In the Days Before Social Distancing Became A Necessity: Grand Canal

14 July 2019

180 Degrees of the Grand Canal As Mirror--and An Update

The kind of calm on the Grand Canal that one hopes never to see again: 5 April 2020 during the first lockdown

No, I've not stopped doing this blog, I just haven't had any time to give to it during our long, complicated, and on-going move from Venice to Toronto. 

By this time we'd hoped/planned to be getting settled into a new home, but the apartment in Toronto we rented months ago from a distance turned out, in person, to be no place we could really live. So we are still in a transitional stage, still living mostly out of our suitcases, and once again looking for another home. 

In the meantime, both Toronto and Venice--and any place with any sense (which, alas, leaves out a dismayingly large percentage of my native land)--are doing what they can to fend off or contain a potential fourth wave of Covid infections. 

The surface of Grand Canal so calm as to be mirror-like (as seen in the panorama above) is a rare and wonderful sight, but one that I hope no one will be seeing again because of a pandemic. 

Late Night Along the Grand Canal

12 July 2021

I haven't ended this blog yet, I just haven't had any time to post anything, or even think of posting anything, as we continue to be in the midst of a multi-stage move. We're presently in Brooklyn; by next week we should be in Toronto. 

I suspect that getting to Toronto will at least give me a chance to think a bit more clearly about Venice than I've been able to for at least 2 years. Though I could be wrong about that. In any case, a recent image from this summer...

Last Evening In Boat, This Evening

 

I have no time to write about this now, no time even to reply to the very kind comments people have left, though I will do both in a few days, I think, but we made out last outing in our boat this evening, and this evening, like most evenings in Venice--whether it's your last, first, or somewhere in-between--did not disappoint. 

Then our ride was over and we peeled our targhe (basically an adhesive license plate number, starting with the letters LV, if you do not use your boat for business purposes) from our boat, buttoned up its cover, and left it in its mooring place where its new owner will officially take possession of it tomorrow.

We fly out of Venice on Friday--the first time we've left the lagoon at all, really, in nearly two years. An uninterrupted stay in Venice that, I will tell you right now, neither I nor anyone else I've spoken to would recommend. Even the most Venetian of Venetians reply to that idea with one word: pesante. Meaning, literally, heavy, but with a strong suggestion of unhealthiness about it in this context, for the body, mind, and spirit. But that's a topic for another time.

For now (and maybe not just for now) the image is enough. I need to get back to preparing to live somewhere other than Venice for the first time since 1 November 2010. 

High Art: Capturing Giovanni Bellini's Pala Barbarigo in Murano, This Morning

A photographer stands upon a ladder to focus and trigger the shutter of his camera--itself positioned upon a very tall tripod, two of whose legs are just visible to either side of the central column--in the church of San Pietro Martire in Murano.

Friday Evening on Fondamenta dei Tolentini (Panorama)

Waterside Along the Cannaregio Canal (Last Friday Night)