VENICE

Hokitika Guardian, 23 November 1928, Page 8

VENICE

STOP-WATCH TOURISTS FRENZIED RACK.

(By Sir PEUCJVAL PHILLIPS.)

VENICE, October 1

A slight diversion was created on the Piazza of St. Mark’s where a mmVboi of ns were engaged in the important task of feeding the pigeons, by the sudden entry of about forty men and women who appeared to have some pressing and serious bussines on hand. They were marehalled rather brusquely by a tired man who gave the impression of having slept in his clothes for some considerable time, and uere divided by him as far as possible into batches of line. Why nine and not eight or ten T was not aide to disi over, for the last hatch was necessarily unbalanced, and this tended further to eon fuse their minds. The operation was performed expeditiously, the only delay being caused by the lack of two old ladies to complete the second nine who were eventually discovered sitting at the base of the Campanile surveying the proceedings with a stony eye. 1 hey were routed out and formed up, and then the several hands or gangs, as they a opea red to i'i a , were addressed by the Mead Man as follows “Each party to stay with it o"n local guide. Keep together and don t act mixed. Remember you have only forty minutes. The gondolas "'ill be ready at eleven for the tour of \ chi' ee by water.” A WEARY DELEGATION.

The first nine moved off into St. Mark’s after pausing several seconds 1.0 look at the exterior. The next nine started after them, were shouted at pulled hack, and held fast until the '•agonl was given for them to go forward as the second wave. Somebody began a dissertation on tin 1 architecture of the Basilica. l"o young women took notes. An ehleil\ one said again : “I do want a drink o| water.” Five comeras registered me ehanically. The pigeons went on cad-

ging corn. 1 found that this weary delegation was exactly what it appeared to he a par tv of stop-watch tourists on the usual red-hot flight through Italy. Included among them, somewhat submerged and distantly travel-worn, were the original IS I had seen at Nanles and Home. They were united for the brief period of their visit to Venice, with other lightning pilgrims, under a business like local purveyor „f sights, who combined the superiority of bis breed with the rutldcssess of a slave driver.

The bedraggled IS had just arrived ”nv the night train from Florence, and they were leaving again at six in the evening for Milan. I hoy could not tell me much abonl Florence except that they had. as Urn young univorsitv student expressed it, ‘‘seen everything.” Florence was finished. What mattered at the moment was Venice.

8 HOURS TO SEE VENICE

Allowing for throe quick meals and the slow journeys hv water to and from the railway' stations they had a hunt eight hours in which to perform the usual feat of “seeing everything’' in Venice—its churches, galleries, palaces, and public buildings, not forgetting the Lido. where bathing beauties were popularly believed to make glad the tired tourist eye with pyjamas of exotie design. “Lot to see the Lido.” said tlm student. “People hack homo’ll sav‘Why, yon didn't see the Lido. Did you really go to Venice V T did not probe further into the painful future of tlie«o pilgrims than to ascertain that Milan to-morrow is good for a full three-quarters of a day’s investigation, after which there L to he a long jump, via the Simplon Pass, into the arms of Switzerland, f knew 1 ishould not see any of the eighteen again—they would be leagues ahead of me the other side of the Alps—and so J. joined up with them for a. pert of their frenzied race around Venice.

TXSTDF ST. MARK’S

The first nine marched into St. Mark’s, Tt was Sunday morning, and a lew sleepy, aged canons were singing lauds in tlve choir. Mass res being said in two chapels. The traffic over the sunken mar.blo pavement was like that in Piccadilly, hut none of the worshippers paid the least attention to it. Without passing more than a few seconds at a time, the first nine stared at the wonderful mosaic decorations of the nave walls and \ uniting ; they swung around the North Transept across to the South transept. The second nine entered the eatliedial twenty yards behind them. By the time tliev were Iready to leave the last hatch had crossed the threshold. 1 kept after the vanguard as it reemerged into the Piazza, and made (V:• the Palace of the Dures. There was a moment’s delay while tickets were being bought and cameras surrendered unwillingly to a keeper. After that it was a clear run through the rooms. To the Golden Staircase, a mere blur of colour and carving, through the Mall with the Four Doors, the Senate. Olmpel, .Ante-Chape], and Audience Doom they pressed determinedly after their guide, whose weird English flowed over them like a torreivt. A few tried feebly to linger here and there, caught by the glamour of the Middle Ages, but they were inevitably moved on. Tlu> Chamber of the sinister Council of len appealed to their imagination, but the guide applied the usual pressure; *

in the next room we have . . .” and ;g) they passed, the first nine, the second nine, the third, and the rearguard sweeping up the bits. Wonderful staff work, (trimly so. Back again into the Piazzo and around to the harbour, where gondolas were waiting. The Head-Man watched impatiently the reluctant approach ol one unsatisfied block of victims. He consulted his watch. ‘‘Looks like the others got lost,” said, one of the first nine. Torn away for ever from the splendour of .St. Mark’s, they put to sea. The Armada clustered around the flag ship as it headed down the lagoon : and from my independent craft i heard the Head .Man announce in stentorian tones; “We are about to enter the Grand Canal, which is lined with the palaces of old Venetian families.” His jaded crew sat up with renewed interest. They wanted to know something. Would the Head Alan kindly produce a certain historic house? You cannot possibly guess what it was. Not a mansion that had anything to do with the glorioic history of Venice: Not a mansion that over existed. What they demanded to see was the house of Shylock the Jew.

The Head .Man was at least honest. He evaded the first appeals, hut at last, pointing to the great bridge: “They say,” he shouted cautiously, “that Shy lock had his office in the building in the centre of the bridge. But you know, of course, that Shylock only existed in the imagination of Shakespeare.” They realised this in gloomy silence.

OFF TO THE LIDO

They went ashore at the Church of Inc: Fra mi-gun Friars —the Westminster Abbey of Venice—and again at a restaurant, where they ate hurried]v and unhappily of a quick-lunch species of food and drink, and were oil again in thirty minutes -by penny steamer to the Lido.

The sands of that well-advertised resort wore nearly empty. Only one bronzed bathing bounty was to he seen reclining on a camp-bed in I ront of her hut. The stop-watch tourists seemed to think there ought to have been more of them—there could not possibly have been much more of her. The Head Alan was unable to do anything about it. Back again to Venice, to a glass factory: to the Piazza shops that live on such (specimens of credulous humanity : to a cafe for the writing of postcards. (“This is St. Mark’s, winch we saw this morning. We are having a. wonderful time.”) Then the call to travel once more. Gondolas to the railway-station; the retrieving of light luggage (they always travel ligot). and at last the train to .Milan, with the' blessed prospect! of a bed at the other end. The veteran of a stop-watch tom may have trouble in sorting out his moil lories of many cities ol Italy -he usually does—>but Venice presents loss difficulties than some of the others. It is easy for the confused travel lei who sees Fluropo only once in a lifetime to remember that Venice is the city which has so much water around it.