Where’s the beach?
Now the traveling-almost-like-they-did-back-then part starts. I move from a small room in the heart of Venice to a camping establishment over on the mainland – turns out to be a sagging cot in a tin garden shed, one of many hundred such garden sheds arranged in uneven, haphazard rows interrupted by occasional flocks of toilets, showers and outdoor sinks. There is also a canteen. It’s safe to say I’m probably the oldest, least adventurous, most conventional person here. (My luggage is hands-down the wimpiest, because you can’t go white-water rafting with it. However, my sofa-shoes earn me some respect.) In the spirit of our sweetly rural surroundings near the most romantic city in Europe, loud techno-pop music blares until 2 am. Then lots of young people wander by laughing with impossible shrillness until about 3. I lie awake feeling like a fuddy-duddy for being grumpy about this, wondering if medieval army camps would be this rowdy – surely Count Baldwin of Flanders (who did not allow any of his men to engage in non-marital fornication) would have put a stop to it at once. It rains hard overnight and when I finally pull myself out of bed, my eyes are so swollen that they can hardly open; there aren’t enough loos for everybody, and they’re skanky; I already know from my supper experience that breakfast will be overpriced and disappointing. This is sort of a writer/researcher’s version of “method acting.”
SEPTEMBER 28:
After pulling myself awake from a whopping 4 hours of sleep, I take the shuttle from the camping-disco village into Venice and head out to the islands of the lagoon. There is really only one I must see, which is the Lido: 700-odd years before it was an exclusive beach resort it was the temporary, icky home to 10,000 crusading soldiers for 5 long, hot months, while their leaders argued with the Doge about money. My novels open on the Lido, in that army camp –at sunset. So I will go to the Lido myself at sunset. Thus, I go to Torcello and Burano first, and would love to tell you all about them, but really you should just come and see them for yourselves before they sink into the lagoon. Finally, as afternoon is wearing thin, and my legs are wearing out, I get to the Lido. The Lido is basically an 8-mile long sandbar, which I had naively thought might have a big sign saying, “Crusader Army Camp – 40 meters (arrow sign).” Nope. So I do what one must in such circumstances: cheerfully filthy from Torcello’s swamps (I’m in black, and the filth is sand-colored, so it really shows up nicely), I wander into 3 consecutive luxury hotels, and ask the startled concierges where the army of the Fourth Crusade bivouacked. They have no idea what I am talking about. Nobody even recognizes the name Enrico Dandolo (the Doge), which would be like Americans not knowing Ulysses S Grant (or William the Conqueror or Henry V, for the Brits among us). I had already noticed that Venice has an intensely uneasy relationship to the Fourth Crusade, but this really takes the cake. Although I am about to fall on my face with exhaustion, I decide to figure out the mystery of the army camp for myself. Ha!
Common sense sends me toward the only building that existed on the island at the time of the army encampment (the church of San Nicolo, still standing). It’s been turned into an international center for peace and good vibes, and is right next to a military installation. Therein follows a ridiculous series of events in which I retrace my steps three or four times, about a mile each time, searching for the elusive medieval army camp, following clues provided by baffled locals who truly don’t know Venice had anything to do with the Crusades at all. I’ll spare you the details, but the rhythm is consistent: “Here’s a clue! Oh, psyche out – Dead end!… Look, new clue! Oh, psyche out…” etc. This goes on for a couple of hours. The light is fading. I always know I’m overtired when my attempts to speak a European foreign language come out as Japanese; now I am so far gone I am even muttering to myself in Japanese, which is alarming because I’ve forgotten most of it, and half the time I don’t even know what I’m saying to myself (something about pineapples).
What I finally establish in my exhausted tromping about is this: the area that was an army camp 803 years ago is now a secret military site, and I can’t get in (it’s not on any maps I could find, but it is surrounded by barbed wire and signs that either mean “Access forbidden – Military!” or “No drinking Cappucino after 11 am, you stupid Americans!”)
The light is fading, my feet are pulsing with pain, and I’ve eaten almost nothing all day. I just want to go back to my moldy garden shed and lie awake listening to techno-pop all night. But this is the Lido – at one time the most famous beach in the world! – and I haven’t actually gotten to the beach yet! (It’s not a beach on the lagoon side, only on the sea-side.) So having given up on the army camp, I head out for the beach. Let me at least accomplish that.
But it’s a repeat of the army camp debacle: wherever I go, no beach. How is that possible? I am a walking anti-compass! I’m about to take a ferry back in to Venice, awed by my own incompetence: I will be the only person alive who, having spent 10 months planning a trip to the Lido, can’t find the beach. That’s amazing. That takes a very special kind of dumb.
Wait… look at that… it’s… the beach! At last! With rows and rows and rows of snug little changing tents (which look suspiciously like a medieval army camp, come to think of it). I’ll go check it out.
Oh. There’s a fence. Well, I’ll just follow it until I find an open gate.
There’s an open gate! Oh. It opens onto another gate, which is closed.
There’s a hole in the fence! I can slip around the whole fenced-in area, and head straight down to the water. As night falls, I can look out over the very channel where the Crusaders and Venetians set out to conquer – sorry, I meant liberate – that place with all the oil — sorry, I meant the sacred real estate.
I’m so close to the beach, the ground has turned from dirt to sand. This is so cool. At the end of this long, fruitless endeavor of a day, I am going to dip my hands into the Adriatic sea, just like my characters did. Neato-keen.
I hear a noise behind me. I glance back. Oh, that’s OK, it’s just a strange man following me through the hole in the fence, carrying a large bottle of alcohol and some club-shaped object in his arms. Nothing to worry about. I’ll just keep heading to the beach, which is now only about 15 feet away. I’ve walked at least 15 miles to day.
Okay, lady, hold on: you know better. You’ve seen the movies — and bought the T-shirt. This is NOT the scene where you go down to the dark, empty beach with this man following you; this is the scene where you turn around, walk straight at him to show him you’re not scared of him, then get the hell back to the populated strip, and live to tell the rest of the story. You only get one take. Go.
So I turn back, without going to the beach, and scowling fearsomely, I walk right up to the strange man in the growing dusk… he is about 17 years old, carrying a bottle of Pepsi and a large salami for his dinner. I am so relieved that I almost giggle. Then I almost turn around to walk with him back to the beach, but I decide that would be far too socially awkward. So I head back toward the ferry landing… having never made it to the beach.
On the bright side, the techno-pop music doesn’t start until 2 am.
SEPTEMBER 29: ARRIVEDERCI VENICE
I wake before dawn the next morning (3 hours sleep) and flee the camping-disco on an early bus into Venice; leaving my bag at the station, I hang out in the alleys of Venice for a good 5 hours before catching my train to Ancona (where I’ll get a boat across the Adriatic.) My Venice time includes a trip to the Accademia, yet another bastion of staggering art, none of which (to my knowledge) is featured in The Da Vinci Code.
Venice was the stop I was least interested in when I planned this trip, believe it or not – “oh, sheesh, just another one of those picturesque European cities with beautiful old stuff, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m over it” – and now I am seriously trying to figure out how to move here at least for a year or so.
But in the meanwhile, the Crusaders have set sail for Croatia, and so must I. Here’s the deal the leaders have worked out with the Venetians: to make up for not paying their bill on time, the (Catholic) Crusaders will help (Catholic) Venice re-conquer one of its former colonies, Zara, which happens to be – wait for it – Catholic. The (Catholic) Pope is furious and threatens to excommunicate the entire crusading army if they attack Zara. They sail from Venice with the intention of doing it anyhow, although most of the soldiers are unhappy about it, and would definitely refuse to attack if they were ever informed that the Pope had forbidden it. They haven’t been informed. Yet. So here’s the $64,000 question: when they get to Zara, will they actually attack? Or not? Tune in next up-load to find out, but here is a hint: Look for Zara on a map. Did you find it? I didn’t think so.
Tags: Crusades, Europe, history, Travel, Travel, Venice
Nicki