Last Spring I traveled to Venice, Italy. Technically I had been to the floating city once before, over 15 years prior, for just a single night. Grey and cold and with an ill-remembered boyfriend – the whole thing a dark, faded cloud of a memory. For years I never had any desire to return, and then at the start of last year I felt some strange tug towards the place. And so, with well managed expectations, Adam and I booked a trip.
From the very moment we stepped off the train from Milan and set our sights on the Grand Canal – I knew everything would be different this time. The entire four days were bathed in the sort of light I’d never seen anywhere before. Colors that began as pastels in first morning light (as seen from our AirBnB bedroom window in the first photo below), were vividly bright by mid-day and then gilded in gold at sunset each night. All of it reflected into the water below.
Age worn buildings and hidden alleyways and roses blooming. Two hundred year old pastry shops and intricately blown glass and impossibly luxe bars. A partner equally excited by the magic of it all. None of it how I remembered. And while an ancient city likely didn’t evolve very much in just 15 years – I had. This time around I let the light in.
Venice, revisited, and an old self faded from view.
