Fantasy islands

Venice is unreal. Not unreal as in "cool", but literally unreal, such that it's hard to believe it exists in the world today. The entire city is a vast anachronism belonging to story books and history books - not the here and now - which makes walking around it all the more remarkable.

And a remarkable place it is. Some cities are known by their landmarks, a city like London for example, is presented to the world as a series of icons, from Buckingham Palace to the Gherkin, but much of fabric of the city is curiously anonymous. By contrast, any part of Venice is immediately recognisable, each sliver of the city seeming encapsulating the whole as though it were constructed from some exotic fractal algorithm. It's impossible to gaze down any street or canal without experiencing a familiarity verging on deja vu.

It would be so very easy to be negative about Venice. It's a quixotic, crumbling edifice starved of any real purpose in the modern world, save as a curiosity to gawped at by an endless legion of tourists. It came a something of a shock to discover just how given over to the tourist hoarde the city is. Various guide books refer to Venice as a theme park, and it's all too apt a description. The last 50 years or so have seen the native population shrink by almost two thirds as tourists snapped up holiday homes and forced house prices upwards. The majority of shops seem to cater near exclusively for tourists now, and the casual observer would quickly come to the conclusion that the entire Venetian economy is wholly dependant on the sale of glass trinkets, carnival masks, chocolate, and tickets for concerts of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Finding anything else for sale requires a surprising amount of effort.

Another shock is the state of many of the buildings in and around the city. Flooding hasn't been kind to many of the older buildings, but there are obvious signs of decay and neglect to be found almost everywhere. Boarded up windows are common around the canals, and crumbling brick and plasterwork are familiar sights. But if Venice in terminal decline - and despite efforts to save the city, such as a flood barrier that's been recently approved after 30 years of wrangling it's hard to escape such a conclusion - it's nevertheless a charming sort of decline. In the pantheon of cities, Venice most closely resembles an alcoholic film star who's best days belong in the distant past, but is yet able to enthral an audience. It's a wondrous place which feels magical in a way with which no other city can compare.

Venice is both tragedy and comedy. It should be a place of painters and musicians, of playwrights and storytellers, home to artisans of all sorts. A trip to the Guggenheim revealed much about Venice's vibrant art's community back in the 1950's, but little evidence of such can be found today. It seems a terrible shame that Venice is damned by it's own beauty. I feel guilty for having visited the city, for having contributed to the creeping tourism that infests it. I'm not sure if there's a collective noun for tourists, but if not I have a proposal: A plague of tourists. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

I'm genuinely glad for having visited Venice. It's a wonderful place and I loved the city and the feel of the city. It exudes character and beauty and is truly marvellous, though less so than it once was I fear, a thought which saddens me greatly. I can't recommend you go there, since to do so can only seem to doom the city further, though at the same time I believe it's somewhere everyone should have the opportunity to see. I shan't return, though I would dearly love to.