Venice without tourists: ve-nice or ghostly?

Since moving to Padova I’ve been to Venice several times to see my family there. I was no stranger to the infamous pictures of the dolphins enjoying the newly-clear turquoise waters during Italy’s spring lockdown – however I found myself completely unprepared for the impact of the pandemic on this city I’m lucky enough to call my second home.

Before the pandemic, tourism in Venice was reaching breaking point. The city was barely considered a real place – just one big tourist attraction. The amount of people in the summer months was unbearable: walking around the centre felt like trying to get through a busy hallway in between classes at school. Someone once actually asked my aunt at what time Venice closes. As if it were Disneyland.

Saint Mark’s Square was being treated like a picnic park by tourist groups and was becoming so busy the council considered implementing a policy whereby you could only access it with a paid ticket, so that people would better appreciate its value and history.

This inevitably means that tourism has become the main source of income for a large proportion of Venetians. To an outsider this probably sounds obvious, but growing up I’ve always been surrounded by Venetians that work in various different sectors. I realised my family were lucky they weren’t working in the tourist industry.

On my most recent visit the streets felt empty compared to the cramped hallway feeling I’d grown accustomed to. It was refreshing to have room to move without bumping and shuffling past people (which for obvious public health reasons is quite unsafe these days anyway). Yet at the same time it felt like something was missing, the only way I can describe it was like a ghost town. The previous busyness that overburdened the city was unsustainable, yet I found myself missing the hubbub of people enjoying themselves and this wonderful city on water. I only realised how much more reassuring it was to see people when I walked back to the station to go back to Padova and there were more people out and about compared to the day before, when the streets were semi-deserted on my way to my grandfather’s flat.

The eerie deserted feeling dawned on me heavily the first night my family and I went for pizza at our usual place. We were the only people in the entire restaurant. When I’ve been in the past it’s always been full of locals as well as tourists with their families. Shocked, I asked my aunt where everyone was. She replied there were no tourists and the locals had no money to spend after being run dry by months without work. My memories of this pizzeria from summer nights in pre-covid days felt like a distant, parallel universe.

The environmental benefits of less human activity in the city can still be seen in the canals. Sadly, I didn’t see dolphins – but the water was much clearer, changing in colour from a dirty grey to a greenish turquoise that I’ve never seen before. The waters in the image below would make you think it’s far from the centre of a city that uses boats for public transport.

Enjoying the space and having the city more to ourselves rather than sharing it with crowds of people felt bittersweet, knowing the cause is a global pandemic that is causing financial hardship to Venetians, that are already few in number because of real estate costs skyrocketing in recent years.