Someone among you has made a New Year's resolution to make the big move to Venice! Congratulations!  What do you need to know before you take the plunge? Surely, you already know that you absolutely can not ever actually take a plunge into the canals. And, if you're really considering moving to Venice, surely you can deal with a some unpredictability in the little things in life such as how, when and whether-or-not your mail is delivered. You probably get a little kick out of unpredictability, you have the patience to work through petty annoyances, and you enjoy a little challenge in your everyday life. So, lets not talk about the flexibility, patience and pivotability needed in order to survive the mysterious twists and turns of life in Italy. Lets focus instead, as OG Venice often does, on those aspects of everyday life in Venice that are so obvious that many people neglect to mention them.

“Humid” is far to weak a word to describe Venice' weather. We don't live “by the water”, “near the water”, nor “on the water”. We live in the lagoon. Here in the World Heritage Site of “Venice and The Lagoon”, water comes from everywhere. When it rains, it comes from above. When a winter high tide coincides with a full moon, it comes from below. When it's windy, it comes from the sides. When there's a storm, it comes from everywhere all at once. And, it comes for all of us. When the stucco walls in your stairway have become over-saturated by humidity, they will crumble at a thunder clap. I've seen it happen.

During the hottest days of summer, you will feel as though you've been locked inside of a sauna from which only God can release you. During the coldest days of winter, it will feel as though the fog is actually composed of an army bearing trillions of minuscule ice-spades capable of penetrating whatever armor you choose to don against them.

However, if you can manage the Venetian climate on its extremes, and you like a humid climate otherwise, Venice will reward you with some truly unique and beautiful lagoon weather phenomena. My favorite is “fog-from-the-sun”, when the blanket of fog sits so low over the city that, though one sees the surrounding buildings shrouded in fog, one also sees blue sky overhead and feels the warmth of the sun. Venice' fast moving summer storms can also be spectacularly beautiful when dark clouds race across the sky and their reflections chase them across the water. When such storms approach the city, the facebook pages of local people always abound with dramatic photos and warnings that we all need to run home and close our windows.

No matter what your origins, age, socio-economic status, personal interests, or opinion about your own sense of style, there are two pieces of basic equipment that absolutely everyone in Venice has: A wheeling cart and a pair of rubber boots. Sound unglamorous? They are! But, they are absolutely essential to comfortable living in Venice. 

Why the wheeling cart? Well, how much can you comfortably carry and how far can you carry it? The main island of Venice is the largest pedestrian-only urban center in Europe. The only interruptions to pedestrian streets, aside from canals, are the more than 400 bridges that we pedestrians must walk over in order to proceed with our walking. On a day-to-day basis, this means that transporting supplies from place to place can be rather physically demanding. A small wheeling cart takes a lot of weight off of the shoulders and, if you're super organized and very lucky, it might even help you get all your groceries home in one trip!   

Now, about those rubber boots...  

Before you scoff at these, remember that in some parts of the world they are considered fashionable foot ware. They are practical shoes popular with hunters, fishermen, Queen Elizabeth of England, and lots of other people who like to keep their feet dry. The difference here in Venice is that the need for wellies is not limited to sportsmen. The phenomenon of acqua alta – the high tides which occasionally rise up above street level in Venice – dictates that we all need rubber boots if we expect to go about our daily lives with dry feet. This is especially true during the winter months when the levels of the tide tend to be more extreme. ​​

So there you have your two, unglamorous, pieces of essential equipment for life in Venice. I will only add that it is highly inadvisable to place yourself in a situation where you need both of these things at the same time. It doesn't work that way. You can imagine why.

Moving to Venice?  Congratulations!  Your carbon footprint is about to virtually disappear!

“Slow living”, in Venice, is not a personal socio-environmental choice any more than it is a label on a plastic bag full of quinoa that's been shipped half-way around the world. Nor is it something that we here in town ever really discuss. It is far too obvious to mention. Choosing to live in the historic center of Venice means that you are choosing to live without regular access to a car. You are choosing to physically carry anything that you purchase for yourself. You are choosing to rely on your own two feet and public transportation for 90% of your transportation needs. And, you are choosing to consume primarily that which is made available to you locally, which will be largely locally and domestically produced. Meanwhile, any tendencies that you may have towards over-consumption of energy, shopping or even just collecting of anything will likely be curtailed by the simple fact that it takes a major commitment of time, energy and space to do such things in Venice.  

And, please also forget that saying you've heard about having a boat in Venice being the equivalent of having a car elsewhere in the world. I have yet to meet the Venetian who uses her/his boat to take the kids to school, stop bye the market, drop off the dry-cleaning and then run to the hardware store. There are no docks at the school, the market, the dry-cleaner or the hardware store. Here in Venice, boats are used for work and recreation.

Welcome to slow living! Grab your wheeling cart.  Start walking.

Moving to Venice on your own? Don't worry! Venice may be a labyrinth, but none of us is invisible within it. It may sound contradictory to the sophisticated image of the city that hosts the International Biennale D'Arte, but Venice is a very small town by number of residents and the community is highly interactive. Through the sea of tourists, even regular visitors who come once or twice per year are remembered. If you move here, everyone in your neighborhood will quickly come to recognize you.

When you leave the house in the morning, everyone who happens to be out at the time will greet you and expect a greeting in return. Everyone. The ladies in the bakery, the neighbor out walking dog, the guy who begs on the bridge, the workmen restoring the house on the corner, the guy who rents the storeroom downstairs, the lady who sells vintage Murano glass, even the neighbors' kids will mumble “Ciao” as they scurry past on their way to school.

This does not mean that you'll become bosom-buddies with everyone in town. Venetian's are human people who form friendships on the same basis as other human people. (Things like shared interests and experiences help a lot.) Nevertheless, because your newly adopted pedestrian lifestyle and the unique topography of Venice mean that you will encounter your neighbors often, and because as a new-comer you really never know with whom you might strike up a friendship, and because your neighbors know the answers to all of the questions that you will eventually have about Venice, it certainly behooves you to be pleasant in your interactions. Don't worry too much if you do not yet speak Venetian. In my experience, that will not stop anyone from trying to speak to you.

Venice is perfect for you because you just can't get enough baccala mantecato, gelato, spaghetti with clams, steamed squid, paper thin slices of prosciutto and artichokes so fresh and sweet that one can even eat them raw. Right? Let's hope so! Because, like every region of Italy, the Veneto has a deeply engrained and highly pervasive food culture.

​In every day life, you will run into chefs at the fish market, see the vegetable boats from Sant'Erasmo dropping off crates for your neighbors and your neighborhood trattoria, and smell the scent of fresh bread as a baker wheels bye with a cart full of deliveries for the bars and restaurants. There really isn't much not to like.  

There is only one real challenge when it comes to adapting to the Venetian food world of sea-foody-with-four-seasons-of-vegetables freshness and that is this: If you're moving to Venice from another urban center, you will have to say goodbye to having easy access to all other kinds of international cuisine. Here, you go out for Venetian, or you cook for yourself. We have a few decent international restaurants - the Middle Eastern and the Japanese are very good - but absolutely nothing approaching the variety you'd find in a big city overseas. As an expat, you will begin experimenting with cooking your favorite ethnic dishes, and comfort foods from home, in your own kitchen. (Fortunately, you'll be blessed with exceptional Italian produce to use as your base ingredients.) Meanwhile, like the rest of us, you will shop the back corner of Giacomo Rizzo, and you will treasure any international condiments that anyone is kind enough to smuggle into the country for you.

I get it! You're trying to fit in and you'll never learn Italian if no one ever lets you practice! Nevertheless, and this should probably be expat-in-Venice survival rule number one: Do not take it as an insult when people in Venice speak to you in foreign languages. Keep in mind that the very vast majority of their clients and visitors are, in fact, foreigners. Venetian's are constantly making an effort to communicate with people in foreign languages. It might even be as nerve-wracking for them to speak English to you as it is for you to speak Venetian with them. So, please consider that before feeling insulted that someone (correctly) assumed that you are from out of town. As an expat in Venice, you will certainly find more complicated issues to contend with.

Integrating into a foreign society will be challenging wherever you go. But, Venetian society, unique in all ways, may be especially challenging because it is a culturally, socially and environmentally endangered society whose woes are largely due to the city's unique appeal to foreigners. You are moving in, but the foreigners who bought the apartment upstairs, the one downstairs, the one on the corner and the one across the street did not. They did a quick renovation and immediately handed the house keys over to a rental agent. You care about the condition of the school, the maintenance of the bridges, the accessibility of the market, the cleanliness of the streets, the erosion of the mudflats in the lagoon, the over-crowding of the public boats etc... But, the other millions upon millions of foreigners who flood the city, however much they may admire Venice, do not care about those things at all. They strut around in the streets half-naked, act haughty and entitled, never try to speak Italian, and leave garbage behind everywhere they go. You're fed up with them too!

Once you break through that frustrating language barrier, you, as an expat and a new friend, will become a sounding board for all of the wrongs done against Venice by other foreigners. By far your biggest social and emotional challenge as an expat in Venice is to figure out how to listen attentively and act sensitively without internalizing all of the guilt for all of the wrongs that all of these other foreigners have done to your adopted home. I'm not going to lie, this is difficult. There are even frequent visitors who begin to wonder if they need to make the ultimate sacrifice, staying away, in order to avoid harming their beloved Venice.

Some encouraging things to remember when these emotional crises strike: 1. Venetians will only discuss these things with you if they believe that you are receptive and helpful. They are not blaming you. They are inviting you to empathize. 2. Frequent visitors are recognized, welcomed back and, incidentally, have the most positive impact on the street-level economy of any of the millions who visit each year. 3. Becoming "Venetian-by-choice" by moving to, and actually living in, Venice is a huge positive investment in the City.  

OK, “famous” may be too strong of a word. But, there is something about the fascination of Venice that makes even the dullest among us here fascinating as well. You, filling your water bottle at a public fountain, are so enchanting that someone will make a video of it. You carrying a shopping bag with some celery sticking out? Enthralling! You sitting alone reading the newspaper and sipping an espresso? Irresistible! You helping your grandmother off of the vaporetto? Heartwarming! The only way to avoid being photographed in Venice is to avoid being caught doing anything normal in public. The same goes for doing anything abnormal. So, either stay home or hitch up your wellies and say "cheese"!

If you live a quiet life, and do not run a business, do not volunteer, do not participate in group activities and do not work with the public at large, your fame may end there. But, probably not. Venice is universally fascinating and, because there are so few people living in the lagoon, sooner or later someone from the press, or a blog, or a publishing house, or a tv station will come around asking you too to comment about something to do with Venice and/or the lagoon and what you're doing in it. On these occasions, I'm sure that most people consider it an honor to be asked and then do their best to reflect well on their beloved Venice.  

While it's true that moving to Venice means that you yourself will no longer be a tourist, it does not mean that the other tourists are going to go away. On the contrary, in means that rather than meandering joyfully among or away from them, you will now have to contend with them and find ways to pass either through or around them on a daily basis. You will be frustrated by overstuffed vaporettos. You will stand in lines twenty-deep of people who are buying only one thing at the grocery store. You will begin to avoid all of the places that you once considered to be the "center" of Venice during their busiest hours of the day, days of the week, or months of the year. When you see a large tour group approaching across a bridge, you will rapidly recalculate your route in order to circumvent it. You will learn every alley, back and side street between your home and the places you visit most often.

​You too will begin to recognize not only your neighbors, but also the people who visit your neighborhood most often. And, you will be so glad to see those familiar faces in the midst of what, on the most crowded days of the year, sometimes looks and feels like a zombie invasion.  

The most encouraging words I can offer about living with the crowds are that, 1. It's behavior is highly predictable which makes it avoidable much of the time. 2. It is, though it won't always feel like it, actually composed of human people.  Most of those people will behave themselves and a precious few might even become friends.  

​One of them might even be you.

2015 was an exciting, and exhausting, year in Venice.  It wasn't just because one never quite knew if it were going to rain...

Lets get the controversial news, which everyone has already read, out of the way first. In 2015, Venice elected her new Mayor, Luigi Brugnaro.  No matter what one thinks of the Mayor's work so far, the election had the effect of energizing political and social groups throughout the city. There were innumerable protests, rumors and social and political scandals in Venice during 2015. The ugliest building in the history of Venice was unveiled at Piazzale Roma. It is claimed, though the official numbers have not been released, that as many as 30 million tourists visited Venice. And, irony of ironies, Venice finished the year during which she finally regained some of her political independence following the moses scandal facing perilously low tides. Apparently, there are not enough funds in the city's coffers to pay for dredging the canals; One of the many reasons that there were so much outrage surrounding ideas for raising money for Venice during 2015.

Sometimes, Venice really does appear to be in a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose situation. Many writers-about-Venice voiced their disgust with both local politics and the local social code last year.  (These are two distinctly different, yet equally complicated, things in Venice.) I agreed with some, disagreed with others, and decided without much struggle to keep loving Venice anyway.

Good news gets so little attention from the press.... I found an incredible lot to respect, enjoy and celebrate about Venice in 2015.  In particular, I observed a community working day and night to increase access to authentic Venetian products and experiences and to raise international awareness of the living community in Venice.

An energized community, not only coming together, but also inviting strangers to participate, an increase in the availability and publicity of authentic Venetian products and services, and a dramatic increase in the type and number of unique experience offerings in Venice.  In other words, a slow but steady all around increase of "Venice and Venetianness" bubbling to the surface of Venice.  That's what I saw happening around me, slowly slowly, in Venice during 2015.

Did it really happen? And, if it did, was it really open to everyone?  You'll notice that I've illustrated this post with public Facebook status updates.  OG Venice does not live in nor report on a secret, exclusive or "insider's" Venice.  Venice, at the end of 2015, was showing signs of becoming a more culturally accessible city; A place that even visitors had to chance live rather than just observe.  

What we tourists can do now to help this trend continue is search out, take advantage of, and share these opportunities as much as possible.  Now is the time to volunteer, buy local and go see your Venice. 

One of the reasons that Murano glass is so misunderstood, and so misrepresented in writings about Venice, is a secret. Make that: The secret. The same secret that lead the Doge to compel all glass furnaces to be located on Murano during medieval times and the telling of which was once punishable by death, the secret of Murano glass.

It is often written that it was the risk of fire that lead the Doge to concentrate all Venetian glass works on Murano in 1291. But, it is just as often whispered that it was to protect the secret. It is certainly easier to protect a secret when all those who know it are isolated on an island. Since medieval times, the secrets to be protected have been the enormous scientific and artistic advancements made by the Murano glass masters not only in sculpting glass, but in making the glass itself. Did you know, for example, that the Murano glass masters created the world's first truly clear glass? It was called “Cristallo Veneziano” and it has been prized throughout Europe since the mid-1400's.

Murano still has its secrets. Lots of them. The glass for glass-working is still formulated in individual factories on Murano. They create their own unique colors, opacities and even textures of glass. The production of the glass is regulated by a little-known organization called the Experimental Glass Station. (They must be the ones who decided that opalescent Murano glass, which I happen to think is quite beautiful, is too dangerous to continue producing. Very sad.) Meanwhile, even videos of Murano glass work show only certain techniques for working glass. Others are top secret. If outside glass producers happen to observe particular movements of a glass master's hands, they may be able to replicate a technique.  

Why all the secrecy? Because, Murano glass was and remains an important commercial product of Venice which the government wished to protect from competition. In our times of course, despite the Doges' best efforts, many secrets of glass craftsmanship are out of the bag. There are master glass craftsmen in other parts of the world. (Though they are most certainly not the biggest threat to contemporary Murano glass.) In fact, there have been many crises of competition in the history of Murano glass' supremacy over glasswork in Europe. Perhaps the most famous was competition from Bohemian crystal in the 1600's. Outside glass producers were making and sculpting their own clear glass.  And, Murano's customers, primarily the royalty and nobility of Europe, actually liked their work. Disaster!

Naturally, Murano came back from that disaster in such a way as to secure its place at the top of luxury glass production for another four hundred years. Whereas Bohemian crystal was hard and most suitable to carving, cristallo Veneziano could be sculpted into any shape the glass masters desired. They put their imaginations and artistic skills to work, and thus was born the “ciocca”, the signature Murano glass chandelier adorned with intricately sculpted flowers. Murano glass chandeliers instantly became, and remain to this day, the global standard in luxury interior lighting. 

As no tale would be Venetian without a touch of irony, know this:  Giuseppe Briati, the creator Venice' most famous chandelier, the Ca'Rezzonico, and whose work is largely credited with having lifted Murano out of its late-Renaissance slump, is rumored to have presented himself as a porter in a Bohemian glass factory in order to learn the secrets of working Bohemian crystal. He, of course, then brought those secrets back to Murano. 

Fast forward almost half a millennium to the time when nothing ruins a good photo like a “No Photos” sign. Venice is now one of the world's busiest tourism destinations. Murano glass, having been through a few post-war decades of massive popularity and large-scale export, is still produced to the highest standard in luxury glasswares. Unfortunately, however, few people know much about it. A new crisis of competition, not from other glass masters or artists, but from mass-produced glasswares that mimic the most widely recognized shapes and styles of Murano glass has both chipped away at the business and reputation of the Murano glass factories and driven Murano glass behind an ever thicker veil of secrecy.

While increased tourism in Venice should have resulted in a boon for Murano glass artists, and Venetian artisans in general, the coincident “trade liberalization” that came with it has had the opposite effect. The unregulated importation and sale of fake “Murano” glass in Venice now happens on such a scale that not only is more than half of the Murano glass for sale in central Venice fake, it is also so prevalent and so mis-advertised that even the most educated of customers mistake it for real. Imitation Murano glass is even sold abroad and online, under the name of “Murano glass”, thus further diluting the reputation of the real thing.  

To protect Murano glass from counterfeiting, it was no longer enough to keep the methods of making, and the techniques for shaping, glass secret. Some Murano glass masters came to fear that even finished pieces of Murano glass, while they must be sold, must not fall before the wrong eyes, nor camera lens, lest they become the models for more mass-produced chotsky. Hence, “no photos”. And, despite the fact that visitors in Venice now-a-days seem to shop much more with their cameras than they do with their credit cards, the no photos rule appears to have been remarkably effective when it comes to Murano glass. 

So effective is the rule that, even though everyone has seen Dal Moro's Pasta To Go, many visitors arrive on Murano with no idea whatsoever of what to expect of Murano glass. Not only have they never seen a picture of the real thing, their impression of “Murano” glass is already eschewed by the jumble of fakes that they've seen in the center of town. Real Murano glass is a secret. Thus do people wander around Murano in shock and awe at all of the beautiful things that can be made of glass, and the price tags on those things. Their ignorance of the art causes sadness and dismay in the hearts of shopkeepers. And, they often leave the island without having made a purchase. At best, they sail off dreaming of a houseful of Murano glass treasures. At worst, they hurry on back to their computers to write the misinformed online reviews that now populate most first-page online search results for “shopping on Murano” and “shopping for Murano glass”.

Most people however, professional writers and journalists included, don't have the time or opportunity to try as hard as I do to learn about Murano glass. Even with the efforts I continue to make – my glass words are at last beginning to outnumber my bad words in Venetian - it's fair to say that I now know only a very little bit about it. Travelers have even less time and opportunity. Certainly, they run one or two online searches before boarding a boat to an unknown island. Then, at best, they rely on the professional writers to give them enough information to guide them through a trip to Murano. Or, at worst, they rely on the reviews written by other travelers.

These last are, of course, the most harmful to the reputation of Murano and Murano glass. Not only do they contain the least-educated information possible, these reviews surface on the internet based on their popularity with readers rather than the quality of their content. The most frequently clicked upon reviews surface first and, given the public's appetite for bad news, that means that the negative reviews surface first. This is true even when, as is the case with Murano glass, the positive reviews actually outnumber the negative. The first TripAdvisor result for “shopping on Murano” is a negative review written in 2008. That is an outdated shame.

 Visiting Murano is an incredible experience in viewing glass arts. Perhaps even more so due to the incredible surprise of it. So, this is Murano glass! Nevertheless, the international conversation about Murano has lately been entirely too full of either bad information or bad news. We read about fake “Murano” glass. We read about Murano glass factories closing. Yet, we see virtually nothing of the incredible artistry that is Murano glass until we get to Murano itself. Where are the Murano glass masters in this conversation? They are making glass! That is what they do. And, it is not at all appropriate to ask them to do otherwise.

Nevertheless, something must be said. The combination of extreme secrecy and the prevalence of fake “Murano” glass could be lethal to the reputation and future of this art. Existing collectors of Murano glass are in short supply and a new generation of Murano glass collectors will only be inspired to buy Murano glass if they can both distinguish the real from the fake and learn enough about it appreciate its value. Murano needs another Ca'Rezzonico. And, it must show it to the world so that people can understand what is Murano glass and what is not.

As ever, I am optimistic. The existence of fake “Murano” glass in Venice is not a secret. When I meet other travelers, distinguishing real from fake Murano glass is usually among the first things that they ask me about. That is good news! It means that they know enough to understand the risk, and they still want to shop for Murano glass. What remains is to introduce them to real Murano glass.

To that end:

OG Venice Travel Guide challenges all other travel writers, authors and bloggers about Venice to revisit, revise and update their writings about Murano and Murano Glass. I will be here endeavoring to do the same.