived early enough in the day to look around and then leave. With no splendid image to live up to, a rather ordinary town on the water, Chioggia was restful and pleasant. There were concerts and events advertised, but it was obvious that Chioggia had constantly to defend itself against the taunts of people who compared it unfavorably with Venice.

I left my bag with the ferry captain of the Clodia at the main quay and then walked from one end of town to the other, and across bridges and along the small canals. After lunch, I followed a nervous and exhausted bride and groom who were having their pictures taken; the family trailed behind, with gently mocking friends, and onlookers, and all the while the bride’s white gown and long train dragged through the mud of the quay.

I bought an antique postcard with a 1935 postmark in Chioggia, not for the picture—of Trieste—but the message: “You are always in my thoughts. Infinite kisses.” (Sei sempre nei mei pensieri. Baci infiniti.) Such tender sentiments lifted my spirits.

Workers from Chioggia commuted to the Lido on the Clodia. Anything but an easy trip, it was cheap but exhausting, over an hour and a half, involving ferries, buses, and in places legging it. The whole affair of transfer had the laborious efficiency of Italian travel. The ferry crossed to Pellestrina Island, where at the quay a bus was waiting to transport the ferry passengers to the north end of the Pellestrina. This island of somewhat recent, somewhat ugly houses and green meadows, and football fields, and schools, could have been almost anywhere in coastal Italy, except that the lagoon to the left and the seawall to the right were reminders that it was unusually slender and low-lying. The soil was sodden and waterlogged, with that unnatural reclaimed look that Holland has, hardly land it seems so fragile and false, more like a raft or a carpet, not terra firma but something more easily drowned.

Arriving at the village of Santa Maria del Mare, the bus rolled straight onto another ferry, the Ammiana, which had been waiting there at the north end of Pellestrina. This new ferry, with the bus on board, plowed into the lagoon and took us a half mile to the south end of the Lido, another long and narrow island. The bus drove off the ferry ramp, with us on it, and after a while we arrived at the Lido water taxi station.

The Lido was residential; it is for people who want tree-lined streets, and cars, and the chance to swim. As a barrier island, on the sea, it acts as Venice’s shoreline; the word lido means “shore.” Several hotels of the Lido are extravagantly grand, on their own Adriatic beaches; there are also many small hotels, and the usual boardinghouses. Today a rough sea was battering the beach of the elegant Hotel des Bains, where Von Aschenbach leered at lovely little Tadzio, and contemplated the meaning of life, in Death in Venice, the ultimate low season narrative. Perhaps the masterpiece would have been more aptly titled Death on the Lido, since the Lido bears no resemblance at all to Venice.

I considered staying at the Hotel des Bains or the Excelsior, but thought better of it. Apart from the fact that rooms were too expensive, I also felt that I would be isolated from the life of the Lido, in a gilded cage. Sometime in the future, when all I had to do was read a book, and not write one, I would return and stay there. It seemed to me that the greatest Mediterranean comforts were available at those grand hotels on the Lido, but at a price, about $600 a night. On the lagoon side of the island, I found the sort of ordinary hotel that in Italy was usually clean and pleasant, and the next morning I realized I had chosen well.