Autumn Haze, Rio di Santa Ternita

Rowing Lessons, South Lagoon

photo credit: Jen

I'm fortunate that my ten-year-old driver (of our small outboard motor boat) is also very keen on rowing. He picked it up so quickly when I first taught him a year ago that by the end of the second lesson he was good enough that we could venture down the Grand Canal with him rowing in the prua (or front of the boat). By the third he was able to row the boat by himself in the open lagoon--even one-handed at times, mimicking the style of gondoliers--while I lazed on the front deck of the boat.

He now goes rowing twice a week from the Giudecca with other kids, usually in a two-person mascareta with his best friend, and wishes he could do it more often. To which end, he's now urging me to rejoin the remiera I used to belong so that we can go out rowing in a proper boat together (as the forcole and oars of our own small boat are really intended simply to noiselessly shift from one fishing spot to another in the lagoon, or in case of engine trouble).

There's a lot to be said for lying flat on your back with the sun on your face while your child rows you around--in fact, it's one of the best arguments I've come across for having a child (at least in Venice). But I suppose it's been too long since I've regularly rowed and it will be fun to do it with my son, though he's pretty insistent that he will be the poppiere (the one in the tail of the boat who steers).

What's it like to row in the Venetian style for one who comes to it many years after childhood? Here's a post about it from when I'd just finally started to get the hang of it and was able to go out into the lagoon on my own: https://veneziablog.blogspot.com/2012/03/voga-alla-veneta-one-oar-one-master.html

For my son, who's lived here since he was almost three year old, rowing has come much more naturally, as easily as learning to ride a bike. 

For visitors to the city interested in learning to row in the Venetian style, I've always heard very good things about this non-profit organization, though I have no experience with it myself: https://rowvenice.org/

Two Venetian Versions of A Little Help From Above, Today

Un Giretto (or Stroll): Five Views

Pan of the calli

In front of the barber shop at San Cassiano

On break

Father and son

Homeward

A Single Entrance Into Two Eras

This is one of those rare instances in which to enter a single doorway is to pass through two distinct eras. Of course when the Renaissance-style doorway was originally installed within the older Gothic doorway, the latter would likely have been plastered over, rendering the out-of-style out of sight.  

Rarely Seen Venice: Around the Rii of San Polo, This Afternoon

Having first been given charge of a tiller at the age of three in the boats of our friends, my now 10-year-old driver (aka, my son) has over the years become skilled enough at navigating the narrow rii of Venice that I'm now sometimes able to take pictures of those stretches of them that are mostly impossible to see on foot (as in all five cases here).

Passing by grand facades and water gates (as in the second-to-last image below) fronting narrow and otherwise humble canals, you're reminded of how completely oriented toward the water was Venetian life, and not just on the Grand Canal.

A Little Water Music, This Morning

Okay, so it wasn't actually Handel, or anything resembling Handel, that this complete band of about a dozen musicians played as it was being ferried across the Grand Canal from Santa Sofia to the Rialto fish market, but whatever the lively number was--and whoever the band was, and whyever it was in Venice today--it provided a rousing accompaniment to a memorable sight. This short passage completed, the band then disembarked and headed to wherever their next performance was supposed to take place, making no more noise than any other group of visitors to the city.