Ever been to Venice Italy? I have, and it is a wonderful little city essentially in the Adriatic sea. It is full of narrow winding canals crossed by steeply arched bridges. There are no cars or any kind of motorized traffic in Venice. Goods are transported by human powered carts with big wheels to help them get up and down the steps invariable found on the many bridges. There are no sidewalks in Venice as all the streets are pedestrian walkways. Most of these streets are relatively narrow as well with some of them allowing no more than four or five to walk abreast.
I got to Venice early March 1984 just in time for the Mardi Gras festival. This is a three day festival where it seems like everyone gets dressed up in costumes and has a party. During the day it is pretty quiet and you can wander around easily, but at night it can get crowded in the narrow streets, especially around the larger squares or piazzas The Saturday that I was there I spent just wandering around looking at all the old buildings and trying to find small out of the way piazzas Not knowing any Italian I did not quite know what to make of the many signs I saw. One in particular was an arrow with the words “senso unico†inside them. I figured it must be a museum or a government house of some kind so in an effort to find out I spend the better part of the day following them so that I could find out just what a “Senso Unico†was. I was not too concerned that I never did find out as my main purpose was to walk around and look at the architecture and people.
Later that night I was in one of the larger piazzas watching some fireworks and other festivities associated with the Mardi Gras festival. Lots of people in all kinds of wonderful costumes. Well, at the end of the events everybody tried to leave the piazza at once. Even though there were several ways to leave they all got very congested and being a tourist I only knew of the one way back to my hotel so I joined the crowd. A short way down the street we got to an intersection and everybody was taking the same route, which I thought was a little odd as I thought that both would get me back to my hotel room. I decided to take the road less taken in an effort to back quicker. That is until I noticed the police officer standing in middle of the road directing people into the more crowded of the two routes. I though that was really strange and could not figure out what was going on until I noticed the sign on the wall behind the police officer, “senso unico†in an arrow pointing towards me! “One Way.â€
It had never occurred to me that in a city of pedestrians that there would be one way streets. After seeing the crowds coming back from the festival it makes some sense but during the day traffic was pretty light. At least I was going the right way while wandering around the city.