On a crisp January afternoon, I find myself sipping a spritz, nibbling tramezzini, and enjoying my second Dunhill at one of Caffé Lavena’s salmon-clothed tables. I am reassured by the grid of their arrangement, and the chairs on the end rows have been tipped forward, their backs resting on table-edges and creating a metallic barrier between us and a gaggle of Asian parents and children feeding pigeons seed from paper cones. We leave Florian’s to the Frommer’s-toting tourists, and as R remarks on the superiority of her latte, delivered by a suitably smug black-tied waiter, I know we have made the right choice—25 Euro 70 is a small price to pay for such contentment. With the long portico of the Procuratie Nuove behind us, my gaze passes over what Napoleon once described as “the finest drawing room in Europe.” The basilica, in all of its gilt, mosaic, and marble glory, sits in relief against an impossible Limoges blue sky, the Palazzo Ducale, two hundred years after the end of La Serenissima, still offers its proud Byzantine facade to La Piazzetta, and the Campanile stands sentry over it all, its bells marking the two o’clock hour and interrupting my momentary reverie.

My thoughts return to the city that I have once again left behind and wonder how Napoleon would have described her had that legendary 1821 visit ever taken place. Would our Jackson Square, counterpart to Venice’s grand Piazza, have elicited such a remark—perhaps “the finest servants’ quarters of Europe”—from the emperor in exile? Do the Cabildo, Presbytere, and St. Louis Cathedral offer a feast for the eyes similar to that of San Marco and his architectural companions? And, for the same price, while choking on a Camel, does swilling a hurricane, scarfing a poboy, or slurping a café au lait delivered by a morose server at Cafe Pontalba compare to the refined pleasures offered in the jewel of the Adriatic?

As hard as I try to push them away, these questions, and others, continue to insinuate themselves into my thoughts as R and I retreat to Harry’s Bar for two well-earned 13 Euro Bellinis, fresh-squeezed (of course) and delivered with a deferential “Prego!” by a capable barman. After all, that is why I am here, and amidst the convivial sounds of well-clad visitors and the city’s elite tucking away a late afternoon lunch, I reconsider my misgivings upon first being contacted by the editors of NOLAFugees for this assignment. At the time, I was adamant: “How can I abandon my city so soon after my return to an intact home and guaranteed employment, while so many others struggle to patch together some semblance of a viable existence?” “How can I even consider a voyage to the continent while entire neighborhoods other than mine still bear those black marks of destruction doled out so indiscriminately by the fickle paint brush of the flood?”

Such talk was simply not entertained: “There is work to be done,” the editors insisted, “and if New Orleans is going to be rebuilt and re-envisioned, we must look to other water-bound cities, namely Amsterdam and Venice, our sisters in the struggle against the seas.” Buoyed but not convinced by their arguments, I found myself deplaning at Schiphol airport two days before Christmas, a generous grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in my checking account and the NOLAFugees corporate Diners Club card in my wallet. Only now, fully saturated in the culture of these two great world cities do I see the logic of their argument. New Orleans is a colonial product of the Old World, and if she is going to become anything but a future exhibit at the Royal Tropical Institute’s Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, we must look to the Old World for guidance. I sign the champagne-stained receipt with renewed vigor, and to a chorus of “Buona Sera,” we sway out into the Venetian evening, carefully stepping around the assortment of counterfeit Louis Vuitton bags being hawked by the slender African outside the door.

Strolling up calle Vallaresso, my thoughts turn to the notion of these cities as models for the future of New Orleans, and I recall a dinner just nights before at restaurant-bar-club 11 on the Oosterdokskade in Amsterdam. While enjoying the view from the top floor, the prix fixe menu, and two bottles of Prosecco, we were discussing with K, a friend and former resident of the Marigny, the larger historical and geo-political implications of the disaster left in Katrina’s wake. Both R, an art historian on fellowship at the Rijksmuseum, and K, a doctoral student in history conducting research in The Hague, center their work on imperialism and postcolonialism, so I considered their input essential to gaining insight into the continental perception of the situation in New Orleans. After determining that one could, fortuitously, still navigate to Martin Wine Cellar through Lakeview, and reassuring K that the Spellcaster Lodge was not, thank God, in the lower Ninth Ward, we concluded, as I procured a second Gauloises Blonde from K’s packet, that perhaps instead of rebuilding these neighborhoods, New Orleans might be better served by turning Royal Street into a real shopping district comparable to calle larga XXII Marzo in Venice or the Peter Cornelius Hooftstraat in Amsterdam. Though we all shared the sentiment, I believe K summed it best: “Who needs all of those galleries and worn-out antiques? I mean, should we really have to schlep all the way across the Quarter for Gucci in Canal Place?” As the hour became late, we left further consideration of these matters to the Bushes, Blancos, and Nagins of this world, agreed that the meal was lekker, if a tad overpriced, and dropped K at Centraal Station.

However, when R and I stepped on the tram that night, trying to evade the jostling Turkish teenagers as skillfully as do the native Dutch, uneasy questions remained. Would the United States government, the state of Lousiana, and the city of New Orleans finally respond to this latest catastrophe in the manner that was in essence required by Hurricane Betsy and the flood of 1965? Would they respond in the efficient manner of the Dutch, who after their own deluge in 1953 placed immediate national priority on the construction of the Deltawerken, one of the largest-scale and most ambitious civil engineering projects in history? Would the leadership of our country, state, and city even offer us the planks, plywood, and two-by-fours that are such regular features of Venetian life during acqua alta?

In the days following that dinner, these are the questions I continued to ponder while the afternoons spun away in curious Amsterdam establishments such as the Greenhouse Effect and La Tertulia—establishments which bear an unsettling resemblance to the NOLAFugees editorial offices—and these are the questions I continue to ponder tonight in Venice as R asks me for a second time if I desire another carafe of Tocai to complement the grilled filet of sole that followed my arrabbiata. The answer to that question, of course, is “yes,” as the wine has not yet quite caught up with the after-effects of the spritz and Bellini, but the answers to the others remain uncertain. As I refresh R’s glass and return the empty vessel to the waitress, I imagine bureaucratic American haircuts nodding during a tour of Holland’s levee system, haircuts that cannot conceal the full knowledge that such a project will never receive funding in Lousiana, and when the last sip catches in my throat, the absolute absurdity of New Orleans taking any cues from the Dutch engulfs me, as I consider their neatly ordered lives, their practical approach to sexual relations, and well, to be perfectly honest, their bicycles.

I am left, then, with thoughts of Venice, and after paying in cash and carefully filing my receipt, we step out of Antica Osteria Al Pantalon and into the night. The moonlight plays on the Rio di Frescada, and taking R’s hand, I lead her on a stroll past I Frari and the sleeping Tintorettos of the Scuola di San Rocco. The sky is clear, the air cold and damp, and I am reminded of rare winter nights in the Vieux Carre of another city and walks like this one. As we cross Campo San Toma and approach our guest house, I must wonder, though, if left to time like the Centro Storico, will the charms of old New Orleans remain sufficient to entice the hordes who provide her with sustenance? Is this sinking Italian city, with its 65,000 permanent residents and 12 million annual visitors, a fair image of our city’s future or is this just a figment of my imagination? At number 2889, Calle de Campaniel, my key turns the lock with a reassuring click, I extinguish the day’s last Dunhill underfoot, and with this thought still lingering in my mind, I latch the door behind us.