Marco told me that there was an ugly, industrial area on the mainland near Venice. The implication was that I shouldn't visit there. So of course I had to see it for myself.
Every 5 minutes a train runs between Venezia Santa Lucia and Mestre train station. It was 1.30€ and took about 15 minutes to arrive. The view of la laguna, its use by rowing teams and kayakers reminded me how locals adapt a tourist attraction to personal interests. Mestre has the feeling of a suburb, or really an anywhere–European city. The visible difference is that the people on the streets didn't look like tourists and and didn't look like the stuffy Venetian locals: Asians, Africans, Caucasians; the periphery of diversity. The buildings were larger and looked from the 1960s or 1970s – occupying between 30 and 50 percent of a modern city block; they were taller than the Venetian structures by three or four stories. The roads were wider. And there were basically no canals; I saw only one channelized river, the Riviera Magellano, in the historic center. The prices of everything were several euros less. A caffe, 1€. There were school children, motorcycles, and many shopkeepers didn't speak English. For 1,30€ one could arrive to Italy for Venice.
We walked up via Piave to Via Giudosue Carducci and then over the historic center. I realized that this was the equivalent of the suburbs; I felt the air of possibility there, which was suffocatingly absent in Venezia. The latter is the Time Square of Italy; the former, Cornellà de Llobregat. Venice is determined, dense, and layered in history. It's been a tourist destination for centuries. It's the playground of the rich and cultured, the nouveau riche and uncultured, those who have traveled the world, and those who have avoided it. Mestre is land: fertile, potent.
I fantasized about starting a small, early to mid-career arts colony here; a Lower East Side or Bushwick, a potentiality to the achieved and the supported; a proximity to the arrived. An industrial zone where the young and curious and dig and the shins of the grayed and bored. Where imagination can fabricate during the two years between the Bienniale; a haven where the prices of the Island can be avoided and where the issues that concern real artists today–gentrification, urbanism, environmentalism, social justice, grass roots movements, the virtual, the verge–can be taken off the shelf of the Giardini or Arsenale and lived, tried and experimented with in situ. And of course, by doing so, the world and the community would be changed.
The one element that makes Venice seem "inauthentic"–the corporate chains, like Gucci, H&M, and McDonald's–makes Piazza Erminio Ferretto feel authentic. We spotted a Lupo Negro off the square where blue-collar workers were leaving, which is always a good sign of decent food in Europe. Inside Lupo Nero we sat near a monochrome watercolor of a large wolf, staring at me. One of the many wolf-themed works in the restaurant. I order the lunch menu: spaghetti aglio e olio and vegetables, zucchini, carrots and potatoes. Vanessa had scallops and spaghetti with mussels. I realized that the service, which is stereotypically classified as "bad" is actually just oriented to delivering food to customers over closing a customer's bill.
Osteria Lupo Negro is located off of Piazza Erminio Ferretto, named after the anti-fascist insurgent who fought against Franco and later undermined the industrial production for materials headed from Italy to Nazi-Germany. His nom de guerre was "The Venetian." [1]
In the evening we returned to Santa Lucia and walked over the island back to the hotel to wait for dinner. We walked down Piazza San Marco to Harry’s, the alleged birthplace of the Martini. Inside, a man was holding the entire bar for his colleagues, who were arriving. The waiter rudely tossed us the menu and said the entire place was booked. I glanced around and saw only single woman, advanced in age, seated at the tables, alone, watching the group of young men cluster inside to their friend, and us. 24€ for a martini? We turned around and walked out, catching a grimace from the bartender. Wandering around on the northern shore of the island, we unsuccessfully found a place for a night cap, before making our way back to the hotel.
[1] Storia della Resistenzia veneziana
http://resistenzaveneziana.blogspot.com/