Venice has been painted and described many thousand of times, and of all the citis of the world it is the easiest to visit without going there. (Henry James)
"All" writers with some self respect seem to spend a period of time in Venezia. Yes, I even spent time there myself when I wrote my book about Lent ;-)
I have collected books from and about Venezia for many years, even before I started to frequent the city, and have a growing collection. A few of the books are always with me when I visit the city, among them is Miss Garnet's Angel by Salley Vickers. Miss Garnet is an old spinster, and when her friend through most of her adult life dies, she travels to Venezia to give herself some solace. She rents a small flat near the church Angelo Rafaele, the church where you find a series of old panel paintings telling the story of Toby and the archangel Raphael. Through the book the two stories, Miss Garnet's and Toby's, are woven togehter, and just like the shifting sea-light of Venezia, nothing is what it seems to be.
On Campo Angelo Rafaele you find the restaurant PANE VINO e San Daniele, with its speciality coniglio con cardi selvatici. Sitting at one of the table outdoors, enjoying a glass of white wine I can see Miss Julia Garnet airing her bedclothes from one of the green shuttered windows, and passing by Toby, his dog and the archangel I stop to listen to one of their stories.
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I have several deadlines coming up these days, and spend alot of my time up in my studio. Stacks of books are filling every free space around me. Yes, I could easily live the life of a wordsmith :-) Though after a full day's work I find myself in the kitchen, baking bread, creating a new recipe for fish soup, doing dishes.
Tomorrow's Venezia post will be about music.