Malamocco May 2010

I went to Malamocco once before, years ago, researching a student dissertation on Giulia Lama, a Venetian woman artist of the early eighteenth century who was commissioned to paint the altarpiece for the parish church. My travel bursary to Venice stretched to a bunk in a convent dorm with flaking frescoes on the ceiling and delivery boats chugging past just outside the window. I remember setting out on a crisp January morning for the epic journey from Venice, ferry then bus to what seemed like the ends of the earth. A few miles from the tourist tat and crowds of Rialto and St Mark's Square lay a sleepy fishing village which could have been in another country, with no clues to the thousands of visitors milling so very near by. I had written in advance to make an appointment to be let into the church, was met by the priest who opened up and turned the light on for me to stare at the picture, try to understand it and get to the bottom of it, scribble frantic notes and – this being in the days before digitally photography - fiddle around with my camera in the gloom, struggling to come up with an exposure which would give me a reproduction I could stick into my thesis. The visit was all too brief, but I left with a sense of achievement and tucked myself in the shelter of the sea wall to eat bread and local cheese, looking out over the wintry calm of the Adriatic. What I was left with was a sense of the remoteness of the place, a functional little village which was barely aware of its imposing neighbour across the water, and where people quietly went about their business undisturbed.

So I was interested to see if it had changed.

We paddled out there from Mestre, ducking under the Napoleonic bridge and heading south of Venice, passing the back of Giudecca, a huge rubbish processing terminal out of site of the city, with constant movement of municiple barges and wheeling seagulls, stopped briefly at Poveglia before going into Malamocco for lunch.

Poveglia was a lush little island, a neatly restored canal heading into its interior, crossed by a smart new wooden bridge , plants growing vigorously like it was the tropics. We pulled up at some steps and went in to explore . The bridge was misleading, because the rest of the island was abandoned and as overgrown as a Mayan temple in the jungle. The bridge seemed to go from nowhere to nowhere. A few houses appeared to have been left unexpectedly, not so many years ago, rotting furniture still in place and the roof only caved in in places. Everywhere were plants, leaves so intensely green that I had a sense that I could almost feel them photosynthesising under the pounding midday sun, almost see the leaves growing. Wild plants and garden plants left behind, moving in to close off the paths of dry leaves which were alive with the pattering and scampering of unseen lizards escaping underfoot. An abandoned and flooded tent and a worker's hard hat. Scaffolding overgrown with vines. Projects begun and abandoned.

Giving up on fighting the undergrowth we paddled out past the better restored buildings on the southern tip of the island and across to Malamocco. It is a small village about halfway down the island of lido, one of the low strips of land dividing the lagoon from the open sea. At one end is the main town of Lido but as you head south down the island, it is generally rural, though somewhat built up, with a few places where the houses have coalesced into villages, the occasional campsite or holiday centre and, on the Adriatic side, a few sandy beaches.

There were now two restaurants; I don't remember any before. The village shop where I had bought my cheese was exactly as it had been for I would imagine at least the last thirty years, but everything else was subtly transformed. It all looked the same but somehow it didn't. The same houses and stone courtyards, but everything had been cleaned up and neatened, car parks constructed, lawns planted and strimmed. The church was still locked and I asked in one of the restaurants where I might find the key. Ushered into the town hall I was shown round a brand new - and well curated - exhibit of archaeological pottery finds from the area, by the proud ladies from the office next door, who were delighted to have visitor all the way from London.

I asked about the church and they said they didn't think there was much to see inside, it was all a bit rustic. Who might be able to give me the key? Well Don Cesare isn't here today. Your best bet would be to look at the times of the services posted on the church door, someone could let you in then. How long are you here for? So I had to content myself with the outside of the building, but I'd already been in there once so it didn't really matter.

Lunch in the smaller of the restaurants, avoiding the groups of German cyclists roasting their portly shoulders and drinking luminous orange cocktails in the sunny square by the hall, and going instead into the “local” place with its model ships and its kitchen which had oddly enough closed at half past one, but which was still serving funny-looking shellfish and perfectly good beer, staff sitting round the next table a debating whether they could be bothered to open up again in the evening.

Then back into our boats, across the lagoon towards the towers and chimneys of the oil refineries and back the to the ramshackle charms of Mestre canoe club, which feels more and more like home every time I go back there.

I'm not sure if I'm pleased I went back to Malamocco or not. A place which looks the same but feels different. Not spoilt, not over-run with Venice spillover tourists, perhaps a little more affluent though, somehow not remote any more. Maybe it's just seeing it at a different time of year. Or maybe I'm seeing it with different eyes because I have changed myself, years of experiences, places visited, awareness of economics, of seeing the whole world changing and progress happening whether it's needed or not. Maybe I just don't want to share my unique little secret spot with anybody else and resent the ingress of my fellow north Europeans. I had a real mission the first time, the second time just another place my boat and my curiosity took me to. To return is always to experience loss: the present eroding the past and chipping away at memories, dissolving the old ones to replace them with fresh new bright ones which are never quite as good as the originals that were there before. And on reflection: had Malamocco changed at all? I can't really remember what it was like the first time, so have nothing to compare any more. It was a great day's paddle though.