Venice is still in my heart.

It is three weeks since we came home now, but still I think of Venice every day. Somehow this fairy tale city took me by heart. I have heard people talking about falling in love with Venice, and ever since we booked our tickets months ago I was looking forward to the week we were going to spend there. Still I was totally unprepared of the strength of the love I got for this town.

It took five days! All the time we were there I was in love with my dear husband of 25 years, and I guess that prevented me from really seeing the real beauty of Venice at first. We started already the first day we came to explore the city together. Walked and walked, hour after hour and never got tired. And hand in hand we really saw it all, from St. Mark's Square to Sante Maria della Salute, The Academia, Canal Grande, the Ghetto, roads filled with tourist and the empty hiddens roads, the fish market, gondolas on the canals .... We sat down for pizza or cappucino, or we shopped in small stores or at the market to make food in "our own flat". It was new wonderful adventures every day. One day we even got a visitor :-) A good friend, whom I had only met via letters, sms and internet, came down from Austria to spend the day with us. She had never been in Venice before, and on our 4th day as it was, we felt like Venecians and guided her around.  Dear Dagmar, it was such a pleasure to finally meet you :-)

Then, all of a sudden, I can even remember the exact moment - I was in love, not only with Terje but also with Venice. What hit me most was the colours. We were surrounded everywhere by deep, rich pastels, the green, gray colour of Canal Grande, the pink and peach and yellow houses, the sky which changed almost from minute to minute.

My camera was busy shooting dozens of photos every day. I know that I now have these colours in my heart and will have them there forever, but I also know that now at home I love to look through the photos again and again and remember our silver honeymoon in this fairytale town.  And I know that I will be back. Back in Paolo's charming flat, back to do all the things we did and all the things we never found time to do. Like visiting the Vivaldi museum which was closed when we were there, visiting the church of Santa Maria dela Salute which was also closed, buying small miniature Burano houses from the charming lady who had made them, buying fish on the fishmarket to prepare my own fruita del mare dish.......

I have started to learn Italian. Next time I want to speak Italian with the people I meet, I want to understand the menues, I want to sing Italian opera and read Italian books. Yes, I want it all. Untill then: Chiao!