Venice, Italy

The Grand Canal turned the colour of bruised kiwi fruit soon after we arrived in Venice.

No one claimed responsibility for this strangeness although some blamed the enviro-activists who recently threw charcoal into Rome’s Trevi Fountain, turning its waters black.

I imagine Donna Leon’s interest would be piqued by this mystery. She’s the crime writer who’s latest book, So Shall You Reap, investigates the death in Venice of a Sri Lankan immigrant with possible links to Italian political terrorists who were active in the ‘80s.

The writer’s next book might be Green Canal, a story of lies and betrayal within the hothouse of environmental activism.

The question of who or what turned the Grand Canal green is both diversion and metaphor. We’re diverted by the question of responsibility while engaged by the colour green, knowing it represents environmental consciousness while traditionally linked with envy, jealousy, greed.

We should expect no less from this sinking city, a city who’s signs tell you to turn left or right to reach Ponte Rialto: it matters not which route you choose, because the outcome is the same for us all.

No such ambivalence exists on nearby Torcello, one of the first-settled islands in the lagoon, abandoned some time later because of malaria-spreading mosquitoes and silted canals.

The Basilica of Santa Maria Assunta is one of the few buildings that remain on Torcello. When you’re inside, facing forward, it’s all sweetness and light, but it’s  a different story on the way out. The mosaics above the basilica’s exit portray hell and damnation, as if to remind the faithful: stay true when you re-enter the world outside or forever be condemned.

I’m glad we visited Torcello. It was so peaceful in its abandonment, as if the small number of daytrippers were a second’s interruption to centuries of somnolence.

Plus, there’s Locanda Cipriani, which was very good in a very unpretentious way. The shaded terrace, cool and deep, afforded a lovely view of the rose garden; our waiters were friendly, the Ribolla nicely chilled, the food perfectly pitched.

‘Let it be said at once,’ writes J.G. Links in Venice for Pleasure: ‘Many people are disappointed in Venice.’

Pretty much every guide book, including Venice for Pleasure, warns of the city’s crowds and stink and general airlessness but none of us heed these warnings because there’s too much to see and the hundred thousand people who visit each day want to photograph it all: the Bridge of Sighs, the Ponte Rialto, the Campanile and Basilica di San Marco, for starters.

We stayed four nights in San Marco and grew a little disgruntled at times, having slept badly because church bells rang throughout the night. On the half hour and the hour.

During the day we walked like zombies, stuck in narrow alleys behind hordes of dawdlers.

We had to take defensive action against another invasive species by keeping our apartment windows closed between dusk and dawn. This kept the mozzies at bay but it elevated the general level of annoyance inside the Casa.

Anyways, we wised-up soon enough, put petty complaints aside and went out before breakfast. There were several thousand fewer people around at that time of day, making it easy to be the dawdler and marvel at improbable palazzos and take cheesy photos of gondolas tethered like a rich kid’s toys, and in doing so, fall back in love with a city that other times borders on unbearable.

Venice encourages performance of all kinds. The gondoliers sing, when they’re in the mood; violins can be heard, too, should you happen to walk past a palazzo at just the right time; and we all pose for photos. The city is a stage as well as a living museum, a home for disappearing Venetians as well as the unfairly blamed, a crucible for ambiguity as much as religious certainty.

I got a tip from my friend Dominique Morley. The way to avoid the crowds waiting for access to Italy’s great basilicas is to go to Mass.

We didn’t make it into the Duomo in Milan because of long summer queues; same for the Duomo in  Florence.

But I’d been inside San Mark’s Basilica in Venice in 1980, with my friend Dom La Rosa, and I was keen to go back there, 43 years later, this time with my partner Malcolm, a self-described atheist bordering on pagan.

Would the saints quake if a couple of grumpy gay men followed the nuns and other church-goers into the apse of San Marco for vespers?

All I can say with certainty is that the security guard who questioned us. in Italian, waved us through as soon as I mentioned the Eucharist.

I soon found myself standing side-by-side with Malcolm, under Byzantine golden domes, listening to Latin chants led by a priest who looked exactly like DLR. I kid you not.

This strangeness happened on the same Sunday the Grand Canal turned green.

Now who’s fault was that?