Chioggia 17th June 2011

Chioggia, “it's like Venice but dirtier”, where the Marina di Chioggia big knobbly green squashes come from – so there must be vegetable gardens, the intended site of a freshly rejected (by referendum) nuclear power plant, “it's like Venice but without the tourists” and “you can't get lost there because there are only three canals and one of them is shut”.

Armed with a few preconceptions, directions to a launching spot at Chioggia canoe club and a couple of boats, we arrived in a place that instantly charmed us with its scruffy welcome. Everywhere were cyclists pottering about their daily business, friendly guys with flat water racing boats on their shoulders who explained where to put in, tiny but curious kids hanging on the bars of their school fence like monkeys and older kids racing round a miniature velodrome. Topped off by a municipal cafe and trees, a vision of urban contentment.

Even the water was different; despite launching our boats a tidal creek in the enclosed section of the lagoon at the southern end of the town we were astounded to see that it was clear enough to see things on the bottom, quite unlike Venice.

Crossing the lagoon quickly to the sounds of some public event or other ending over loudspeakers we entered the first canal and discovered an active working fishing port, big rusty boats, boat yards, everything functional, cars and vans on the canalside making us look round confused for a motorboat that never materialised. Out under a Venetian style brick bridge and across the lagoon, drag of tide to the lagoon inlet, rows of mussel beds with hanging tangles of rope, ramshackle platforms out in the water with fishing nets and benign but curious guard dogs, other platforms abandoned and collapsing gradually into the mud, heavy thunder clouds threatening rain, which fell in dark masses on the land but never came.




We stopped for lunch in a quiet local cafe which was suddenly taken over by a couple of holidaying German families, the afternoon heat was intense and outside the cafe, eager to close, no shade to be found. The island only a few metres wide at this point we looked at the Adriatic beach but this was somehow less appealing than lagoon where the local kids were playing and jumping into the water. We jumped in too. Chatted to the kids for while about our boats and headed back pushed by wind and tide, over the lagoon, down the other Chioggia canal, under the causeway bridges, creeping beneath low brick arches, between structures for fishing, stained and weathered wood, back to Chioggia canoe club and a warm welcome, offers to help us wash down our boats, delight at my Nordkapp - - “Ah, I used to have one of those, best boat there is”, tour round an immaculate boat store, invitations to come back one day....
End of another trip to Venice, this time putting on a small fringe show at the Biennale, after a couple of weeks spent in the confines of Venice itself, Chioggia came as welcome change, easing back to the normal world outside, drawing me back to northern Italy again. Poor relation of Venice? No, different and not to be compared. A little down-at-heel like everywhere in this late capitalist world of ours but getting along in its own way. And it's the only place I've ever seen a monument to a “propugnatore della qualita della vita per una citta felice” (a certain prof Felice Federico Casson) on a road named after a leader of the Communist party.