The day had no plan save for a Vivaldi concert at 8:30 p.m. The rest of the day was ours to do with as we wanted. Both still harboring some lingering coughs, we slept fitfully and were happy for the freedom of no schedule.
We were in search of a gift for the gracious neighbor who has been fetching our mail and newspaper in our absence. We had been on the lookout all along but there was nothing that wasn’t cliché or available at home. Search continued.
We took the the streets at a leisurely pace trying to imprint this city into our being. I will miss being here. I am obsessed with three things – – well heads, doorknobs and doorbells. I have an abundance of photos of each but will share just a few.
The well heads are my favorite story because they really are not wells but rather cisterns. Too difficult to drill to water table for water, the Venetians depended on capturing rain water. The cisterns are an elaborate design to capture, filter and store fresh water. The ‘wells’ were opened twice a day for water retrieval, signaled by the tolling of church bells. About 600 of the well heads remain today (I have photographed maybe 50!)
The doorknobs and doorbells are also unique and beautiful. Poor Tom, a walk with me through the streets of Venice is a lesson in patience!
Although we thought we were navigationally savvy, we got lost! There is absolutely NO sense of direction in Venice because you have no vantage point. But lucky us, we stumbled onto Libreria Acqua Alta (High Water Library). We had been told about this amazing place by Sara, our photographer guide. Hard to describe this eclectic bookstore but it was wonderful.
You could spend months in here and never surface. Vintage books, magazines, postcards as well as current books and news. Such fun!
We stopped for a gelato on our way home, which again, turned out to be a circuitous route, thank goodness for the gift of time.
I was ready for a nap when we returned to the apartment. Plan was nap, late lunch, pack, concert, bed. All went according to plan until we walked across two sestiere to find out we had the date wrong for the concert!! It had been last night (European dates!) oh well. As Tom said, if this is the worst that happens to us on this trip, we’re good!
We had a lovely vaporetto ride home and jumped off a few stops short of our home stop to enjoy a ‘passeggiata’ on our last night.
We did pack and set alarms for a very early departure.
¡Arrivederci Venezia!
¡Ciao America! 