Clock Watchers

A tourist group directs its attention to the clock tower of San Marco (4 June 2019)

One of Proust's Tulips

10 May 2019

I had plunged into a network of little alleys, or calli. In the evening, with their high bell-mouthed chimneys on which the sun throws the brightest pinks, the clearest reds, it is a whole garden blossoming above the houses, its shades so various that you would have said it was the garden of some tulip lover of Delft or Haarlem, planted on top of the town.

                                         Marcel Proust, The Fugitive, p. 881 (vol V, In Search of Lost Time)    

I actually think this is one of Proust's weakest descriptions of Venice, but I happened upon it the other day and it was a reason to use (finally) the image above. It's also a chimney which Henry James would certainly have noticed while lodging in the library on the highest floor of Ca' Barbaro almost directly across the Grand Canal (Ca' Barbaro consisting of the two palazzi directly to the right of the chimney's base).

Early Morning on the 4.1 Line

The vaporetto line on which I used to take my son to preschool was also the one taken by Venice's substantial number of seniors citizens (they made up over 25% of the city's population) to their early morning appointments at the ospedale near the church of SS Paolo e Giovanni. Both young and old appear in this image (the former as a reflection). It was a significant achievement a few years ago when residents resisted efforts to close the hospital. (19 March 2013)

 

Lunch on Sant'Erasmo (Ristorante al Bacan)

1 December 2018

 

Don't Touch the Rialto

A banner inspired by a proposed relocation of fish wholesaling activities which likely would have wiped out the remaining fish stalls in the Rialto market. The proposal was scrapped, but the stalls continue to be threatened by the depletion of the city's population. (8 March 2017)

Sunset Giretto

8 March 2020

Chiaroscuro: Piazza Trevisan Cappello

I don't know if this ever became the exclusive luxury condo building for rich foreigners of which the building's developer fantasized at the time I took this photo exactly ten years ago. Located a short distance from the church of San Marco on one of the busiest tourist thoroughfares in the city I had my doubts about how pleasant it would be to live there.