Venice in a Postcard
once again, and he turns to me and my sister with a big smile. I haven’t seen him in over 6 months: he was with his work, the Navy, doing the NATO. “…and this one was my favorite city: Venice, in Italy”.
A little boat is reflected in the water, a man stands at the rear end of the boat holding a pad, he wears a hat with a red ribbon and a stripped jumper, very elegant, I thought. “In this city, the roads are rivers and the cars are boats” – my father explained to me.
I was fascinated and immediately I wanted to go there, so I asked “Can we go there?” “Yes, We will all go back there someday”, I was only 6 years old…
17 years later, we arrive in Venice!
By now, my mum seems to have forgotten the moments of anxiety she had earlier gone through in the airplane – she fears flights. And we fear for her.
Bridge after bridge, we turn in little alleyways, end up in another square, more bridges, more alleyways…
And we also did a detour to check the hospital entrance!
We are fascinated by this cute surreal little city and how people actually live here. Some streets don’t even have a sidewalk and people just park their boats in front of their house door and jump inside. How cute!!
On the other side of the square is the Cathedral, we walk around and follow the smell to a pizzeria in one of the little streets next to the square.
Back in the square, we walk pass the cathedral and the big river/sea faces us. So many of those elegant gondolas parked here...And suddenly I see him! The elegant man from the postcard is just right in front of me! Sitting in a little harbor, having a chat,… for a moment I feel like we have known each other for years. It just put a smile on my face.
Soon it’s dark, and it feels darker walking on this lightless alleyways, a bit scary if walking alone. At dinner we start planning the tomorrow, shall we go for a ride on a Gondola?!…
