Venice blogging

Dear Venice afficionados,

And on a quiet day, God created the Blog and saw that it was good.

My wife (lauriegraham.com) has been blogging for almost a year and I am ashamed to say that I was envious. Of course, she is a professional writer and has an outlet for her writing in her novels, radio plays, newspaper columns, pantomimes. Whereas I do not, until now.

This blog will attempt to provide a gimlet's eye view of Venice, where we have lived for over seven years. I will touch on its beauty, it bureaucracy; its art, its dinosaur politics; its sensual living (I hate the word lifestyle), its grossness and excess; its tourists, its tourist problems; its history, its commercial archaisms.

As I write this at 18:00 the bells of S Pantalon, the Frari, and the Carmini are sounding simultaneously, undoubtedly drowning the bells of the slightly more distant churches. A few years ago we travelled to Cambridge (UK) for Holy Week to attend services in our old parish. On Resurrection Sunday morning in Cambridge there were ...no bells ringing, none, zilch, tranquility base, shhhhh!, dead silence, zero. Apparently vicars and priests have caved in to complaining residents who like the Sunday morning lie-in. Or it's possible that the English Church does not wish to offend the sensibilities of non worshippers with a reminder of Christian belief. Or even its worshippers' sensibilities. I don't know, but I can tell you what happened here a few months back when Pope Benedict was elected. The moment the white smoke appeared from the Vatican, every campanile in Venice (and I'd say all Italy) rang out gloriously and continuously for 2 hours or more. Venice has about 150 church with 40% of them still active. It was a lovely racket. It is now 18:15 and and the bells are at it again. This, ladies and gentlemen, is why we love Venice.

    

Comments

[Cathy B]

Oh, how fabulous. Your description of the peeling bells of Venice will prompt a dinner discussion with my better half about holiday plans. Here in Boston the church around the corner peeled daily until certain unmentionable scandals forced its sale. Now we hear only the sound of bulldozers razing its stone steps. Look forward to more tales of Venice!