And so to Venice.

Venice is tired – tired of tourists who walk on the wrong side of the path, who stop without warning and block the path, who sit in front of shops eating in the street. It is tired of tourists who just don’t think.
We were on the vaporetto and watched with horror as a German father lept on to the boat as the gate was closing and the boat had pulled away from the stop – his wife followed him, and then his daughter lept… narrowly missing falling into the canal… leaving one small son standing at the stop. What could have been so urgent that they couldn’t have waited another 4 minutes for the next taxi.

And what an incredible city to be abandoned in. The father yelled to the son to catch the next boat – without realizing perhaps that the next boat may not be the same line or follow their route. Then the vaporetto driver yelled at the father. And the mother yelled too. We wondered if there is a lost and found box for children to be located at the end of the day. Which could be a good place to leave those children who were too tired and hot and whose parents had become impatient and were having arguments in the street.

Its not a city to rush in or to be rushed – if you need to get a bus or a train, you have to plan on getting tangled in large groups of tourists all following the steps of a guide, all stopping to photograph each other and to peer into shop windows.

I chatted to a charming woman in a shoe shop (charming because she described my large feet as ‘elegant’) and she explained that it does get frustrating with so many people in the streets – but added that it is a wonderful city to live in when there are not so many visitors.

It still holds a charm for me though – the hidden corners, the quiet echo of passing people in the evening. It is redolent of the romantic stories of the various personalities that have made Venice their home – the lives of the likes of Betty Gugenhiem and her bohemian ‘crowd’. I would love to attend a real masked ball, even found the right dress for the occasion
in a back water alley (literally, not figuratively). The intrigue and the mystery, the romance of the unmasking..

We stayed in Albergo Alex which is beautifully aged and elegant, like the wonderful woman who runs the hotel. It is perfect because it is so close to everything that you need to find. That is, when you are not lost – which is wonderfully simple to do – and maybe the best plan here is to put an afternoon aside to get yourself lost and just see what you find! It’s like a personality test for control freaks.

We accidentally found the art exhibition of New Zealander Michael Parekowhai - but it was closed. Apparently the exhibition is a beautifully carved black grand piano with a bull sitting on top of it.What's the symbolism there? The piano is sitting in the foyer of a grand palace on the Grand Canal - the accoustics would be wonderful. Shame we couldn't get to see it. Sram ti bilo! We had come all the way from the Antipodes to see your work Michael! (or that's what we told the curator when we met her).

We found the fresh market this morning and wowed ourselves with the produce available - and wondered how the convenience of the convenience market which has opened up opposite Albergo Alex since I first visited here four years ago has affected the wonderful culture of shopping at the market in the morning rather than gathering all of your needs from the one place. The changing face of Venice...