'Tis the Season...

The sacristan of San Zaccaria is not at all pleased when the church is treated as a lecture hall, as this guide (with beard) would soon find out

Tourist season, for sure. But also, alas, a late influenza season, especially in our house. So, while there's no shortage of things to post about, such as:

*the mayor of Venice being arrested on corruption charges along with more than 30 others (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/05/world/europe/venice-mayor-is-arrested-on-corruption-charges.html?_r=0)

*the opening of the 14th annual International Architecture Biennale, curated by Rem Koolhaus (http://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/)

*and the always enjoyable Festa di Sant' Antonio at the church of San Francesco della Vigna that begins tomorrow (http://www.elforce.altervista.org/santantonio.htm)

I'm afraid I'm not up to it at the moment, and offer instead 4 images of the season taken last year at this same time. I haven't included any images of the truly overwhelming swarms of people clotting up an astonishingly long stretch of the Riva degli Schiavoni or vast swaths of the Piazza San Marco these days, as they're likely to make those in even the pink of health and with the strongest of stomachs quite queasy.

An apparently benign family scene which, upon closer inspection, proves to represent the very worst nightmare of every publisher (and writer) of printed tour guides

Gondoliers are limited to repeating the same exact route as surely as any mechanical amusement park ride; here a number of them make their familiar turn off the Grand Canal just past the Giglio vaporetto stop

"We few, we happy few," is uttered not just in Shakespeare's famous St Crispin Day's Speech, but by everyone who manages to snag outside seats on the Number 1 vaporetto line