Although I wrote this article a while ago, it was just picked up by Escape from America magazine. Click the link for the full read.
photo © Vladimir Vujovic http://takovska15.com/
Many labels come to mind when I think of Venice: magical, mysterious, one-of-a-kind, legendary – it’s not an easy place to define.
On my first visit there I wondered: could I ever live in a city where I wouldn’t be able to ride a bike? On the other hand, I loved that it is car-free: no fumes, no traffic, no road rage. Instead, all the essential city services were carried out by boats: ambulances, garbage men, firefighters, police men – all sailors!
One late-September day few years ago I found myself knocking on heavy gates of Palazzo Zorzi, hoping to call the palace my new office. And a few days later, I also began calling Venice my home.
Palazzo Zorzi houses UNESCO’s Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe and I joined the environmental science team to contribute to, among other things, the Venice lagoon conservation and tourism management projects.
photo © Vladimir Vujovic http://takovska15.com/
Soon after I moved there, my colleague Giorgio – one of those mysterious prototypes that wears a cape and a fedora and looks like a phantom stealthily cutting corners of narrow street corridors in thick misty winter fogs – taught me how to circumnavigate the maze of timeworn streets like a pro. Then, a very important sense of belonging to the community, he taught me how to give directions: ‘just keep going straight (‘sempre dritto’) and inquire again at the next bridge!’ The phrase ‘sempre dritto’ is the most common and commonly-acceptable instruction to navigate Venice.
Another December, another UN Climate Change Conference..
Momentum from outside the climate negotiations is going to be crucial. World leaders need to take charge of the process on the basis that climate change is an economic, development and security issue as much as an environmental one.
