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A few days ago, I took a break during a work trip to Venice and went jogging through the city’s rabbit warren of narrow alleyways.
When I got to the famous arched Rialto Bridge, spanning the Grand Canal, I could barely believe my luck at the apparently clear route ahead. On my previous work trip to Venice a decade ago, I’d found it hard to run here as the streets were crammed with people.
No wonder: this tiny city received an estimated 25 million visitors in 2019. But in spring 2020 the tourists disappeared. And while they are now slowly returning — with last weekend’s G20 meeting intended to show that Venice is ready for business — those Byzantine alleys are still mainly empty.
For now, the city looks like an enchanted movie set. Even the Piazza San Marco feels peaceful (although the church bells pealed out after Italy beat England in the Euro 2020 final on Sunday).
But this quieter version of Venice also raises a question that will resonate widely over the months ahead: what does a return to “normal†really mean? Should a post-pandemic world go back to its pre-Covid state, or retain some aspects of how life has been transformed?
I initially recoiled with horror at the strictures of Covid-19 lockdown and craved a return to my pre-pandemic existence. But as the months passed, I realised I was not just adjusting to this new “normal†but relishing aspects of it (albeit in a guilty way, since plenty of others were having a very tough time). Having experienced life without constant jet lag and excess social commitments, I am not sure I want that old “normal†back in full.
The same issue is playing out in Venice but with far more contentious consequences. Before 2020, Venetian residents had absolutely no idea what it would be like to live in their beautiful city without crowds. But the lockdown — which was particularly draconian here in the spring of last year, limiting residents to a radius 200m from their homes — has given them a taste of something completely new.
In their book, Venice Deserted, which presents a visual record of this time, French photographers Danielle and Luc Carton, who have lived in the city since 2005, observe, “The experience was shocking in a psychological sense . . . Stepping outside our house engendered a curious mix of feelings: uncontrollable anxiety . . . and exceptional moments of serenity.â€
The city’s birds were given complete freedom and the canals lay empty and mirror-smooth. Indeed, the lagoon became so pristine and pollution-free that octopi and dolphins were spotted in the Grand Canal.
The experience appears to have left some Venetians, especially among the elderly, extremely reluctant to let the crowds return. “During the restrictions, every major city saw something that hopefully we’ll only every see once in a lifetime – the deserted city,†says Philippe Donnet, CEO of Generali, the insurance group, which has historic ties to Venice. “We shouldn’t forget the very important lessons it told us about respecting the environment and living a balanced life.â€
As a result, the city’s leaders are now putting more emphasis on ideas that Donnet and others started tossing around in late 2019, about making Venice a “world sustainability capitalâ€. Plans include diversifying its economic base with measures to attract artists and tech entrepreneurs, rather than just relying on tourism.Â
The hope is that this could entice back young families forced out of Venice by the lack of accommodation (with so much of it lost to tourism). Some residents want to limit crowds by charging entry fees, to ensure that only a small group of high-spending visitors come. And the Italian government has just announced that vessels weighing more than 25,000 tonnes will be barred from the lagoon from August 1.
In many ways, this is entirely sensible. Cruise ships appear to have caused environmental damage to Venice, and the city is under so much pressure from climate change — and visitors — that Unesco was threatening to classify it as an endangered site unless it took action.
But the rub is that many local workers and businesses depend on those tourists and want them to return in as large numbers as possible, particularly after losing so much income last year. Indeed, the mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, is so keen to rebuild the economy that back in April he was openly supporting the return of cruise ships to the city, telling the Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper that he thought it was “a good solution for a few years, until the government decides to build a port outside the lagoon – which I think is absurdâ€.
So, the fight will almost certainly intensify. What this story shows is that when a community suddenly experiences something that was previously unimaginable, it is not that simple to recreate the previous “normalityâ€, least of all when the interests of elites and non-elites are not aligned. Personally, I adore the peace of Venice and wish it could be permanent. But not if that peace comes at others’ expense.
Follow Gillian on Twitter @gilliantett and email her at gillian.tett@ft.com
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This article has been amended since publication to note that Generali is not headquartered in Venice, but has longstanding ties to the city
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