There probably isn’t a city in the world more enchanting than Venice, Italy. Though the main thoroughfares are always filled with tourists, the lack of vehicular traffic lends Venice a kinder, gentler atmosphere. As soon as you meander off the beaten path and walk through narrow streets and passageways there is a feeling of intrigue when you emerge onto a tiny, empty piazza where the weathered buildings fight back against the test of time and water. Because the real traffic in the city moves on the canals you begin to realize that the everyday systems that make a city run are quite different here. You see foodstuffs and supplies ferried by boat to docks that barely protrude into the water or are tucked under buildings. Garbage boats go by, construction boats loaded with supplies and men speed past in the numerous canals that snake through the city and you quickly see that life is far from ordinary in this magical place.
When I travel I love to visit museums, and I know, it’s a busman’s holiday to say the least. When you are traveling with two men who have over 60 years combined in the fire service, you can bet that they just might want to visit a firehouse in a foreign country. If you know that the firefighters in a particular location can’t use normal fire trucks because maneuvering the stone footpaths that are laid out across the island and are connected by staired bridges makes transportation impossible by anything with wheels, including a rolling suitcase, how they respond to and fight fires was even more interesting to these two old timers.
We mentioned to the concierge at our hotel that we’d like to visit a fire house and he told us that it wasn’t possible to knock on the door and expect a tour. He promised to see what he could do for us. When we stopped back at the desk he handed us a map with an X marked on it and told us to be at this location at 11:00 am sharp. We had a great walk through streets that turned and twisted along the canals and knocked on the door to the one fire house on the island promptly at eleven.
The fire station is located on the Rio di Ca’ Foscari and we were greeted at the door by a firefighter who immediately called for a reinforcement who could speak English. Fortunately for us Marco is married to an Australian woman and his English is a bit halting, but very understandable. No shiny red fire trucks parked in bays here. Instead wooden fire boats are moored under shallow archways below the building, but like American fire trucks, they are clean and polished and ready to roll. Like any fire chief, the chief of the Venetian Vigili del Fuoco, which translates to Fire Watch, has his own smaller, faster vehicle, a spiffy boat parked in a separate slip and also ready for action. We toured the facility and saw the training tower and watched as the men laid out lengths of hose to dry. Because their water source is salt water, great care has to be taken to keep the hose from deteriorating. Unlike the typical American fire house where one guy is dubbed “the cook” whether he can cook or not, these men are treated to home cooked meals by their very own hired cook, which made my husband and our friend Kurt very envious. As we thanked Marco for the tour he gave us a booklet and CD with information about the Vigili Del Fuoco and bid us Arrivederci!
It wasn’t until we returned home and started looking through all the paper souvenirs we had collected along the way, that I realized that there was a postcard included in the booklet. How cool is that! I’ve chosen this lovely set of postcards I purchased in Venice to share with you because to me they really capture the ambiance of the city, but I think my favorite postcard from Venice is the one from the Vigili del Fuoco. Ciao!
The postcard of Corpo Nazionale Vigili del Fuoco is Corpo Nazionale dei Vigili del Fuoco©
The postcards from Venezia are by Paolo Busato©
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