Greece | Old Corinth

Wandered over to Corinth, forty-five miles east of Athens but slightly longer by train. Corinth is located on the west side of the 3.5 mile wide isthmus that separates the Peloponnese Peninsula from the Attica region around Athens and the rest of Greece.

 (Click on images for enlargements)

My main interest is visiting the site of the old Temple of Aphrodite, located on the top of 1876-foot peak of Acrocorinth, just east of the town of Old Corinth. There is a metro to the Larissa Train Station, which serves trains running to the north, and from here you have to take a train another fifteen minutes or so to another station that handles trains running south to the Peloponnese.  The trip to Corinth takes about an hour.

From the Corinth train station I took a taxi to Old Corinth, the village located near the archeological park that hosts the ruins of ancient Corinth. The modern city of Corinth, to the west of the station, is a relatively modern reiteration of an older city destroyed by earthquakes in 1858 and 1928 and is apparently of little interest to tourists or flâneurs. The cab driver, a man in his fifties, asks me where I am from. I say the U.S.A hesitantly, since nowadays you never know what kind of reaction you are going to get. Americans have not been the most popular people in the world for the last decade or so, and now your interlocutor may have relatives who just got thrown out of the country. “Oh, what state?” he asks. I did not want to get into a long explanation of where I have been for the last twenty years, so I say Alaska, the last state I lived in when I was in the States. “Alaska!” he shouted. “That is one of my favorite places. Never been there, of course, but I have watched many shows on travel channels and many youtube videos about Alaska. My dream is to visit Alaska some day. Have you been to Kodiak Island?” I told him that I actually lived on Kodiak Island for a couple of years. “Really? Did you ever see any Kodiak bears.” I said that I had seen many of them and had even been false-charged by Kodiak bears twice. “The other place I want to visit is Denali National Park. Have you been there?” This was getting weird. Actually I had written a book about Denali National Park. I did not tell him this but I said, yes, I have been to Denali. Then, to get him off the subject of Alaska, I asked if many people visit Corinth in the wintertime. “No so many, most come in the summer time,” he said and then added, “Are you here because of the Apostle Paul? Most people come here because of Paul, you know, following Paul’s footsteps.”

After visiting Paphos, on Cyprus Island, where according to legend he got whipped for proselytizing Christianity, and Athens, where he pontificated on Areopagus Hill, Paul had wandered on to Corinth: "After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth."– Acts 18.1. Paul ended up staying eighteen months in Corinth during his first trip to Greece and may have returned here on a later trip to Greece. He established a church here, and eventually wrote two letters to the Corinthians advising them on how to practice their faith: Corinthians I and Corinthians II, now found in the New Testament. 

I tell the driver that actually I have come to Corinth to see the Temple of Aphrodite and the ancient fortress on the top of Acrocorinth. “Ah,” Aphrodite, do you know she was born on Cyprus Island?” I was going to tell him that I had been to the birthplace of Aphrodite on Cyprus Island just before coming to Greece, but I was afraid he would not believe me. 

Main street of sleepy Old Corinth

Old Corinth is a small village with one main street lined with cafes, gift shops, art galleries, and a few stores for the locals. In the middle of the tiny town square a huge yellow dog is taking a nap.  When the cab driver blows his horn to make him move he just he raises his head, states balefully at us, then lowers his head and goes back to sleep. We have to drive around the dog. My guest house is right on the main street. When we pull up out front a woman from a herb shop across the streets comes out and yells, “Are you here for the hotel? I will call the manager.” The manager is apparently at his restaurant a bit further up the street. The guesthouse turns out to have four rooms and I am the only guest. In the courtyard is an orange tree festooned with oranges. The manager tells me to help myself to the oranges whenever I want any. I stash my portmanteau and even though the skies have darkened and there is already a slight drizzle I head for the ruins of the ancient city of Corinth at the edge of the current village, just below the slopes of Acrocorinth.

Ancient Corinth became an important city because of its strategic location on the very narrow isthmus that connects the Peloponnese and the Greek mainland. By portaging across the 3.5 miles wide isthmus the long and dangerous sea voyage around the southern end of the Peloponnese could be avoided. As early as the 6th century B.C. a stone-paved highway had been build to accommodate travel between the Saronic Gulf on the east and the Gulf of Corinth on the west. The Greek geographer Strabo (56 B.C.–56 A.D,) elaborates on this:

Corinth is called "wealthy" because of its commerce, since it is situated on the Isthmus and is master of two harbors, of which the one leads straight to Asia, and the other to Italy; and it makes easy the exchange of merchandise from both countries that are so far distant from each other . . . it was a welcome alternative, for the merchants both from Italy and from Asia, to avoid the voyage to Maleae, land their cargoes here. And also the duties on what by land was exported from the Peloponnesus and what was imported to it fell to those who held the keys. And to later times this remained ever so.

The main ruin from ancient Corinth is the Temple of Apollo, dating to around 550 B.C.  It originally had fifteen columns on each of the long sides and six on the two facades, for a total of forty-two. Only seven are standing today. The columns are unusual in that each are carved from a single piece of stone, instead of being made up of stacked column drums. 

 Temple of Apollo, with the peak of Acrocorinth in the background

 Temple of Apollo

 Temple of Apollo

Temple of Apollo

The original ancient Corinth was sacked in 146 B.C. by Roman commander Lucius Mummius and most of the buildings were destroyed. In 44 A.D. Julius Caesar rebuilt the city and populated it with Roman colonists. Most of the remaining ruins in the archeological park date from this Roman period.

 Roman-era ruins of ancient Corinth

Probably the most visited ruin is that of the Bema, or rostrum, where Paul  publicly defended himself from allegations made by the city’s Hebrews that his teachings about Jesus of Nazareth were contrary to Mosiac Law. The Roman pro-consul Lucius Julius Gallio ruled that Paul had not in fact broken any Roman Law and so was allowed to go on proselytizing. This was the real beginning of Christianity in Corinth. Of course the historicity of this whole episode, along with many other events in Paul’s life, has been questioned. See Corinth—Where the Apostle Paul Never Trod.

 The Bema. speaking platform, where the Paul the Pontificator is said to have defended himself,

 The top of the Bema

On the top of the Bema is a monument inscribed with a quotation from 2 Corinthians: “For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparision.”

By now the drizzle had turned to rain, so I retired to the small but well appointed museum adjacent to the ruins. The museum was established in 1932 by the American School of Classical Studiers and funded by American philanthropist Ada Small Moore of Chicago. The place is jammed with a Chinese tour group of at least fifty people on a day-trip from Athens. Their big bus is parked outside. 

 Museum courtyard

Statues in the museum courtyard

This museum was once victimized by a daring act of thievery. On the night of April 12, 1990, robbers broke into the museum, bound and gagged the guard, and then proceeded to cart off 285 statues, vases, glass vessels, jewelry and other ancient works of art of inestimable value. They also stole 1,000,000 drachmas in cash on hand to pay the salaries of museum employees. Nine years later, in September of 1999, the F.B.I., working in cooperation with Greek police, founded most of the artwork in plastic boxes in a fish warehouse in Miami, Florida. The items were returned to the museum and can be seen there today. None of the published accounts say who was responsible for this caper, or how the stolen items got from Corinth to Miami. 

I had planned to climb Acrocorinth in the afternoon but by the time I left the museum the mountain was completely fogged in, and rain was falling even harder, so I retired to my hotel room where I was soon engrossed in Anthony Everest’s scintillating and at times even titillating The Rise of Athens.

Greece | Thessaly | Kalambaka | Meteora #1

The corner take-out that I frequented  in Thessaloniki raised the price of chicken souvlaki from 2.50 to 2.75 euros. That signaled the end of my love affair with Thessaloniki. The heart is so fickle! The next morning I walked a mile through a persistent drizzle to the train station and caught the train south to Kalambaka, home of the Meteora monastery complex. I have Been Here Before, but was eager to return when it was cooler and the environs less crowded. It is the shoulder of the tourist season, and prices of hotels and meals have started to drop. It is certainly cheaper than Thessaloniki. And the weather is fantastic! Hard frosts at night but warming into the 50s F. in the afternoons. Great for hiking. Gorgeous foliage.

St. Nicholas Monastery, one of six monasteries in the area now open to the public (click on photos for enlargements). 

Monastery of St Barbara

Great Meteora Monastery

Monastery of Barlaam

From the road a trail climbs up 715 vertical feet through the chasm to the left of Barlaam Monastery.

Trail to Barlaam Monastery

Trail side shrine

Avian voyeurs would have a field day here. I saw at least fifteen or twenty different kinds of birds. 

Greece | Crete | Chania

From Venice I flew to Athens and then wandered on down to the island of Crete. As most of you know, Crete was once part of the Byzantine Empire. Following the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 by Crusaders and Venetians led by Enrico Dandolo the island became part of La Serenissima, the Serene Republic of Venice. It remained part of La Serenissima until 1669 when the Ottoman Turks took over. In 1908, when the Ottoman Empire was on the ropes, indigenous Cretans decided to became part of Greece. The city of Chania on the island has an Old Town dating largely to the Venetian Era and I was of course eager to see it. (Chania, as I was informed several times during my first hour in town, is pronounced xan-Ye.

Crete, the island at the bottom of the map, is 175 miles south of Athens. Chania is at the northwest corner of the island (map courtesy of nationsonline).

Port of Chania (click on image for enlargements)

Downtown Chania

My hotel in the old Venetian quarter of town. The original building was built by Venetians in the 13th century. 

The day I arrived it was overcast and the horizon was not visible. The second morning the skies cleared and I was somewhat startled to see formidable snow-covered mountains to the south of the city. For a moment I thought I was in Anchorage, Alaska, and was staring at the Chugach Mountains. The temperature at sea level was in the high seventies and low eighties. 

Typical street in the old Venetian Quarter

Part of the formidable Venetian walls which once surrounded the city

Surfs up! Lighthouse at the entrance to the harbour.

The promenade along the harbour

Greece | Athens | Areopagus | Apostle Paul

From the Summit Of The Acropolis I descended the slope through the Beulé Gate, built into a wall around the Acropolis apparently dating to the 280s B.C. This is the way most visitors access the Acropolis. I had entered via the less used Southern Gate.

The Beulé Gate (click on photos for enlargements)

Just below here a low saddle leads west to a 377-foot hill known as the Areopagus. In very ancient times a council of nobles used to meet here to discuss affairs of state. Courts also held sessions here. In the 480s B.C., after the rise of democracy the nobles began to meet elsewhere, but murder and treason trials were held here for several more centuries. As I was climbing to the top of Areopagus I caught the distinctive smell of marijuana smoke. Arriving at the top, I encountered three Greek teenagers smoking a spliff which would have made Snoop Dogg proud.

The Areopagus is perhaps best known as the site where the Apostle Paul, he of Road to Damascus fame, gave one of his famous sermons. Before coming to Athens I had been in Paphos, on Cyprus Island, where I had seen Paul’s Pillar, the stone pillar which according to legend he had been tied to while being whipped by locals who took exception to his attempts to spread the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. After leaving Cyprus Paul traveled on to what is now Turkey and Greece, eventually ending up here in Athens. The episode is recounted in the New Testament, Acts 17:

Now while Paul was [in] Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic Philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching of Jesus and the resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this n new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, “To the unknown god.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this. So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.

The Agora, or Marketplace, as seen from the Areopagus Hill. It is now a park littered with archeological ruins. The Agora is where Paul started haranguing the locals, including Stoics, when he first arrived in Athens.  

 Areopagus Hill to the left. The plaque in the stone wall  to the right has the text of Paul’s harangue on the summit.

Detail of the plaque. It repeats the text of Paul’ philippic quoted above from Acts.

Greek teenagers smoking pot on the very spot where Paul once pontificated. The ancient chthonic Gods of Greece are on the rise!

Greece | Kavala | Apostle Paul

From Thessaloniki I took a bus 100 miles up the coast to the city of Kavala. Two thousand years ago Kavala was known as Neopolis (New City). It was one of the main ports in Europe for ships arriving from the Levant. The Apostle Paul, he of Road to Damascus Fame, first set foot in Europe here around A.D. 50. I do not know why, but I seem to keep visiting places where Paul had trod before. First there was Larnaka and Paphos on Cyprus Island, then Athens, Corinth, and Thessaloniki in Greece and now Kavala. This was not intentional, I assure you. I am not a Christian, and certainly not a fan of Pauline Christianity. Indeed, I am perfectly aware that many now consider Paul An Insufferable Douchebag Or Worse. However, I am more than willingly to entertain the idea, posited in the book Jesus and the Lost Goddess, that most if not all the books in the New Testament attributed to Paul are forgeries and that he himself was a secret Gnostic:

Of all early Christians, Paul was the most revered by later Gnostics. He was the primary inspiration for two of the most influential schools of Christian Gnosticism, set up by the early second-century masters Marcion and Valentinus. Christian Gnostics calling themselves 'Paulicians' ran the 'seven churches' in Greece and Asia Minor that were established by Paul, their 'mother Church' being at Corinth. The Paulicians survived until the tenth century and were the inspiration for the later Bogomils and Cathars. Marcion was originally a student of the Simonian Gnostic Cerdo, but when he set up his own highly successful school it was Paul he placed centre-stage as the 'Great Messenger'. 

Even his later Literalist critics acknowledged that Marcion was 'a veritable sage' and that his influence was considerable. Valentinus tells us he received the secret teachings of Christianity from his master Theudas, who had in turn received them from Paul. Based on these teachings, Valentinus founded his own influential school of Christian Gnosticism, which survived as a loose alliance of individual teachers until it was forcibly closed down in the fifth century by the Literalist Roman Church. The number of second and third-century Valentinians that we can still name is testimony to Valentinus' importance: Alexander, Ambrose, Axionicus, Candidus, Flora, Heracleon, Mark, Ptolemy, Secundus, Theodotus and Theotimus. Paul was such an important figure in the Christian community that at the end of the second century the newly emerging school of Christian Literalism could not simply reject him as a misguided heretic but felt compelled to reshape him into a Literalist. They forged in his name the (now thoroughly discredited) 'Pastoral Letters', in which Paul is made to spout anti-Gnostic propaganda. 

Throughout his genuine letters, however, Paul uses characteristically Gnostic language and gives Gnostic teachings, a fact that is deliberately obscured by Literalist translators. Like later Christian Gnostics, Paul addresses his teachings to two levels of Christian initiates, called psychics and pneumatics, describing the latter as 'having Gnosis'. Of himself he writes, 'I may not be much of a speaker, but I have Gnosis.' He sees his mission as awakening in initiates an awareness of 'the Christ within' — the one 'consciousness of God' — by 'instructing all without distinction in the ways of Sophia, so as to make each one an initiated member of Christ's body'. Paul tells us that when he personally experienced Christ it was as a vision of light on the road to Damascus. 'Damascus' was a code word used by the Essenes to refer to their base in Qumran, which suggests that Paul, like Simon, had Essene affiliations. He uses the same language as the Essenes, for example when he describes human beings as being enslaved by the powers of fate, imagined as 'the elemental rulers of the cosmos', the 'archons of this dark cosmos', from which 'Christ has set us free'.

If these assertions about the genuine Gnostic teachings of Paul are true, then what has become known as “Pauline Christianity”—basically mainstream Christianity as it is practiced today—must be regarded as one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated upon the human race.  

City of Kavala (click on photos for enlargements)

Greek Orthodox Church in downtown Kavala. In front is a mosaic commemorating the arrival  of the Apostle Paul in Kavala in A.D. c. 50. 

Mosaic commemorating the arrival  of the Apostle Paul in Kavala in A.D. c.50. 

Detail of mosaic, Note the view must be from north looking south, since Paul  is stepping onto Europe on the right. 

Greece | Thessaloniki | Alexander the Great

The train left Athens on time at 7:18 a.m. and arrived at the train station on the western outskirts of Thessaloniki forty-six minutes late at 1:27 p.m. According to my GPS my hotel near the center of the city was nine-tenths of a mile away. I had planned to walk, but that morning in Athens I had checked the weather forecast and discovered that temperatures were expected to reach 100º F. by mid-afternoon. The forecast for the next day was 105º F., which would tie the highest temperature on record for the date. There was a long line of taxis at the train station,  and after being staggered by the heat when I stepped off the train I was sorely tempted to take one, but I finally decided to stick to my original plan and walk. I had this fantasy of entering the city on foot through one of gates in the fourth-century walls around the city, as if I was a humble pilgrim wandering through the domains of Byzantium. Of course if I started feeling queasy from the heat I could always hail a taxi.

Following the arrow on my GPS through several side streets and alleys I finally arrived at the Letalia Gate, which was one of the four major entrances to the ancient city. The monumental tower that housed the gate is long gone, although the ruins of the old fourth century walls can be seen to the north and south. 

Fourth Century walls to the south of the old Letalia Gate (click on photos for enlargements)

Fourth Century walls to the north of the old Letalia Gate

Busy Agiou Demetrioui, one of the main east-west trending streets through the city, now runs  through the gap in the city walls. Just inside the walls, to the south, can be seen the domes of the 14th century Church of the Apostles, one of the fifteen or so Byzantine-era churches in Thessaloniki that have survived to the present day. Had I been a fourteen century pilgrim I probably would have headed straight to the church to give thanks for my safe arrival in the city, but now I was more concerned with getting to my air-conditioned hotel. I will return however. I am visiting Thessaloniki not on business nor because, as one web site claims, it is the “hippest city” in Greece, chock full of boutique hotels, chi-chi cafes, trendy restaurants, and overflowing bars and discos, but instead to wander at random and daydream among the city’s Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman-era monuments and ruins. In short, I am an unapologetic antiquarian and an unrepentant flâneur.

I proceed east along Agiou Demetrioui until the arrow on my GPS veered sharply to the right, then turn south on Ionos Dragoumi. After a few blocks I arrive at the Pella Hotel, named, presumably, after the town of Pella, the birthplace of Alexander the Great, located twenty miles west-northwest of Thessaloniki. Reviews on the internet damn this place with faint praise; it is “adequate”, “acceptable”, “simple but clean”, “good for an overnight stay”, etc. Back in the 1950s it may have been a pretty ritzy joint. Now it appears to be the haunt of lower-tier traveling salesmen, down-market tourists, and grubby backpackers splurging on a bed, shower, and air-conditioning. The receptionist was certainly cordial. I was a bit taken back by her effusiveness; for a second I had the strange sensation that I had been here before and that she were welcoming me back. Unusual for a hotel in the Eurozone, she did not ask for any ID. Despite the warm welcome I am exiled to the seventh floor, but I heave a sigh of relief when I see the perfectly adequate desk and chair and the nearby electric outlets. At least I can work comfortably on my computer. The narrow single bed is, in a word, acceptable, and the pillow is firm and chunky and can do double duty as a meditation cushion. The air-conditioning works and there is even a small balcony. After storing my portmanteau in my room I walk down Ionos Dragoumi to the harbor area and then turn left on the esplanade along the sea.

Aristotelous Square, which extends north from the Esplanade

The Esplanade

Finally I reach the statue of Alexander the Great (356 b.c–323 b.c.) One of Alexander the Great’s generals, Cassandros, founded  this city in 316 b.c. and named it after his wife Thessalonica, who was the daughter of Philip II of Macedonia and Alexander’s half-sister. Alexander was the son of Philip and the notoriously snake-loving Olympias (so memorably played by Angelina Jolie in the 2004 epic Alexander), while Thessalonica was the daughter of one of Philip’s other wives. Alexander the Great had, of course, died seven years earlier in Babylon, so he never got to see the city named after his half-sister Thessalonica.

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

Greece | Saronic Gulf | Hydra

Hoping to escape the end of the year hubbub in Athens I wandered out to the island of Hydra in the Saronic Gulf, about 50 miles south of Athens and just over two hours by one of the “Flying C” catamaran ferry boats. Apparently this place is hugely popular in the summer but it is very quiet right now. After the last boat of the day heads back to Athens the harbour area is pretty much deserted.

Hydra  (click on photos for enlargements)

Harbour of Hydra

Quiet cafe at the harbour

Equine Transport

No cars allowed on the island, so if have heavy luggage to take to your hotel, or you are unable to walk, you have to rent a mule or a horse. Of course all I had was a small easily carriable portmanteau, and I am still able to walk, so I did not avail myself of equine transport.

Old Fortifications. Hydra played a prominent role in the 1821 War of Independence against the Ottoman Turks.

Coastline east of Hydra Town

View from my hotel room

Addendum: I thought I had picked out Hydra at random from a list of Greek islands easily accessible from Athens, but I kept having this nagging suspicion that I had heard of it somewhere before. Not until my third day on the island did it suddenly occur to me where I had first encountered Hydra. It is mentioned in the book The Colossus of Maroussi by Henry Miller, which I had read in college, along with the Rosy Crucifixion: Sexus, Plexus, Nexus. Miller had a lot to say about Hydra. Here is just a sample:

Our destination was Hydra where Ghika and his wife awaited us. Hydra is almost a bare rock of an island and its population, made up almost exclusively of seamen, is rapidly dwindling. The town, which clusters about the harbor in the form of an amphitheatre, is immaculate. There are only two colors, blue and white, and the white is whitewashed every day, down to the cobblestones in the street. The houses are even more cubistically arranged than at Poros. Aesthetically it is perfect, the very epitome of that flawless anarchy which supersedes, because it includes and goes beyond, all the formal arrangements of the imagination. This purity, this wild and naked perfection of Hydra, is in great part due to the spirit of the men who once dominated the island. For centuries the men of Hydra were bold, buccaneering spirits: the island produced nothing but heroes and emancipators. The least of them was an admiral at heart, if not in fact. To recount the exploits of the men of Hydra would be to write a book about a race of madmen; it would mean writing the word DARING across the firmament in letters of fire.

Curiously, several years ago I bought a Kindle version of The Colossus of Maroussi with the thought of rereading it, but for some reason I never got around to it until now. It has been sitting in Kindle Cloud all this time, apparently just waiting for me to reach Hydra myself.

Italy | Venice | We Crociferi

From Kastraki I took the train to Athens, where I once again stayed at my Favorite Hotel in the city. I could not resist climbing the Hill of the Muses again for another view of the Acropolis and the Parthenon.

The Acropolis, topped by the Parthenon (click on photos for enlargements)

The Parthenon. Unfortunately it always seems to be under repair.

The Acropolis at night, from the balcony of my hotel. The Parthenon is not visible from this angle.

Then took an early morning flight to Istanbul. Would have loved to stop for some mutton kebabs at the take-out place next to my Favorite Hotel in Istanbul, but of course I cannot enter Turkey because of the recent Visa Snafu. So I caught a connecting flight to Venice. The plane left Ataturk Airport in Istanbul at 5:36 p.m. It was dark at ground level when we took off, but we emerged from the low, heavy cloud cover just in time to see the sun sinking halfway below the horizon, now banded with fiery reddish-orange light that gradually faded into a dome of deep cobalt blue. For the next hour or so we chased the sun westward. Several times it reappeared above the horizon only to sink again. We finally lost the race with the sun and arrived at the predictably named Marco Polo Airport in total darkness at 5:50 local time, for a flight of two hours and fourteen minutes. There is no line at Immigration and my portmanteau is the second piece of luggage to emerge on the conveyor belt.

Marco Polo Airport has undergone major remodeling since I was here last. A fifteen minute walk on a new sky-bridge ends at the dock where water-buses now leave for the island of Murano and Venice itself.  From the water-bus it is impossible to make out anything in the dark and the fog. After about thirty minutes the lights of Murano Island water-bus stop appear out of the gloom. A half dozen people get off and we continue on another fifteen minutes to the  Fondamente Nuove stop on the north side of Venice itself. I am the only person getting off. Most passengers are continuing on to the hotels around St. Mark’s Square, on the south side of Venice, which offer more convenient access the city’s more famous sights. During the day numerous water buses to the airport, outlying islands, and other parts of Venice itself all converge here, and the walkway, lined with ticket vendors and attendant kiosks selling selling water, snacks, and souvenirs is usually bustling with transients. Now the Fondamente Nuove is eerily quiet. I look up and down the 800-yard long fog-shrouded walkway and do not see a single person; it appears as if the city is  deserted. 

I veer off Fondamente Nuove onto Salizzada dei Specchieri (street of the looking-glass makers), which is also suspiciously, forbiddingly empty. After a hundred yards or the eight massive  Corinthian columns that make the facade of the Church of the Gesuiti (Jesuits) rear up out of the gloom on my left. Above the entablature carried by the columns statues of the twelve apostles and assorted angels appear out of the fog. I get the discombobulating feeling that they are gazing down in judgment at the lone wanderer on the street below. Not that I am the first to be put off by these statues. W. D. Howells (1837–1920), erstwhile editor of the “Atlantic Monthly” and author of Venetian Life (1866), observed that “the sight of those theatrical angels, with their shameless, unfinished backs, flying off the top of the rococo façade of the church of the Jesuits, has always been a spectacle to fill me with despondency and foreboding.” A later observer, James Lees-Milne, in his Venetian Evenings, noted: “To my mind these statues look more like lost souls about to throw themselves in despair to the bottomless pit, only prevented from doing so by the rusted iron bands which tie their loose limbs together and keep them in.” By now a surprisingly chilly and uncomfortably damp wind is gusting through the street, adding to my discomfiture. The tee-shirt and Mongolian cashmere sweater I had donned that morning in Athens are clearly inadequate.

The Salizzada dei Specchieri opens out into the Campo dei Gesuiti, a long narrow square likewise empty. On the left side of the square, abutting the Church of the Gesuiti, stands an immense white-walled five story building that was once a Jesuit monastery. It has been transformed into both living quarters for students and a hotel for the public. Veering off the square and through a portal I emerge into a huge courtyard lined by a colonnaded passageway. In the courtyard and passageway are huddled groups of people, presumably students, the first humans I have seen since arriving at the Fondamente Nuove. Lady Gaga booms from the sound system of a cafe off to the side, accompanied by a buzz of conversation and laughter. I am back among the living. 

The receptionist assigns me to a room on the fifth floor. You have to use your key card to use the elevator. After passing through three unmarked doors and wandering down several long corridors I finally locate my room in an isolated cul-de-sac. I cannot help but wonder if I have been purposely exiled to this out of way corner of the huge building, away from the younger and more livelier residents. If so, this suites me fine. The last thing I need is some noisy college students next door. According its website the We Crociferi has shared dormitory-style rooms, private rooms with bath, studio rooms, and small apartments complete with kitchens. It is not clear how many of these units it hosts, but the entire facility has 255 beds, all of them singles. The website is quick to point out that these single beds cannot be joined together. Perhaps this is a residual holdover from its days as a Jesuit monastery, and now an attempt to maintain some degree of propriety among the college students who stay here. Some on-line reviews, apparently from adult couples, grouse about the lack of any double beds in the rooms. Why these people find such a problem with a single bed is beyond me. If they want to couple they can do so on a single bed. I have done it more times than I can count. Then they can retire to separate single beds. Or they can just remain in the single bed, which may result in even greater intimacy, since you simply cannot roll over to your own side of the bed after coupling is completed. In any case, my room has three single beds, only one of which I will be using. As far as I know I will not be doing any coupling in Venice.

Room decor is minimalist; gray concrete floors with no carpets or rugs, and whitewashed brick walls. In keeping with its function as student quarters a built-in formica topped desk extends the entire length of the front wall. Study lamps on flex-arms light the desk area, there are no less than eight—eight!—electrical outlets, and the overhead lights are more than adequate. Actually this functional work space, often so sadly lacking in even much more expensive hotels, is the real reason I am staying at the We Crociferi.  As a bonus my room, although isolated, looks directly down on the Campo dei Gesuiti  and has a great view out over the roof tops of Venice, with the dome-topped 182-foot campanile, or bell tower, of the church of Madonna dell’Orto soaring up off in the distance.

The We Crociferi on the right, in daylight

One of three courtyard at the We Crociferi

Courtyard at the We Crociferi

Courtyard at the We Crociferi

Courtyard at the We Crociferi

Arcade at the We Cruciferi

The Church of the Gesuiti, to the left of the We Crociferi. The angels on the facade are less dread-inspiring in the daylight

182-foot campanile, or bell tower, of the church of Madonna dell’Orto visible over the rooftops of Venice