ITALY

CONTINENTAL DRIFTER
Ahhh … Venice?
by Elliott Hester

While waiting to board my flight at Paris Orly Airport, I received a distress text message on my cellular phone. The message had been sent by my girlfriend in Prague. An hour beforehand, she boarded a flight en route to our rendezvous in Venice.

“Snowstorm … 3 hour delay … will miss connection in Rome … won’t reach Venice until tomorrow.”

Eyes wide, mouth agape, I reread the text message and panicked. Not because I would be alone on the first night of our week-long stay in Venice. Not because Miki would be spending the night at an airport hotel in Rome. I panicked because without her I was lost. Literally.

Miki lived for a time in Venice. She knows the city well and speaks fluent Italian. Consequently, she had insisted on handling our travel arrangements. Having such a competent companion to do all the planning, I embraced the idea of being her slacker sidekick. I knew nothing about the apartment she had organized for us. Knew even less about Giudecca, the mainly residential island where the apartment was located. I didn’t even know how to navigate my way from Marco Polo Airport to the city. Because our flights were scheduled to arrive simultaneously, Miki and I planned to meet outside the customs area. Arm-in-arm, and with her guidance, we would approach the fabled city by sea.

This had sounded like a romantic idea. Upon landing at Marco Polo Airport, I felt otherwise.

Sent from her snowbound aircraft 350 miles away, Miki’s text-message directions were vague. “Take boat from airport to Piazzale Roma ... take another boat from there to Palanca station on Giudecca … get off boat … turn right, walk along edge of lagoon … turn left at church, walk to second bridge. Look for Georgia.”

Georgia Tedeschi, one of the first women to study pharmacology at Italy’s Padova University, arrived here from Greece in 1951. In 2000, Miki tutored Greek law students at the same university. The young Czech tutor and the elderly Greek alumnus met and became friends.

Seven years later, at Marco Polo Airport, a desperate American traveler was trying to purchase a ticket for the boat to Piazzale Roma. Due to the late hour (10:30 p.m.), public boats were no longer running. The only affordable option was the bus.

I arrived in mid-winter, mind you. Visions of moonlit gondolas rides disappeared the second I stepped from the airport and into a frigid breeze. I stood at the bus stop, shivering in my sweater and thinking of Georgia Tedeschi. Would she still be awake if and when I showed up? The woman was 76 years old, after all. If we failed to connect, I’d have to find a hotel on the island. (At the time, I was unaware that the only accommodation was at the five-star Hotel Cipriani, which was closed for winter.)

After the 30-minute bus ride to Piazzale Roma, I dragged my bag to a floating platform and boarded a vaporetto (waterbus) to Giudecca. Each time the vaporetto splashed to a halt, I’d stare through the foggy windows, looking at station names that glowed like lanterns in the darkness. Santa Marta. San Basilio. Zattere.

At Palanca station, I disembarked as instructed and used my cell phone to call Georgia. A wispy voice picked up at the other end of the line. “Pronto?”

“Hello,” I said. “I am the friend of—”

“Ahhh …,” she replied, cutting me off in mid-sentence. “You arrive finally.” In an accent that was equal parts Greek and Italian, Georgia repeated the same vague directions that Miki had sent earlier.

It was almost midnight. Not another soul to be seen. I walked along the damp fondamenta (street that runs along the bank of a canal), looking for the old church. Streetlamps cast a faint glow against a phalanx of ancient buildings. Waves swept across the Giudecca Canal and slapped against the mossy embankment.

After a minute or two, I came upon the crumbling brick façade of St. Eufemia Church. I turned left and saw two tiny stone bridges traversing a black canal. I heard the creak of a rusty door hinge. Saw a hunched shape trundling onto the second bridge.

I called out in the darkness. “Georgia?”

The bubbly 76-year-old waited for me on the bridge. When I reached out to shake her hand, she kissed me instead on both cheeks. In one hand she raised the coveted apartment keys. In the other, a bottle of champagne.

Next Stop: Bali, Indonesia

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