Venice

Venice 

So it's true that they say Venice is an island you have to get lost in. Getting lost in this island might be the best decision of your life. Waterway veins with light smatters of cafés, churches, and wells, it's skin is tattooed with backstreet alleys that probably have felt less footsteps than the number of bricks it's made of. Walking down the raw stone pavements, you'd come across little bridges once in a while to allow you to cross over the canals. There are painters, artists bent over plastic palettes of watercolours, perched on small wooden stools, gently caressing the surface of the canvas with hushed tones of greens and blues. Once in a while, a strong ochre voice resonates from within the cracked walls of buildings. You can't tell which one, the canal splits into nooks and crannies in the corners of the buildings forming crooked smiles between the weathered old bricks. That is the song of the passing gondoliers, bundles of tireless muscle woven with stitches of symphonies, brute men who sing the hymn of the streets as if it were their own orchestra. They stand proudly atop their gondolas, glorious black birds they are. Together they give guided tours to people like myself, whistling through dirty canals, talons slicing through the frothing seabed. 

You peel your eyes from the picturesque charm of the canals and tune your attention instead to the brick and stone streets ahead. Like the canals, the streets branch out into smaller alleys, and these in themselves hold a certain dreamlike quality to them. Even at the foot of the alley, there is no mistaking the stale scent of damp laundry and the parchment of lichen carpeting the walls behind them. It is like walking under a magnificent parade, the shrill whistles of wind filling gaps between the bricks, the excited chattering of overgrown vines with their jittery leaves, the grand bellowing of kaleidoscopic clothes and flags beaten by the wind in perfect synchrony to the rhythm of your footsteps. The celebration finally spills into an open plaza. It is dreamy and light, almost hazy, and is encrusted with cosy cafés and souvenir shops selling keychains and masks. The people here appear to have absorbed the atmospheric quality of the plaza, slowed down to a hypnotic lull, seamlessly blending into the scenic backdrop like clockwork puppets in a still photograph. The air is tainted with wafts of milk and espresso and chimes of clinking ceramic punctuate every few moments as baristas serve sandwiches and bagels.