In late January, as the traveler walks over the Ponte delle Guglie, through the great grey fog that seems to always encompass the small Venetian islands, he hears the shouts of a few fishermen on a docked wooden boat, advertising the catch of the day. As he continues down the quiet, wet streets of Cannaregio, he witnesses the Venetian mother, balancing as she removes her carriage from her boat to do her daily vegetable shopping, and notices that within the flooded and silent piazza in the Ghetto, there are rows of holes in the stone wall.

However, in late June, as this traveler walks under the blinding sunlight, over the Ponte delle Guglie, and onto the Fondamenta Pescheria, the English shouts of the gondoliers, dressed in white striped shirts and ribboned straw hats, immediately welcome him to Venice. As he continues through the hordes of hectic foreigners circumventing street vendors selling souvenirs, he can hear any language except Italian.

Venice, a man-made island of lagoons and piazzas, a former home to Doges (rulers) and a place of miracles, was once renowned for its naval power, commerce and independence. But today, the Queen of the Adriatic is a city in Italy, characterized by tourism and reminders of its rich past. Every summer, as the heat unleashes the lagoon’s salty smell and the onslaught of tourists begins, Venice challenges the visitor to seek out the hidden campi (small town squares) and spared restaurants.

The Columbia study abroad program I participated in this past summer not only encouraged me and the sixteen other participants from Columbia, Barnard, Brown, Yale and Notre Dame to embrace the language and culture within the classroom, but it also forced us to immerse ourselves in the Venice of the Veneziani. (locals). Unlike previous summers’ participants who lived together in a dormitory on the Giudecca, an outlying island, we lived in groups of two, three and four in apartments located throughout the various residential districts and traveled to classes independently. Instead of hoping to catch a glimpse of what lay behind the eighteenth century doors and gilded doorknobs, we carried the heavy, tarnished keys to these doors in our backpacks. After venturing out to Campo Santa Margherita to share in the Italian World Cup excitement (and then mourning), we would return home and commiserate with the Venetians over the lack of air conditioning.

In the alleyways around my apartment, located near the Arsenale and next to the quiet, residential neighborhood of Giardini, older women would sit chatting on benches and lean out of their windows to retrieve their dry slips and socks from the clotheslines. But the Ghetto Nuovo in the Jewish Quarter provides the best example of daily life. At night in this quiet refuge within the Canneregio district, one of the busiest sestieri (traditional neighborhoods), teenage boys simultaneously text and race their boats down the narrow streets, and 6-year-olds maneuver their wooden boats up to a canal-side doorstep in order to deliver flowers. Outside of the unaltered 16th century synagogues, families gather to have picnics in the nearby Parco Savorgnon di Brazza and children ride their bikes around the open piazza.

On one of my first nights in Venice, a young girl in the Ghetto asked me to walk her to what would become my favorite spot in Venice: four alcoves with rounded steps that lead into the Venetian Lagoon at the end of the Canal. From these steps, we watched the sun set over the mainland and saw the trains rushing in and out of Venice. The faint honks of the cars in the distance made Venice seem a tranquil haven compared to the industrial mainland.

When our landlady called or our extroverted upstairs neighbor invited us to the courtyard dinner, we needed to utilize our grammatical exercises of the eight-hour school days. Our “cultural partners,” the ten or so Italian students who accompanied us to class at Ca’ Foscari University ultimately encouraged our immersion both in the language and in the culture. They taught us to go swimming at the beach at dusk, never to sit at a coffee house in the Piazza San Marco, and to navigate the lack of nightlife by escaping to the nearby island of Lido. They introduced us to their favorite restaurants, Muro and Impronta Caffè, where we ordered the popular Venetian aperitif, the spritz. In addition to the Italian we needed for trips to the doctor and daily coffee runs, we learned the slang Italian of their texts, emails and jokes.

Due to the frequent scioperi (strikes) of the public ferries, we learned the backstreets en route to class. As we lugged our books on these early morning treks over countless bridges, we witnessed a Venice similar to the one of the winter months. The children of shopkeepers leaned out from the still-closed stores to pet the familiar dog on its morning walk, and women greeted each other on the way to work. We developed strong calves, an indication of a true Venetian. On the mornings when public transport was in business, the rides on vaporetti (public ferries) also provided insight into the life of the Venetians. While the tourists were still preparing their itineraries in their hotel rooms, the lagoon burst with the activity of mail boats, vegetable deliveries from the mainland and fishermen. On the boat itself, the local Italian newspapers replaced the usual plethora of maps present during the day, signaling the presence of bronzed Venetians.

Upon finally arriving at class, our art history professors, the greatly admired Johanna (director of Casa Muraro, the Columbia University center for study in Venice), and Lorenzo (who had been my Later Italian Art TA in the spring) served as our guides to a hidden Venice. One would never know they were not from Venice; their intimate familiarity with countless Venetians and with the quirky details of life in the city continually inspired us. During art history class, which we had two times a week (sometimes for eight or nine hours at a time), they led us on excursions throughout the city, pointing out the crowd-enveloped monuments, mosaics and sacra conversazione altarpieces that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. We gained entry into the private libraries of Museo Correr, where we studied Tiepolo’s original sketches, and into the restricted Cappella Zen in the Basilica San Marco.

When we returned to Venice from our daylong art history trips to Murano, Burano, Torcello, and the nearby cities of Vicenza and Padova, it always felt as if we were returning home. As we exited the train station and saw the vaporetti pulling up to the docks, many of us opted out, preferring to walk back to our apartments. I wished to wallow in the backstreets of Cannaregio, to pass by the shops and bed and breakfasts of my many new friends in the Ghetto, nodding “buona sera” (good evening), and to pick up my daily, shockingly cold smoothie from Frulala.

Arsenale had become my residence, Dorsoduro, my university town, and Cannaregio, the locale of my Venetian friends. I felt I had unmasked Venice.
Note: The completion of one year, or the equivalent, of Italian is necessary to participate in this program.