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Venice has finally revealed the details for its entrance fee, making it the first city in the world to charge daytripper visitors. Starting in spring 2024, visitors to the floating city will have to pay 5 euros ($5.40) to enter on peak days if they’re not staying the night. But this isn’t a permanent move yet – the Venice authorities have committed to a 30-day “experiment.” —CNN, September 13, 2023 |
When you first get there—
Your ocean liner looms over
The island city and you spot
The ancient roofs and the plazas,
The gryphons, and the gold-fringed
Streets, both real and imagined,
And the people on the cruise
Get off onto the bridges, you
Smell the canals—leafy, oily,
And the mask you purchase is
Expensive, the plague doctor,
And you drink a cold beer
And you eat in a restaurant
Down a corridor, and you think
Of the writing you should be
Doing, and every corner brings
That lifelong, exquisite guilt,
And you sidle through crowds
And get too hot and walk
Out too far, where there are
Fewer people, only sunlight
Splashing against a cracked wall.
And you are in Venice, but
At night, it’s Euro-urban scary,
And you’re alone and lost
And you almost miss the boat
Though the boat is docked close.
You take the tender back
To the pastel-colored cake-boat
That is every cruise and you
Go to the ship’s casino and sit at
The red neon bar, and you forget
That you were ever in Venice
And it’s almost twenty years
Later and you learn that now
Venice wants to charge a fee
Like an amusement park, and
It makes you sad to look at
Your mask, hanging on your
Wall, remembering the latest
Plague. But it makes you
Even sadder to learn there
Will be days in that city
Where it’s not advised
That you visit because of
Crowds. And you think:
I’d go anyway. I’d go
Right now just to smell
Those canals again. Just
To see that palace, fringed
In gold. To feel that heavy,
Doge’s sun like one coin
Of the two that sit upon
My aging poet’s eyes.
Alejandro Escudé published his first full-length collection of poems My Earthbound Eye in September 2013. He holds a master’s degree in creative writing from UC Davis and teaches high school English. Originally from Argentina, Alejandro lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.