A journey through a Venice never seen before
Rights — di Rudi Bressa
After the high water of November and the coronavirus emergency, Venice woke up empty, changed. Now it must rethink how to start again, without repeating the mistakes of the past.
A journey through a Venice never seen before
After the high water of November and the coronavirus emergency, Venice woke up empty, changed. Now it must rethink how to start again, without repeating the mistakes of the past.
The last visit had been on 25 February, shortly after the first cases of Covid-19 were recorded in Italy and the first closure of some areas of the country. Even in those days the city had emptied out, and the last visitors were hurrying with their trolley cases to catch trains and flights and leave the city. Carnival had ended a few days earlier — unlike in other years — and talk of a health emergency was just beginning. It was during the following week, on 3 March 2020, that, in an attempt to counter the decline in tourism, spritz was offered free in Piazza San Marco. Today, after two months of lockdown, the city is completely transformed. And Piazza San Marco, one of the symbols of the lagoon city, is empty. The tourists have disappeared, the bridges are clear, there are no street vendors selling selfie sticks, there is no crush at the station.
What can be heard, amid the lapping of breaking waves, is the cry of the odd seagull and the other birds that inhabit the city. And that is perhaps what makes the greatest impression in this city: the silence. The vaporetto stops are virtually empty, while boat services have been reduced to a minimum. No traffic on the canals, no wash. Venice is left with only Venetians, now numbering just over 51,000 residents.
According to #Venice's 🇮🇹 citizens, waters have cleared following the #COVID19 lock-down. But what can we see from #Sentinel2 🛰️🇪🇺?
A notable difference in boat traffic between 8 February & 19 March, as well as seemingly less turbid/agitated waters. What do you think?
#EUSpace
A notable difference in boat traffic between 8 February & 19 March, as well as seemingly less turbid/agitated waters. What do you think?
#EUSpace
In Venice the water turns clean again and wildlife can be spotted
Images went viral of a jellyfish drifting undisturbed through a canal, or a seahorse swimming calmly between bridges and alleyways. And then the sighting of an octopus in the waters near Piazzale Rome. But it is not hard to spot shoals of fish hiding among the algae either. That Venice's water had become clean again was already visible from satellite images produced by Sentinel-2 of Copernicus. At the end of February the images still showed marked turbidity, which had gradually been fading. On 11 March, when the lockdown was already in force and boat traffic had almost come to a standstill, a very high concentration of suspended sediment was still visible due to the strong winds blowing across the lagoon. By 19 March, with no more boat traffic and no wind, the lagoon had returned to showing its true nature.
"Turbidity provides a quantitative measure of water transparency, which can vary with different levels of suspended particles," explain the researchers at Cnr-Ismar, as part of the CoastObs H2020 project. "These are often used to monitor coastal sea waters because turbidity and the level of suspended matter affect light penetration, water composition and have an impact on marine ecosystems in the area." From 19 March onwards, the murky waters gave way to the emerald green typical of the lagoon, which today envelops the Grand Canal, the Giudecca Canal and many others, in a play of reflections never seen before.
For Venice, the time has come to rethink its tourism model
The vaporetti too are half-empty. Everyone is wearing masks and gloves, as required by regional regulations, and the few people moving around are carrying shopping trolleys — in many campielli it is market day. Rialto is closed, as are churches, palaces and museums. The full picture comes into view when you climb the Accademia bridge: a flat mirror of water in a deserted canal, while the entire palette of colours creates an image that stays with you long after.
Walking through the silent calli, seeing all the shutters down, with a few signs hanging that read "Closed until 9 April", takes your breath away. But we are now at the end of April, and it is still unclear whether and how certain businesses will be able to reopen. "How are we living through this situation? We are very worried. Many of us are at home on furlough," says an employee of Actv, the company that manages public transport in the metropolitan city.
"Tourism? Wiped out," says Stefano Croce, official tour guide and president of the Venice tourist guides association. "Before, we were overwhelmed, besieged. Today we are in a situation of total desolation." From around 25 million visitor nights a year – though no reliable data exists – the number has dropped to zero, in the space of just over three months.
"The city is like it was 50 years ago, except that very few Venetians are left," Croce explains. "Whether we like it or not, tourism will in practice be sustainable. It has to be." In recent months there had already been many proposals to try in some way to curb the effect of "hit-and-run" tourism, which in just a few years has transformed this lagoon city — so celebrated by poets, so longed for by lovers from all over the world — into an amusement park besieged day and night by tourists of every nationality. There had been talk of a cap on visitor numbers, to be managed through arrivals and bookings. And of a reduction in cruise ship berths, which on more than one occasion have caused accidents, coming dangerously close to disaster.
What is certain is that what humankind had failed to achieve up to now, nature took care of — first with the high water and then with a public health emergency that has no equal in recent history. The opportunity is there to breathe new life into this unique little jewel, one of a kind in the world, by focusing on a different kind of offering, more conscious and designed with the few who remain in mind as well. In St Mark's Square the gondolas are rocked by the waves, solitary, empty. "We have to be here to cover them, and to check that the weather doesn't change too quickly," says Marco (a fictitious name), a gondolier for generations. "But there is no one left now. A Venice like this has never been seen, in centuries of history. First the high water and then this. For us, it's over," he says, disconsolate. Though he still takes care to wish us good luck.