All our stories begin at the Rialto. Merchant of Venice
The Rialto Bridge (built 490 AD) was the beginning of my Venice/Italy story. Landing at the Marco Polo airport at nine in the morning, I arrived by water bus at the Rialto Bridge and took this picture of gondolas as I was searching for my hotel.
Venice is a city without wheels: the roads are water. Gondolas, water-buses, water-taxis and barges, I discovered, are the cars and trucks of Venice. I was under the impression that gondolas merely belonged to a romantic past I had seen in movies or had read about. At night outside my window I watched them gracefully, silently glide past, outlined by a small light in bow and stern.
Several nights music wafted through my window from the little bridge outside my hotel: a male voice one night, a female voice another, singing opera. One night I came out the hotel door to meet a group laughing and singing with gusto as they made their way toward San Marco Square. I followed them adding my English to their Italian.
More exerts at another time, possibly...
No comments:
Post a Comment