The secret side of Venice

On a weekend trip to Venice in early March, I kept my eyes and ears open as dusk approached the Floating City. While the moon rose, a quiet hum took over, murmuring into every alleyway and beckoning inhabitants out of hiding. Those who catch the last ferry out of Venice before nightfall will always live under the illusion that the city has no night life, because to see it is to believe it. If they had stayed later they would have been met with a pleasant surprise, such as I did. 

The city’s true magic and most romantic secrets only reveal themselves when the sun goes down and the lights reflect on the cool waters below. Winding through the alleyways with no particular destination in mind is quite possibly the best way to travel, as my friends and I discovered. We were riding a carefree high purely from being there, and assisted by the wine we had drank in our Monastery-turned-hotel before we set out for cicchetti (Veneto-style aperitivo).  A certain dimmed path lead us to a dead-end that almost sent my friends stumbling into the canal, another lead us to an unexpected piazza brimming with the youth of Venice, drinks in hand, not-so-quiet roar coming from their collective lips.

Not far from this piazza awaited what quite possibly might have been the best meal of my time in Italy, made complete by a few generously-poured glasses of wine. An extremely friendly hostess, who I guessed owned the restaurant and has spent his whole life greeting locals and tourists for a cozy meal in his dimly-lit dining room, advised us what to order. Walls covered in photographs and mementos made our time spent there all the more fascinating. Other world travelers down the shared table told stories that we eagerly absorbed, hoping in that moment only to be able to continue to globe-trot in search of more experiences like the one we were in the middle of.

After dinner, once we were feeling a little more than buzzed from the wine (which, again, was generously poured throughout our meal), we joined the Italians in the piazza and participated in being social and enjoying the company of friends, as Italians do best. The five euro drink from the bar that was conveniently located right on the piazza qualified as one of the best I’ve ever had, or maybe it was a little bit of Venice’s magic that seeped into my drink and gave it the superior taste.

To finish our night of laughter, friendship, and fitting in with the culture, we found our way home across the Rialto Bridge and past all the shops that we had walked by hurriedly earlier in the day, as we had made our way from site to site. Now we could wander slowly and window shop, our own late-night passeggiata in which the twinkling lights leftover still from the holidays reflected off the shop windows and gave everything an aura of mystery. More so, behind every door and alleyway we passed I could not help but wonder what was going on beyond. Venice may be an open book for the hordes of tourists it welcomes every day, but it holds secrets and mysteries untold to those who leave its shores as the sun is setting. I’ve been given a glimpse of these secrets, enough to satisfy me for now, but I immediately wonder when the next time I’m coming back will be, and if the same enigmatic piazza, the same never-ending alleyways and bridges, and the same luminescent blue water will still be there for me when I return.