Venice diary, entry 5 of 5 Venice, a last morning, mid-August. The heat was already in the stones by eight, and I left the room with the shutters half-open behind me, the way you do when you mean to come…
travel diary
Venice – The Most Serene
Venice diary, entry 4 of 5 I practised early again, before the light had found its way down into the canal, playing quietly by the open window until the first delivery boats began to move below and the city cleared…
Venice – The Painted Islands
Venice diary, entry 3 of 5 I practised the violin again before the city was properly awake, this time on a small wooden altana above the rooftops, one of those improbable platforms the Venetians built centuries ago so their women…
Venice – City of Lovers
Venice diary, entry 2 of 5 I practise the violin before I do anything else, wherever I happen to wake, and this morning I played at a window thrown open over a canal so narrow I could almost have passed…
Venice – A Candle On The Water
I came into the light rather than out of it, which somehow seems the right way to arrive at an evening in Venice. It was late afternoon, that hour when the sun stops climbing and simply leans, and the whole…
A Candle, and Then the Music – Verona
I had not meant to cry at the opera, and I am fairly sure I was not the only one caught out. We came into Piazza Bra in the last of the evening, when the sky had gone the colour…
Warm Water and Old Stones: A Slow Day in Sirmione
There are days made for doing very little, and today Sirmione handed me one without my having to ask. I had woken with no plan beyond the vague intention to catch the little ferry, and by mid-morning I had abandoned…
Lake Maggiore – The Art of Doing Nothing Beautifully
I did not go anywhere today, and it may have been the best decision I made all week. After the islands, a person needs a day like this. You cannot keep arriving at wonders. The lake seems to understand that,…
The Islands Keep Their Own Time
The first ferry of the morning is nearly empty, and that is the secret nobody tells you. I have it almost to myself, a scarf against the cool off the water, a paper cup of coffee going lukewarm in my…
Lake Como – The Sound of a Riva
There is a particular sound that means summer to me, and it is not birdsong or church bells but the low, patient burble of a wooden Riva easing out of its boathouse while the water is still the colour of…
Bellagio – the First Day
There is a particular quiet that comes off a lake. It is not the quiet of the sea, which is really only distance. It is closer than that, held in by the mountains, the way a room holds a conversation…
Portofino – the Third Day
When I woke this morning, I decided not to chase anything. The sea would still be there tomorrow, the harbour would still be beautiful, and the paths would wait as they always have. Some places ask you to see more….
