Riding in a Gondola in Venice

Grand Canal (iStockphoto/Thinkstock)

This post might be kind of weird because it’s mostly going to be written by Charles Dickens. But I just think his description of a gondola ride in his 1846 travelogue “Pictures of Venice” is so haunting and lovely, and it made me really, really want to ride in a gondola (and at night). Here it is [via "Tropic of Venice"]:

“Looking out attentively, I saw, through the gloom, a something black and massive — like a shore, but lying close and flat upon the water, like a raft — which we were gliding past. The chief of the two rowers said it was a burial place.

Full of the interest and wonder which a cemetery lying out there, in the lonely sea, inspired, I turned to gaze upon it as it should recede in our path, when it was quickly shut out from my view. Before I knew by what, or how, I found that we were gliding up a street — a phantom street; the houses rising on both sides, from the water, and the black boat gliding on beneath their windows. Lights were shining from some of these casements, plumbing the depth of the black stream with their reflected rays, but all was profoundly silent.”

I love how dark and quiet and mysterious the whole scene seems. In the 16th century, sumptuary laws ordained that all gondolas be painted black, and in the 1800s, the vessels included a felze, or passenger cabin, that provided passengers some privacy and protection from the elements. All of this probably made arriving in Venice via gondola feel a lot like sneaking into Venice via gondola. So romantic.

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