Novel & scholarly essay writer,
English teacher,
Music fan,
Fantasy & horror hound
VENETIAN WANDERINGS
(February 2025)
Base camp for this short stay of four or five days was the friendly Hotel Corte dei Greci (the "Court of the Greeks"), located in the parish of San Zaccaria, and which I warmly recommend.
...with a small picture of the Rialto Bridge on a wall...
...and, in the corridor, a representation of Saint Mark in the mythological/metaphorical form of a winged lion, one of the symbols par excellence of Venice:
Having this cozy little nest was fortunate, as apart from that the stay was polar, glacial, freezing and as icy as a glacial glaciation (and this is from a convinced enemy of heat). Another small problem: we weren't really at the right time to attend Carnival in full swing, as we had hoped, due to rather confusing signs announcing the opening of the Carnival on February 14, without specifying that there would be a week of almost nothing before the parades and the festivities themselves began on the 22nd. So we found ourselves there right during this pause. As a result, we stayed in the room for the entire stay:
No, I'm kidding! Especially since we haven't seen zero masks either. To begin with, there are some everywhere in the decoration of the streets, shop windows and cafes:
This is the window of a shop that borders the Rialto Bridge:
...and this is the interior of a café called "Le Café", and located in the small district of "campo San Stefano", near St. Mark's Square and the parish of San Zaccaria:
...and then, well, even if they were far from being as numerous as they should have been, the costumed Venetians were still very present, making the show go on:
