Take a second glimpse of Venice after the sunrise, and you will have to admit its past condition. Near the shore you will find the wave of sea not very transparent, or on the century-old pebble road you will find birds’ white dropping scattering everywhere. The constructions here are mostly made of stone and gather together leaning against each other. Water marks appear on walls and the paint falls off at almost every house. Some streets are so narrow that only one person can walk through a stone lane. Between buildings there sometimes only exists a narrow passage in the water, which means you will see water immediately you open your door. 

Then you can’t help raising the following question: “Why not redecorate such a famous tourist resort into a fresh and magnificent place”? 

Absolutely not. If so, Venice would not be as mysterious and interesting as it is, but a cold town with superficial exteriors but without living energy. Venice’s energy just lies in her ancient buildings and simple people. 1500 years ago, this city came into being and later turned into a famous place in the Renaissance. She used to be a prosperous center of naval commerce in the 14th and 15th century and later went downhill in the 17th century. There are so many legends about this city. When you sit silently on a corner of a street and observe the whole square and the heavy crowds in a casual way, you will imagine what have happened in such a long time. Maybe a century ago, someone was born or killed here or had a pleasant or sorrowful memory; or five centuries ago, someone confessed his or her secret to the rigid rock; or ten centuries ago, someone spent a lifetime or fifteen centuries ago, some fishermen escaped to this remote and devastated island from the Mediterranean.  

The cries and struggles of life seem to be always tiny and tender in face of time like wrinkle on the sand, whereas the hard rock who has witnessed everything remains to be silent and emotionless. 

You will prove to be wrong if you attempt to find modern metropolitan expressions in Venice. At Medieval age, this man-made island accumulated most of treasure from the entire Europe. Ironically, such a commercial capital has been well preserved so far instead of being exploited with abundant capital. The merchants in the later generation purchased and built lots of estate, and intentionally preserved the layout of this man-made island one generation after another. When a taste of antiquity becomes a fashion, you will never feel left behind or stereotyped. On the contrary, such antiquity never falls behind because it takes the leading in current society. There might be various reasons you can conclude from what you have found in Venice. It might be the boisterous carnival, passionate Venice Film Festival or the Middle Age style in the tour on Gondola. Cultural life and appreciation as well as respect and longing for traditional social life make Venice a neverland existing in the contemporary European atlas. In that sense, what on earth is new or old? We can’t and needn’t tell the difference. A certain kind of life is running non-stop since the Middle Age just because this island can provide unique past tense and a strong sense of tradition at every key instant of social progress.