Swallowed, but not consumed

We went to Venice only for the Art Biennale, I wouldn’t have come otherwise. (We have canals at home). It’s obviously pretty, especially the light, and magical when getting lost in the narrow alleyways. But we are flooding the city.

Not only sweaty people, but art commercials too. Every grand facade seem to be clad with a biennale poster or banners with some famous name. Give this city I brake is the thought in my mind. It’s swallowed by us, and it’s hard to see what is left of it.

But by day two, after we accidentally meet friends we haven’t seen in years and have Negronis on a green terrace by the water…

… and after we make a big effort going out to Lido for a five minute evening swim, I start to get around to it.

The hotel for our short stay has a spartan 1950s style, and is partly run by the nuns who owns it.

It has a classical canal side facade, but is cool and clean and untouched inside, and the balance between visitor and local interests seem balanced out. Our room has three narrow beds in a row, and somewhere across the canal someone plays on a harpsichord.

The last of the two mornings, we start out with caffe at a stand under cicada filled trees by the busy bus station, and a cold drink does wonders for the exhausted kid, then we push on with our program, before we have sprits in a narrow street where old Grandparents carry home their weekend shopping.

At lunch time we choose a random side path of a souvenir filled street, and find ourself in a Jewish neighborhood. Glimpses of actual life happening. At a square we sit down and eat homemade (and definitely not kosher) pasta and I cry a little because I cant believe how lucky I feel. Just enough Stendal-syndrome to feel very fine. Venezia - we travelers flood you, but you are still so good to us.