Venice - Everything they said is True!

The Elegant Lady

What you will understand when you visit Venice is that true beauty never dies. From the wide sweeping drama of the Grand Canal where commerce thrives and the working barges transport goods back and forth from daylight to dusk, to the narrow back-street waterways where the four storey Venetian homes rise up from their footings beneath the waters of the canals, the drama of Venice goes on.

Today they say that Venetians can no longer afford to live in Venice. The houses have become rental accommodation for tourists. The minor palaces have become upmarket hotels. The major doges have become the domain of the mega-rich. This may well be a sad truth but at least we can be sure that as more and more of the GDP of the region depends on tourists flooding into Venice, the more the government will value the importance of this magnificent city, and the greater the certainty that this precarious historic masterpiece will be preserved.

The houses which line the canals shoulder to shoulder are a picture of the past like elderly ladies arm in arm, their make-up smudged, their clothes the finery of a previous decade, - yet proud and elegant still. A picture of faded grandeur they are still cared for and valued in the valiant fight to push back the harshness of the waters that eat away at their very foundations.


On the tiny islands between the canals, the small shops tucked into the ground floors of the houses bustle with shoppers drawn in magpie-like, by the rich colours of Venetian glass, by the masks, the puppetry, the trinkets, the clothes. The cafes buzz as the best looking waiters stand outside spruiking for diners.

Like a maze the lanes twist and turn leading from canal to historic square, to canal again. And then of course, there are the famous landmarks, - St Mark’s Basilica, the Piazza San Marco, the  Doge’s Palace, the Ponte di Rialto, the Bridge of Sighs … So much to see, so much to take in, so much to love.

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