Almost 60,000 people visit Venice each day, a vast number of tourists and natives alike. It is located in Italy, which is ranked number 1 in international tourism, the city of sparkling canals and esteemed works by celebrated artists. However, in “Venice in XVI Sketches” by Daria S., the author shows the reader a different perspective of the famed city. They describe the reality of the city-what the natives actually perceive. The narrator in the piece reveals the true nature of Venice, without the climbing tourism markets shrouding the truth using quick, diverse anecdotes to demonstrate her point.

Coming from New York, I know that our city thrives from tourism, people arriving from all over to gander at the towering skyscrapers and the innumerable stores lining the streets of Times Square. Nonetheless, some don’t discern the fact that New York not only consists of Manhattan, but of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island as well. These areas are not like the New York scenery tourists usually see. There is too much garbage floating in the wind, loud trains rushing by, and skies so polluted that going upstate is the only way to see them. I can personally relate when Daria says that they dreamed of a Venice that had never been- one that so many believe Venice is. No place in the world is truly beautiful, but authentically, I suppose they are.