Venice may be sinking, occasionally stinky, and no longer the most romantic destination in the world, but it ain't out of tricks yet. Ten minutes on its winding streets and lumpy bridges and we were under its spell, bewitched by layers of richness and tragic beauty so great that even 100,000 rowdy tourists could not completely diminish them. It is a mystery the city keeps, along with its ghosts, deep inside its crumbling palaces, far from the eye of the tourist.
It bade us take photos of its picturesque canals and sinking foundations – to wait for the gondolas to pass and the bridge to clear, until the sun was just right – a wink and the moment was past. We wandered around, grasping at straws, fumbling for history in this mysterious place suspended in time, or perhaps out of time altogether. You may look on my face, but you shall never see my soul, it fairly breathes.
Strangely, photos of Venice somehow capture something we couldn't experience, something ethereal, fleeting, real. It is an enchanting city, in my opinion, not for the romantic gondola rides, colorful carnival masks, or bridges to nowhere, but for its carefully kept secrets, concealed behind layers of stucco, paint, and rock, inaccessible and slowly slumping into the sea.
1 comment:
You are a poet!
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