After wandering around for an hour or more, I inevitably found myself strolling through the sprawling cafes and hungry pigeons of St Mark's Square, heading towards the magnificent basilica. The midsummer heat was intense, the crowds sluggish and sweaty.
After joining the line for the basilica, I turned to look back past the Dog's Palace to the rows of black gondolas, the gondoliers, in their striped T-shirts and berets, sang a welcome for tourists.
Inching forward with the line, gazing up at the distant bell-tower of the campanile, where sightseers were drinking in the views. Then, quiet, not wanting to wait anymore, I started down towards the Gran Canal, and cut along to an arched bridge that crosses over to the white, light and airy palazzio, which has once been the home of the late Peggy Guggenheim. As much as I appreciated the masterpieces of the Renaissance and Rococo periods, and the Gothic magnificence of the churches and museums, stepping into the glossy, sun-drenched rooms of this modernists home was like stepping out of a labyrinthine underworld into the bright, flowering meadow of a nursery rhyme.
There were unusually few people around as I wandered from one room to the next, losing myself in the Mondrians, Kandinskys and Picassos, and then allowing myself a wry glance at the infamous Angelo della Citta. Then admiring the works of Max Ernst and then Joan Miro's Interno Olandese II. In other rooms yet more abstract and Cubist masterpieces led towards a staircase at the end...
Back on the street again, walking towards the Hotel near the Accademia, longing for a rest in my room which had a restricted view of the Giudecca canal and faded old frescos, I passed a small piazza, where a couple of artists had set up their easels in front of a church, and the sound of an English rock band thrummed from an empty cafe...I continued across the piazza knowing that I would not be lost, like the many ghosts of this historic city.
The journey of my life will continue...
No comments:
Post a Comment