Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Gondolas are boats which exist here before the origins of Venice. Although we have not
a clear idea what gondolas looked like in the beginning, they developed an asymmetry
in the keel of the gondola, so one side is slightly wider than the other side and the
gondola got to have what we have now which is a banana shape. So since the man always
rows on the same side, the boat corrects itself along and goes straight and doesn't make a
circle. So the gondolas are masterpieces of technology although it seems so simple. "Senorina,
gondola, gondola." Gondolas are really the most common means of transport in town. They
would bring you everywhere as a taxi drivers would bring you anywhere in every other town.
And this is the system people used for centuries until the 1950s you could just arrive at the
railway station and find the first gondolier and ask him to bring you for a few lier, the
Roco currency, until the eur arrived, everywhere you wanted to go -- like a real taxi. Then
the situation changed, now gondolas are limited in number, because to be qualified to bring
people in Venice, you need to have a license, to have a license you have to go through a
series of very difficult examines. You are qualified to be a gondolier through these
examines, but then you have to buy the license by an old gondolier who doesn't want to continue.
Then you have to buy that license with a lot money which would be much more than a luxury
apartment. Gondoliers are interesting people, they're extremely proud to be connected with
the identity of Venice themselves, they feel they are venice. It's a job that they tend
to pass from father to son, although it's not a written rule, it's a sort of lobby because
you have the know how when you are born here. There was no uniform for gondoliers until
World War two, but After world war two, to pay homage to those who had won the war, which
was the british and the americans, they adopted the stripes of the navy of the United States
and England because those were the tourists who had the money to come to venice in the
forties and early fifties. This is a busy canal for gondoliers, and what we can see
before were groups of four or five or six gondolas together -- that's a traditional
thing, it's called a fresco. When you have a row of gondolas together and somebody normally
singing, it's a traditional way to enjoy the fresh air out on grand canal going up and
down-- something you can see at sunset normally. Gondolas have the priorities -- they can go
everywhere; and it's curious they can go through the narrowest and most difficult curves you
would never believe. Naturally gondoliers help themselves by kicking the edges of the
walls of the buildings along the canals sometimes, but they normally never touch the bottom of
the canals with the ores they really row. They stand, they look forward and they row,
it's the Venetian rowing style. Something traditional here, gondoliers being sea people,
out together all day long, they are never ashamed of sharing their intimacies at kilometers
of distance. They speak very loud, so it's sort of a joyful profession, which involves
a lot of sense of humor, so you always see gondoliers making fun of each other and they
have nick names and it's a beautiful job.