{"id":71549,"date":"2019-11-22T14:06:40","date_gmt":"2019-11-22T19:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.tablethotels.com\/en\/?p=71549"},"modified":"2025-04-24T17:24:36","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T21:24:36","slug":"invisible-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.tablethotels.com\/en\/2019\/11\/invisible-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Invisible City"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\">[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.prod.r53.tablethotels.com\/media\/ecs\/global\/email\/newsletter-img\/venice-invisible-cities-lead.jpg\" alt=\"Venice\" width=\"970\" height=\"auto\" \/><\/p>\n<h4>Due to rising sea levels, repeated flooding, and a dwindling population, it\u2019s no longer alarmist to worry about the future of Venice \u2014 or wonder how much of one it has left.<\/h4>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator style=&#8221;dashed&#8221; css=&#8221;&#8221;][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=&#8221;1\/12&#8243;]<aside class=\"gap cf\" style=\"height:10px;\"><\/aside><a class=\"image_link\" href=\"https:\/\/magazine.tablethotels.com\/en\/author\/markfedeli\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" height=\"198\" src=\"https:\/\/magazine.tablethotels.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/mark-small-circle-2.png\" class=\"thb_image  left  retina_size attachment-full\" alt=\"\" title=\"mark small circle\" \/><\/a><aside class=\"gap cf\" style=\"height:10px;\"><\/aside>[\/vc_column][vc_column width=&#8221;11\/12&#8243;]<aside class=\"gap cf\" style=\"height:10px;\"><\/aside>[vc_column_text css=&#8221;.vc_custom_1720455088433{background-color: #ffffff !important;}&#8221;]\n<p style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><strong>By <a href=\"https:\/\/magazine.tablethotels.com\/en\/author\/markfedeli\/\">Mark Fedeli<\/a><\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Marketing and Editorial Director, Tablet Hotels<\/em><\/p>\n[\/vc_column_text]<aside class=\"gap cf\" style=\"height:10px;\"><\/aside>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator style=&#8221;dashed&#8221; css=&#8221;&#8221;]<aside class=\"gap cf\" style=\"height:40px;\"><\/aside>[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=&#8221;&#8221;]\n<p><em>Read a <a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/magazine.tablethotels.com\/en\/2020\/11\/clear-eyes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">response to this article<\/a>, from a local. Then read <a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/magazine.tablethotels.com\/en\/2023\/06\/to-the-wonder\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a 2023 update<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve never been to Venice, but I can&#8217;t stop thinking about it. I&#8217;ve been fascinated by it ever since I was a kid, when I first saw it drawn on paper placemats at Italian restaurants. <em>Wait a minute, the streets are made of rivers? The cars are made of boats? What kind of fantasyland is this?<\/em> It seemed made up, like Atlantis or the capital of some vanished civilization from adventure books. But it was real. It existed. In my lifetime. Which made me wonder, why weren\u2019t more places like this? Who wouldn\u2019t want every city to be like this?<\/p>\n<p>As I got a little older I learned why, and the reason is the same one that explains why we don\u2019t have all sorts of other fanciful things: the maintenance is a nightmare. Add in the destructive, corrosive effects of water and it\u2019s a miracle that we even have a Venice to begin with, and that it\u2019s lasted as long as it has. <\/p>\n<p>By the time I\u2019d graduated from college Venice had lost some of its magic for me. Somewhere along the line I\u2019d heard that the town had become overrun with tourists and giant cruise ships and that the water was murky. When you\u2019re in your twenties and you\u2019re plotting all the places you\u2019d love to visit as soon as you have a few bucks, it doesn&#8217;t take much to knock a destination down your list.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn1.tablethotels.com\/media\/ecs\/global\/magazine\/story-images\/20191123\/InvisibleCity-1.jpg\" alt=\"Venice\" width=\"970\" height=\"773\" border=\"0\" data-gae=\"Magazine, Clicked, Image\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Photo by Karsten W\u00fcrth<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Then I read <em>Invisible Cities<\/em> by Italo Calvino, and my curiosity returned. In the book, a weary Kublai Khan sends for news about his empire. Marco Polo answers the call and describes to the Khan dozens of exotic, incredible, and seemingly impossible cities that lie within the emperor\u2019s vast realm. When Kublai Khan asks why the merchant-explorer has not described his hometown of Venice, Polo reveals that he\u2019s been speaking of it all along, \u201cEvery time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Such is the impact and influence of Venice. Even if it wasn\u2019t the flawless fantasy version of itself that I\u2019d dreamt of, the very idea of it \u2014 an ancient city built on and of water \u2014 could still inspire wonder. And while Venice isn&#8217;t the only city with a canal network, I\u2019m glad the scheme hasn\u2019t been attempted en masse. With urban architecture becoming more uniform and nondescript, it\u2019s comforting to know that somewhere out there, there is a place like Venice, and there is no other place quite like it.<\/p>\n<p>But what happens when you lose your only copy?<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn1.tablethotels.com\/media\/ecs\/global\/magazine\/story-images\/20191123\/venice-gondola.jpeg\" alt=\"Venice\" width=\"970\" height=\"773\" border=\"0\" data-gae=\"Magazine, Clicked, Image\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Photo by Tom Podmore<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Last week, Venice suffered its worst flooding in more than 50 years, with water reaching a level of 187 centimeters. It\u2019s the second-highest mark since recording began in 1923 and it comes on the back of a sustained period of increasingly frequent flood events. It\u2019s a cruel irony that the very thing that makes Venice so singular is the thing that might wind up destroying it. It also feels somehow inevitable. Climate change has put on clear display the unstoppable power of the sea. What chance does a tiny cluster of <a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/marshallshepherd\/2019\/11\/16\/venice-flooding-reveals-a-real-hoax-about-climate-changeframing-it-as-eitheror\/#6a63595b3a12\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">perpetually sinking<\/a> islands stand against rising tides, intensifying winds, and surging storms?<\/p>\n<p>Even the solution to Venice\u2019s flood problem \u2014 massive floodgates, set to be operational in 2021 \u2014 will bring problems of their own. If global water levels continue to climb the gates will need to be raised permanently, effectively sealing off the lagoon and turning Venice into \u201c<a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/europe\/flooded-venice-had-tourists-taking-selfies-and-residents-in-tears\/2019\/11\/14\/c9e82db2-062b-11ea-9118-25d6bd37dfb1_story.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a contained aquatic petri dish<\/a>\u201d with sanitation issues and health risks. <\/p>\n<p>Then there are the Venetians \u2014 or what\u2019s left of them. <\/p>\n<p>Over-tourism and a rapidly declining population have left the city \u201chellish by day and empty by night,\u201d in the words of <a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/europe\/the-death-of-venice-corrupt-officials-mass-tourism-and-soaring-property-prices-have-stifled-life-in-10251434.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the Independent<\/a>. 20 million tourists visit Venice each year \u2014 many of them day-trippers from cruise ships \u2014 driving up the cost of living for the comparatively meager number of fixed residents. Since 1980, the population of the historic old city has decreased by more than 50% \u2014 from 120,000 to just over 50,000 \u2014 with predictions that by 2030 it will be so expensive there will be virtually no permanent residents remaining. <\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn1.tablethotels.com\/media\/ecs\/global\/magazine\/story-images\/20191123\/venice-1966.jpg\" alt=\"Venice\" width=\"970\" height=\"773\" border=\"0\" data-gae=\"Magazine, Clicked, Image\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>St. Mark&#8217;s Square during the flood of 1966<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>You don&#8217;t have to live in Venice to be concerned with those numbers, or with the way many tourists are choosing to engage with the city. Tablet is all about hotels, so we&#8217;re obviously biased to some extent against the big cruise lines. As a mode of transportation, boats are great, but not when they&#8217;re leading to hit-and-run, surface-level interactions that don&#8217;t properly support and stimulate the local citizenry. <\/p>\n<p>Whether it&#8217;s Venice or some place else, if residents are replaced by tourists, if everything exists only to prop up tourism, from where then does the destination derive its soul and beating heart? You don\u2019t travel somewhere just to meet other visitors or eat all your meals back on the ship. If you only want to see the facade of a city, to see if it looks like the pictures, maybe you&#8217;re better off going to Epcot or the Vegas version. But if you want to be immersed in the local culture, you\u2019ll need locals.<\/p>\n<p>If all of that sounds overly pessimistic, especially coming from someone who works at a travel company that&#8217;s expected to blindly promote tourism \u2014 well, that&#8217;s the point. By all accounts the situation in Venice is dire, and potentially heartbreaking. The new realities of our changing climate have amplified the conversation around the attractions and artifacts we treasure. Just because something has been around for ages, doesn&#8217;t mean it will be around forever. <\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn1.tablethotels.com\/media\/ecs\/global\/magazine\/story-images\/20191123\/venice-overview.jpg\" alt=\"Venice\" width=\"970\" height=\"773\" border=\"0\" data-gae=\"Magazine, Clicked, Image\"><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Photo by Dorian Mongel<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>That&#8217;s why today I&#8217;m writing about Venice even though I&#8217;ve never been. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m remembering those paper placemats and my childlike dream of river streets and boat cars. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m thinking of Calvino&#8217;s Kublai Khan \u2014 forced to imagine what the city must be like, content to rely on second-hand descriptions and left to wonder if I\u2019ll have a chance to get there before the things that make it special all but <a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/politics\/politics-news\/venice-flooding-2019-mose-corruption-913175\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">disappear<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Of course, never having seen a city doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s invisible to you. So much of travel is the <em>idea<\/em> of travel: the anticipation of what you&#8217;ll experience and the hope that it will live up to your imagination. And sometimes, there&#8217;s real value to what we must invent in our mind. Or, as Marco Polo explained it: <\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cTraveling, you realize that differences are lost: each city takes to resembling all cities, places exchange their form, order, distances, a shapeless dust cloud invades the continents. Your atlas preserves the differences intact: that assortment of qualities which are like the letters in a name.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Most of us can\u2019t travel wherever, whenever we want to. But maybe, if we\u2019re lucky, we&#8217;ll visit enough places in our lifetime that they&#8217;ll all begin to blur together. So go and see everything you can, while you can \u2014 and never forget the places you can\u2019t. \u25aa <\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"color:#6F4685;\"><em><strong>Book <a style=\"text-decoration: underline;color:#6F4685;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tablethotels.com\/en\/venice-hotels\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the best hotels in Venice<\/a> on Tablet Hotels.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"height:1px;border-top:3px double #ccc;margin-top:30px;margin-bottom:60px;display:block;clear:both\"><\/div>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=&#8221;1\/6&#8243;]<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"thb_image  left  retina_size \" src=\"https:\/\/magazine.tablethotels.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/mark-200x250.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"250\" alt=\"mark\" title=\"mark\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><aside class=\"gap cf\" style=\"height:20px;\"><\/aside>[\/vc_column][vc_column width=&#8221;5\/6&#8243;][vc_column_text css=&#8221;.vc_custom_1676124357965{background-color: #ffffff !important;}&#8221;]Mark Fedeli is the hotel marketing and editorial director for Tablet and Michelin Guide. He&#8217;s been with Tablet since 2006, and he thinks you should <a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/cb.tablethotels.com\/join\/magazine-signup\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">subscribe to our newsletter<\/a>.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]\n<div style=\"height:1px;border-top:3px double #ccc;margin-top:30px;margin-bottom:60px;display:block;clear:both\"><\/div>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Due to rising sea levels, repeated flooding, and a dwindling population, it\u2019s no longer alarmist to worry about the future of Venice \u2014 or wonder how much of one it has left.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":103838,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3550],"tags":[3639,3253,3544,3484],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-71549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","tag-commentary","tag-italy","tag-travel-life","tag-venice"],"acf":{"new_subtitle":"Dreaming of Venice Before it Disappears","property_id":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Dreaming of Venice Before it Disappears \u2014 by Tablet Hotels<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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