Venice - Lots of Nice Canals, Churches, Paintings, Views, Trattorias and Stuff; but You Need One More Key Ingredient to Make It Magical

I’ve just been to Venice but I’m not going to bore you with the details*. Instead, I want to use the occasion to observe something which may seem stunningly obvious but which nonetheless I don’t think any of us talk about nearly often enough, despite it being one of the most important truths of our existence.

The thought occurred to me on the water taxi back to the airport (yes, they’re stupidly expensive; no, they’re not a waste of money) and I was trying to rank my top experiences in my head. Many of the usual candidates came up - the golden mosaics in St Mark’s basilica, and so on - but it struck me that most of the really special moments weren’t so much about the objects themselves but about the human interaction that went with them.

For example, though the Fawn and I loved the morning we spent checking out the Carpaccio scuola and a couple of old churches in the Castello district, what really made it for us was the company of a random, delightful stranger we’d met that morning on the Vaporetto.

He was an artist from Berlin. We talked about everything from Anselm Kiefer to the genius of Werner Herzog (not rated in Germany, apparently), about our likes and dislikes of Renaissance art (we agreed that the earlier, more decorative stuff is nicer - Bellini over Tintoretto), about how amazingly fortunate we were to have visited the San Giorgio dei Greici in the middle of a service, which meant all that incense and chanting and mystery that the Orthodox Church does so well. His father had fought with the Wehrmacht in the Battle of Kharkiv and was full of shrapnel from the wounds which had sent him home and probably saved his life. We stopped for espresso. We looked at more art. I’m not saying it wouldn’t have been fun doing these things with just the Fawn. But somehow, having an extra person to bounce ideas off and share the experience with made everything so much better.

Another day we went to get neckache craning up to look at the trippy ceiling painting in San Pantalon by an artist you’ve never heard of called Gian Fumiani. It’s one of the must-see sights, of that there’s no doubt. But I wonder whether the experience would have been half so pleasurable if it hadn’t been for the lovely, thoughtful old caretaker so evidently proud of the church and so delighted that anyone should come to visit it. Without his solicitousness and enthusiasm we might have missed the small side chapel housing a generously gold-embossed Vivarini and a late medieval alabaster statue of the Virgin. ‘The sign says it is French, but in fact some believe it may be from your country because of the style of the face, which looks like a doll’s,’ he explained to me, after discovering I was English.

Then the Vivaldi concert, of which there are many all over town. Obviously the music was very easy on the ear, as Vivaldi always is. But I doubt the evening would have been half so enjoyable without the English couple next to us sharing a bit of pre-match and interval chat. The woman was a cellist, so could give us insights on the quality of the playing and the acoustics (a bit muddy, she reckoned, though I can’t say it was a problem). Better still, she started a game in which we identified which role each of the eight players - all with very strong Quattrocento features - would have played in a Renaissance painting. The harpsichordist was quite obviously a Doge; the second violin was a soldier; the cellist, with his balding pate spotted with a small tuft of hair was obviously a monk, and so on. It gave you something to look at when you got bored of the Carpaccio altarpiece.

And our favourite trattoria, Ai Cugnai, so good that we went three times so that we could try all the key dishes on the menu. But it wasn’t just the precision of the cooking that brought us back. It was the atmosphere and the way we were treated by the staff, neither haughty nor ingratiating nor indifferent - as can be too often the case - but rather like old friends conspiring with you to ensure that everything about your lunch/dinner from the food on your plate to the speed with which it arrives is exactly as you would wish. I like my food. But the older I get the more I’m convinced that a restaurant’s ambiance is as at least as important as the quality of the cooking.

For ambiance, read company. What you’re really after in a restaurant is a place that’s full. Partly this is because we like to feel we’re somewhere popular rather than unpopular (thus vindicating our choice) and partly because we like to people-watch. But I think mainly it’s because we’re naturally sociable beings who like being among other people. We feed off their enjoyment vibes, which amplify our own. We talk about a restaurant’s ‘buzz’ but I don’t think it’s the noisiness we covet, so much as the feeling of being not a solitary bee but of being in a hive.

I noticed this one afternoon, searching for somewhere to have coffee in the Campo Santa Margherita. There was one cafe that stood out for no other reason than that every table bar one was occupied. I’m sure its coffee and its pricing and its view were no better than anywhere else’s. It’s just that, like all the other customers, we wanted to be close to other people. (Which is quite odd when you think that half the time when you’re in Venice you’re cursing how oppressively crowded the streets are in the heavily touristed bits around the Rialto and San Marco…)

My point, as I said, is not a startlingly original one. But I do think it’s something that we too often take for granted: people need people; we like one another’s company; crowds can be annoying and yet perversely we’re drawn to them.

This is not accidental. I believe that we were designed to be this way. We were meant to commune and bounce ideas off one another and share together the joys of art, of beauty, of creation.

And they know this - the misanthropic, anti-human predator class who wish to weaken us, to undermine us, and ultimately to destroy us. It’s why the lockdowns were such a masterstroke of evil, denying us perhaps the most important thing we need after food, water and shelter - engagement with our fellow man. It’s why the next stage in their infernal plan, after having destroyed most of our small businesses - pubs, especially - is to stop us travelling. It’s why their goal with schools is to have all the teaching done online.

We say we want to get away from it all; we fantasise about living somewhere remote from civilisation. But I don’t think for most of us this is heartfelt - it’s the just the way we’ve been programmed.

Note how people react on Desert Island Discs when Sue Lawley or whoever asks the castaway how they think they’d get on, all alone on their desert island. It’s quite obvious that most of them couldn’t hack it - and understandably so. There’s a reason why just about the worst punishment they can give you in prison is solitary confinement. Human company isn’t luxury. It’s an essential.

*Oh all right. Here are my top tips for Venice.

The island of Torcello. It’s only a 50-minute-ish trek by Vaporetto and you need it to decompress somewhere tranquil and eerie. And also to see the awe-inspiring Byzantine frescoes in the basilica.

San Giorgio dei Greici - Shakespeare (aka Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford) worshipped here when he came to Venice

Ai Cugnai dal 1911 - Perhaps there are other trattorias as good as this but we couldn’t find one. The Seppie in nero con polenta is just about the best thing you will ever eat.

San Pantalon - That painted ceiling is mind-blowing. It took Fumiani 24 years to complete, after which, supposedly, he fell to his death from the scaffolding.

Museo Correr - A great and varied collection. The highlight for me was Fra Mauro’s world map (c.1450).

Water taxi from the airport - it costs Euros 130 (they only take cash) but you arrive in such style it’s worth it.