I love and hate Venice.

It sometimes seems the city's been turned into

a huge Disney-esque bazaar of junk that is peddled aggressively

on every square inch of La Serenissima.

It is really, really ugly too: cheap stuff that I 

find impossible to imagine anyone ever wanting

to see a second time. Garish and vulgar crap,
 endless amounts of it heaped in windows

and displayed on kiosks everywhere.

Some is somewhat understandable: the masks for instance

being sold all over, throughout the year, but especially for this

period of Carnivale. Some of the masks are intriguing, or pretty;

most are neither.

Some of the Italian leather goods are beautiful,
much of it comes from elsewhere and is not.

Some shops do try valiantly to offer beautiful things made by a

dwindling number of local artists and craftsmen 
who live and work in and around Venice.

A  few artists have their own shops, and stopping in at these is

always interesting, the visit always comprising at some point in the conversation

a sad discourse about how things are going for the serious shops. 

I feel compassion for the junk sellers, 
but not their wares.
Their task is so difficult, on some level, pitiful.

But, and it's a big but. . . 

away from the merchandise,

Venice remains capable of revealing layers un-imagined.

You can walk just a street or two off the main paths

and find a Venice of narrow alleyways and quiet campos

all to yourself. You can escape the

tourists touring in boisterous groups and walk alone, or step into 

a quiet bar and find only Venetians there, enjoying their daily routine.

Or you can go just a bit farther, and find even more . . .

I rode the vaporetto out to the Giardini stop this morning, and wandered 

through the heart of Castello, enjoying the warm day, finally stopping

to sit outside in the sun at Bar Mio on Via Garibaldi, watching

and listening to the old Italians, mostly men, but women too, who gather there. 

It was the scene I always hope to find in Venice, and somehow always do.