3 Views of This Morning's "Vento di Garbin"

A more accurate title for this post would be "3 Views of the Effects of This Morning's Vento di Garbin," as the Vento di Garbin, I learned today, is the name of the damp chill wind, coming from the direction of Marghera and originating around Lago Garda, that blows fogs through Venice.

I was picking up our son from school this afternoon, and remarking upon the fact that it had been somewhat foggy just after 8 this morning (when all these three images were captured), then at around 11 a.m. had abruptly become so foggy that standing on one side of the Grand Canal you could hardly see the palazzi on the opposite bank, then shortly after lunch had become so clear-skied as to seem like the first day of spring, when the native Venetian I was talking to replied simply by way of explanation, "Vento di Garbin," and provided the description I've transcribed in the first paragraph above. Thus, giving a name to a mutability that had seemed to me almost beyond comprehension, and reminding me of the large lexicon native to the lagoon: not the least important of the ways in which Venetians have managed to make what some might have considered an inhospitable and nearly uninhabitable waste into their home.