Michael Patrick O’Brien–
Venice is not known for its tango, but that now may change after my visit there a few years ago.
The tango originated not in Italy, but in Argentina, with Spanish and African influences mixed in. My personal favorite, and perhaps the best known tango music is “Por Una Cabeza” written in 1935 by renowned Buenos Aires composer Carlos Gardel. You know it from famous scenes in the films Scent of a Woman, Schindler’s List, or True Lies.
One famous tango artist calls the dance a “shared moment.” The tango requires that its performers move in relation to each other, often in tandem but sometimes in opposition, ergo the idiomatic phrase “it takes two to tango.” This was the story of my Spring 2013 trip to Venice.
I recall the tense, oppositional forces of my tango with Venice. Hot water was an unheard of amenity at our hotel. The early spring weather was chilly and overcast. Our bus/boat seemed ready to capsize when pummeled by the waves of a sudden wind and rain storm that hit as we left town and headed to the airport.
Venice, true to form, also was terribly overcrowded when we were there. The UNESCO World Heritage site gets 20 million visitors a year. On peak days, there are 120,000 tourists on an island that can accommodate only about half that amount. We seemed to be there on such a day.
The Venice we saw also was polluted and dirty. We spotted used diapers floating in the canals, hardly the romantic vista expected for our long-anticipated ride in a sleek black gondola. Due to the loss of tourists during the COVID-19 pandemic, news reports emerged in 2020 that—for a change—there was clean and clear water in the Grand Canal.
And yet, like the push and pull of the tango, Venice also allured and fascinated me.
With our excellent guide, we toured the Doge’s Palace, home to the supreme rulers of the Venetian Republic. We walked across the 600 hundred year old viaduct to the nearby jail—dubbed the “Bridge of Sighs” by the poet Lord Byron–and shared the last view seen by Venice’s condemned prisoners. We sat in the cavernous chamber of the Great Council, admiring—behind the Doge’s throne—the longest canvas painting in the world, Il Paradiso by Tintoretto.
Leaving the palace, we took in the adjoining Byzantine architecture of St. Mark’s Basilica, originally the Doge’s private chapel. Replicas of stone horses taken from the Hippodrome of Constantinople in the thirteenth century guarded the entrance. Gold-leafed mosaics gilded the interior ceiling and illuminated the heart of the Basilica—the final resting place of St. Mark the apostle and evangelist.
Our tour guide shared the gripping story of how in the year 828, two Venetian merchants stole St. Mark’s body from Alexandria, then under Muslim rule. The clever thieves covered the precious relics with pork and cabbage leaves. Muslims do not eat pork, so this camouflage deterred any close inspection of the contraband booty as it left Egypt. The crime is depicted in one of the Basilica’s mosaics.
Exiting the Basilica into the heart of the Piazza San Marco, we once again faced the oppositional forces of the tango. We battled large and noisy crowds but savored two brief respites. One was a lace-making showroom and the other a glassmaking factory, where we bought a stained glass frame that now holds one of my favorite family portraits.
We wandered away from the main square, enjoyed lunch in a cozy trattoria, and sampled afternoon crepes filled with Nutella. Down a quiet side street, halfway between St. Mark’s Square and the Rialto Bridge, we shopped for local treasures. I wandered into a small gallery and bought a watercolor bookmark painted by local artist Monica Martin (see Itaca Art Studio), and a 6 x 8 painting of the iconic lagoon entrance to the city, guarded by a winged lion.
Within just a few short hours, exhausted and entranced, we had indulged in both too much and too little of Venezia. Just before boarding our water taxi back to the hotel with no hot water, we strolled through Piazza San Marco one last time. We wandered by Harry’s Bar where Ernest Hemingway drank dry martinis. We passed the venerable Caffè Florian, opened in 1720 by Floriano Francesconi, and where Goethe, Dickens, Proust, Stravinsky, and Balzac sipped tea and coffee.
The Florian’s famous string orchestra was out front, under a white canopy. The orchestra started to play. I recognized the song immediately—it was “Por Una Cabeza.” As the sun started to set, the square and lagoon filled with an exquisite fading light. I reached over, took my wife Vicki’s hand, and put my arm around her waist. The spectral eyes of poets, princes, scribes, and saints watched with anticipation.
We danced the Venetian tango.
*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings (found here), about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, will be published by Paraclete Press (more information here) in August 2021.
