I have visited Venice many times over the years and although I’ve known it crowded in certain of the narrow lanes between the Piazza San Marco and the Ponte di Rialto, nothing can compare to the jam-packed streets during this year’s Carnival.
This year’s theme for Il Carnevale di Venezia was ‘The Dragon and the Lion’, but I have to say that there were more dogs and doges than fire-eating mammals and man-eating felines. Nevertheless, the Carnevale is historically the period when princes and paupers jostle with each other in the Piazza San Marco, strut and pose for the photographers and generally pinch both male and female bottoms whilst wearing extravagant costumes and hiding behind face-deforming masks.
I saw a beagle wearing sunglasses and a gondolier’s straw hat being proudly paraded by a lady dressed as a bold and buxom serving wench, three sixteen year old two-legged cats dancing the samba with their tails swinging lasciviously from beneath their rather short shorts, a man with a black mask with a nose that was so large it could have sheltered a brood of children in a rainstorm and would most certainly have given Cyrano de Bergerac a run for his money. Or as the late, great Peter Cook exclaimed about his mother, “She could have broken a swan’s wing with one blow of her nose.”
But nearly everyone played the game. There were thousands upon thousands of Italians and quite a few tourists meandering along with their faces concealed behind classical Venetian masks. In fact, the pedestrian traffic was so bad that the carabinieri finally intervened on the Rialto Bridge and with massive gesticulations and cacophonic whistles organized a two-way system that slowed the crossing of the bridge down to about ten minutes.
Despite the crowds, eating out in many of the trattoria was, as usual, a genuine treat and most evenings were generously well oiled with fine, relatively inexpensive Italian wines and late night grappas.
The last Saturday evening of the Carnival there was a huge parade in the Piazza San Marco, making the return to the hotel a hazardous hike. To recover from the jostling crowd I slumped down in the doorway of an art gallery, which despite the late hour and tumultuous throng had remained open for business. It took but a few seconds before I realized that I was sitting beneath a metallic drooping sculpture of part of Dali’s famous ‘Persistence of Memory’ painting. Evidence that even time winds down during the exhausting Carnival.
Having regained my courage and the use of my much maligned feet, I made my way along the surrounding arcades of the Piazza only to be stopped in my tracks by a massive people jam in front of one Venice’s luxurious tea room-cum-ice-cream parlours. Suddenly someone began rapping on the window from inside and a masked man seemed to be pointing at me. I looked around to see if he was trying to attract someone else’s attention, but it was clearly me. After about a minute of him pointing to me and me holding out my hands in true Italian fashion of ignorance, he pulled his coat sleeve up to reveal his watch ... a deLaCour. With that, and still not one hundred percent sure as to who it was, I entered the café to discover from the voice behind the mask that it was Alan Jugy, deLaCour’s Commercial Director. He remained masked, we said a quick hello and have fun, then I was off again into the maddening crowd to try to find my friends.
I found them, still heavily masked, loitering with intent in the lobby of the hotel in which we were staying. It had been a long, hard Carnival for us where food, fireworks and festivities replaced breakfast, brunch and booze, and it was now time for everyone to discard their masks and reveal the real person, which they did with bonhomie and many oohs and aahs. They then turned to me and invited me to also de-mask myself. I smiled somewhat timidly saying that it wasn’t possible. “Why?” they cried in excited unison? To which I stammered, “I’m not wearing one!” A shocked silence came over them and one of the ladies actually recoiled in horror and fainted. And they call themselves friends!
So if I might be permitted to give a little philosophical advice to all the participants of our festive watch shows ... when it’s time to take off the mask, make sure you’re wearing one. …


Source: Europa Star April-May 2006 Magazine Issue