10 years ago at this very moment, Josh and I were gallivanting around Venice, Florence, and Rome on an Art History tour with our community college. I can’t explain how a city gets inside your blood but it just does. Those moments of standing on centuries old cobblestone as gondolas pass by or feeling the breeze whip through your hair as you take in the view at the top of a Tuscan hill before sunset…it’s just….nothing you can ever ever accurately describe. You just have to GO THERE and feel it {hear it…smell it….see it….and taste it….} for yourself.
Rome and Florence was one masterpiece after the next. The Sistine Chapel {You want know what inner peace feels like? Go here and bask in the glory}, the Vatican, David, Ponte Vecchio, Trevi Fountain, Ostia Antica, the Colosseum, and the list goes on and on and on. But as much as it was all amazing and beautiful, there’s was one place that trumped all of it.
Venice.
If I could fly there tomorrow, I’d drop everything and do it {even if it meant not going to New York City for BlogHer}. It’s THAT magnificent.
I’ll never forget taking my first water taxi from the airport to our hotel and seeing the city at dusk and what it felt like to be in a completely different world – you could hear dinner dishes clanking, people singing, and windows being closed for the evening. I’ll also never forget walking through mazes of streets just as nightfall hit, only to turn a corner into the open magic that is Piazza San Marco at night – the most beautiful place in the entire world.
I still feel like it was just yesterday that I was standing at the entrance of St. Mark’s Basilica feeling the heavy silence and coolness of all the marble that waves over you when you step into one of these places of worship. Regardless of what religion you are, standing inside here will make you believe in something. It’s powerful energy you just can’t replicate. I still have dreams on a regular basis that I get to go back and go inside that glorious church…or that I’m wandering around Venice eating gelato….or walking through the Rialto market.
I’ll never forget that final night, group dining at Trattoria Sempione in a cozy corner with the lights glimmering as gondolas go by….singing off in the distance….and the sound of water calmly swaying from side to side from the gondolier pole. It’s INDESCRIBABLE how full Venice makes my heart. If you ever have the chance to go…..GO GO!!!
I still can’t believe it’s been 10 years and my hope is that it will not be another 10 before I get to return. In 3 more years, we will celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary…..hmmmmm……..I think a trip might be in order.
*Picture note – in 2002, I did not own a digital camera so many of these are all old scans or digital images from some of my tour-mates. The resolution is not high enough in most to make them full size so that’s why they look small and a bit grainy.
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