Here we are in Venice, belatedly celebrating Lucie’s 60th birthday as promised. It rained on the first day but it didn't seem to matter at all. This is a truly magical place. Even if one is unencumbered by a classical education, it is never too late to be impressed by the odd Canaletto, Whistler or Ruskin in the books, even if you can’t afford to see a real one in the Guggenheim museum. We wallowed for three days in the atmosphere, the history, the architecture and the Venetian way of life. The markets, the food, the coffee and the wine and, being serious canal boat owners ourselves - with all this water about the place - immediately make plans to bring Body and Soul over for a year of Venetian indulgence. Dream on, they say, so we do.
Here I am, your tour leader, leading you through the junk and piles of stuff, through real Venice which has this strange mixture of glory and decay. Somehow, despite the huge number of tourists that are flown in by their thousands on cheap flights every hour of every day –it works and, somehow, without actually joining in, we become two of them.
Lucie, with her usual foresight and planning has found a really dreamy place to stay – booked ages ago on the internet.
This B & B had just five rooms to let and is rather unusually modern in decor with a curious mix of fittings, both classical and modern. The owner of the business is an opera singer and horse lover with apparently a large house in the country. He flits in and out again to say hi. A shared sitting/breakfast room with decorated stone floor has a boudoir Yamaha grand piano in it, mercifully in tune, and I have fun tinkling away rediscovering what it is like to play some jazz on a really good instrument again. The piano, though, is “just a tad” surprised, one feels, but seems to respond well.
Our suite (the window on the right of the picture, first floor) looks on to a small canal on one side and a small entrance courtyard on the other. We have a large bathroom, tiled floor to picture rail in blue and an entrance lobby with sofa and coffee table. The bedroom is large with four windows like this one (above), the “wardrobe and clothes drawers” are from Ikea and therefore effective – you know, the sort with several shelves, on wheels and covered with a fitted muslin type of cloth - a stange choice but useful.
In the mornings, we indulge in the sounds of Venice coming through our window, amplified by the closeness of similar buildings across the canal. The dogs barking, the herring gulls, (ah yes we are by the sea!) the church bells, the water traffic hooting around the bends, loud Italian voices, whistling workmen and women chatting. We watch the working barges delivering their useful loads, then there’s a gondola or a water taxi. We love the absence of the motor car. This is not a film set, it is quite suddenly very real. The air is clean and refreshing. We go at once to explore the sights which we saw by night from the water bus (Vaperetto) which took us to our rooms after dusk. The lights and first sight of Venice which we saw on this trip will never be forgotten - the photos we took of them, I’m afraid, will be, but here goes anyway…
much more to come
This is another view from our window.