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Venice

A late night arrival by slow train from Emilia Romagna, and the long walk through the cool October night air in a light drizzle that kept the streets mostly silent. The water in the channels rippled softly under the breeze, blurring the yellow reflection of the street lights,and the narrow stone walkways were filled with shadows. How our impressions changed the next morning.

We never ceased to be grateful that from Bologna we were only a few hours' travel from the magnificent city of Venice, and took care to visit it no fewer than three times during the year. But the memory that remains to this day is of our first experience in Venice:

A late night arrival by slow train from Emilia Romagna, and the long walk through the cool October night air in a light drizzle that kept the streets mostly silent. The water in the channels rippled softly under the breeze, blurring the yellow reflection of the street lights,and the narrow stone walkways were filled with shadows. How our impressions changed the next morning, after the storm passed and the streets filled with swarms of tourists, some gamely trudging after guides holding signs over their heads.

One of the world's most visited cities (and justifiably), Venice was at once charming and ineluctable, eternal and ephemeral, medieval and modern, and the essential knife edge between the West and the East. Venice never failed to irritate but neither did it fail to impress us. But it was never more beautiful than it was that first evening, five and a thousand years ago, in the obscurity of evening and an early fall rain.

Grand Canal

Gondola Ride

Water Taxi to Murano

Front Doorway

Gondolas for Charter

A Venician Garden

Tranquility

Grand Canal

St. Mark's Cathedral

Ponte di Realto

Canal Traffic

Cathedral, Detail

Pigeons Attack

Window Detail

Bridge of Sighs

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