Head to toe, Lorenzo looked as one imagines a Venetian gondolier should.

His outfit included a flat-brimmed straw boater with a red hatband; loose-fitting, short-sleeved, white-linen shirt over a polo with traditional horizontal stripes of navy and white; black pants and black rubber-soled shoes. Oh, yes, and seemingly a song on his lips.

On the recent Italian afternoon of our 40th wedding anniversary, my wife and I were excited to celebrate with an authentic gondola ride. As we strolled toward a long ticket line, a charismatic gondolier intercepted us and guided us to the nearby dock where his long and narrow boat with high-rising stern and bow was moored.

Celebrating our 40th anniversary in Venice with a gondola ride thanks to Lorenzo.

No sooner did we sit down on a thinly cushioned loveseat bench than I began to wonder if we had been hoodwinked into an unseaworthy vessel for it tilted to the right, and greatly so. A heavy wake from a passing motorboat taxi would surely have us taking on water.

Not to worry. When Lorenzo took his position, standing above and behind us atop the left-hand side of the stern, the boat largely righted itself thanks to his wiry-framed weight. Not only is this imbalance by design in all gondolas, the keels purposely curve slightly to the right because rowing with a single 13-foot-long oar, always mounted on the starboard side, naturally pushes the boat leftward.

Rowing, by the way, is actually a short motion called “stirring”. Thanks to the forearms of a blacksmith, Lorenzo effortlessly stirred the gondola through the “streets” of Venice, as the canals are called. In truth, he only made it look easy.

“I’m 62 and getting too old,” he said at one point as the thermometer’s mercury approached 90 degrees. “It’s a young man’s game. It’s physically taxing and takes more effort that it looks like.”

Lorenzo with his 13-foot-long magic wand of a boat oar.

Lorenzo can still turn back the pages of the calendar. Not only did he turn the oar into a wizard’s wand, he sometimes assisted his steering by dancing on the wall like Fred Astaire in the most memorable scene in “Royal Wedding.” Specifically, Lorenzo would lift and place a foot on the side of a building rising from the water and push off. The gondola, despite measuring 36 feet in length, fishtailed gracefully to turn on a dime around blind corners.

“Gondolas are all handcrafted only in Venice and cost very much money,” said Lorenzo, whose black beauty originally belonged to his father. The floating family heirloom, in accord with the local custom of bestowing gondolas with two female names, was christened “Anna Silvia” after Lorenzo’s mother and sister.

“My dad died much too young at age only 52,” the boatman continued, noting sadly he thus inherited his father’s boat – and job – “at age only 18.”

With more than four decades experience, Lorenzo gave us a masterpiece tour. Here was Casanova’s Palace; there was the home believed to have been the residence of Marco Polo; here was Libreria Acqua Alta, the self-proclaimed “most beautiful bookstore in the world”; there, passing overhead, was the Bridge of Sighs, its name coming from the poet Lord Byron, who wrote: “I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; a palace and a prison on each hand.”

And here, inside the bow of “Anna Silvia”, was another quote, painted in black upon a carved olive wreath of gold, from a poem by Dante: “Lo Bel Pianeta Che Ad Amar Conforta.” Translation: “The beauteous planet, that to love incites.”

Certainly this beauteous city, and our smooth-as-a-magic-carpet ride with Lorenzo, incited anniversary love.

To be continued next week in Olympia, Greece…

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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn

Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn. His SIGNED books are available at www.WoodyWoodburn.com.

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