Venice

On the marble steps and cobbled plaza of St. Marco, pigeons flew everywhere. Small insignificant tourists and locals crowded around the colony of birds hovering, jumping, landing, perching and pecking on the very heart of Venice.

Russell and I arrived in Venice yesterday and are about to depart tomorrow evening. Time is short and we consumed the city ravenously. The veins of the antiquated, dilapidated city converged into the South Eastern region of the map. From the delightful hotel of Antiche Figure we passed through bridge to Chieza Degli Scatzi where the friars were, and still are, known to be the bare-footed priests. Through many convoluted alleys along Canal Grande and across 9 bridges, we made it to the scintillating St. Marco Piazza enveloped like a lover by the Procuratie Nuove, the Chiesa St. Marco and the Palazzo Ducale.

Venice, unlike any other city, relishes in excess, paradoxes and gloats in its carnivesque history. In the past of this very square, plague doctors, virginal whores, transvestite courtesans, impoverished kings and harlequins wore bird masks and porcelaine faces as they anonymously paraded the grounds. In antiquity, the stones of St Marco Piazza welcomed the fools of nature as every trumpet and shout, every gleeful scream and lascivious laughter reverberated the stones of each pillar and walkway. In the City of Masks and endless carnival, Venice epitomised the force of creation, livery and madness.

In our headiness we found a seat on the endless steps of the plaza. Mozart played in the distance as the violin and cello hummed to blue skies and enchanted tourists. The Church of St. Marco bathed below warm sun as its gold plated, fresco walls pulsed to the heart beat of Venice. Children delighted at the bold and hungry pigeons that swarmed their little fairy feet. Wives and husbands, old folks and couples of every kind cupped hands and stole little kisses within the grand barricade of gold and dilapidated plaster. My eyes were spellbound to this one moment in time.

I have fallen deeply and incongrously into the trap of romanticism. I know. I know. But there is that part of me that is steeped within the facetiousness of Europe; that fantasy of utter abandonment to un-reality; this one carnivalesque place that has edged the contours of my spirit forever. I am magically embodied in Venice. Here I will stay always.