. . . and not only can you drink it, it’s quite tasty, actually.

The other day, on the way to the San Marcuola vaporetto stop, I followed a traveler down the broad rio terà that runs behind the Ghetto. He was outfitted for the day with a medium-sized backpack filled with, oh, who knows, traveler stuff; but on opposite sides of his sparkling-new, expertly-engineered pack were hoisted two 1.5 liter bottles of water, pronte to relieve his thirst at a moment’s notice. They made my packless back hurt just looking at ’em.

I immediately thought of San Francisco’s mayor, Gavin Newsom, who has just declared the city’s independence from bottled water. Lord, leave it to some Californians to be the first to come to their senses and change something, as opposed to seeming to consciously look for ways to generate more mountain ranges of non-degradable waste, while simultaneously funneling money into an industry that has managed to terrify us into believing that something we’ve already paid to purify and that runs freely from the tap is bad for us, so we must instead buy theirs? Am I missing something here?

Sorry…where was I? Oh, yes, fountains.

Of course you’ll get dry-mouthed ambling about the city, but Venice already has a solution for you: quinch your thirst with some of Italy’s best tasting water from any of the fountains that seem to appear magically right about the time you realize, gosh I’m thirsty, I could use a (here, a fountain will materialize suddenly in your line of sight). Many of us city-dwellers bring a bottle with us, then refill it from the fountains as we continue campo to campo. Makes so much sense: Venice fountain water (and tap, for that matter) is not only safe (it arrives from aquifers north of the city), it tastes good. You not contributing to the mass of plastic oceanic waste. And wouldn’t you rather spend those euro on, say, a bottle of nice Lugana, or Prosecco, or Teroldego, that unfortunately for us does not flow from the tap? (I have been accused more than once of having a one-track mind.)

The fountains serve other purposes as well, as this dear Venetian man demonstrated for me, once he got over the fact that I was taking a picture of a completely deserted fountain. Wait, he said, holding out his palm to halt me, I’ll show you what else it does. I waited.

Ahhhh…

Tonight, at 6p, if you’re not headed for one of the many Biennale suorées, inaugurazioni, and other festivities held throughout the city, you might enjoy stopping by San Leonardo at 6p. The opening there is for a show with works painted by the students of a course offered by Professor Maurizio Favaretto. Sara Bardino, an extraordinary mezzosoprano (and my voice instructor) along with Davide Sibilla will be performing a variety of selections, lyric and otherwise (Voi che sapete…). Nothing amateur about this, my friends, you’d be doing yourself a favor by stopping in.

• Friday, June 8, 6p
• San Leonardo
• Rio Terà San Leonardo, just below the Guglie bridge.
• No charge
• From the San Marcuola stop, head toward the main Rio Terà and turn left. San Leonardo is at the back of a big campo on the left.

About the school (if you can’t read Italian, just look at the illustrations):

www.liceoartistico.ve.it

Oh, and Sara’s students have upcoming concerts on the Thursday the 21st and Monday the 25th, at the Scuola Grande di San Teodoro, across from the Chiesa di San Salvador near the Rialto bridge on the San Marco side. These are free concerts, all locals (I am the only import), including one night of lyric opera selections (Rossini, Bellini, and more), another consisting of plethora of delightful Handel duets. Details to follow!

Addio, paper vaporetto tickets, the ACTV is adapting the most advanced smart card ticketing system in Europe, according to the announcement: one magnetized pass will take you anywhere in the system, land or sea, depending on the options you’ve purchased, and can be topped up at will. We won’t show them to anyone as we board, we’ll just be sliding and beeping, like the Paris Métro without the stairs. And it won’t be just for transport: they have plans to include options for museum entrances, events, and more.

The name’s Imob.venezia, thank you very much, and was introduced with much fanfare last week. The system will be phased in little by little, operational from November and paper eliminated by the end of March, 2008…it can’t come too soon for me.

Of course, this doesn’t make figuring out how to get from the Zattere to San Zaccaria without going to Giudecca any less confusing…but it’s the little things. Bravi, bravi.