"Venice is a place of voluptuous materials, her buildings inlaid with marbles and porphyries, cipollino, verd-antico, jasper, marmo greco, polished granite and alabaster. She is instinct with soft seductive textiles, like the silks that Wagner hung around his bedrooms - the velvets, taffetas, damasks and satins that her merchants brought home from the East, in the days when all the ravishing delicacies of the Orient passed this way in a cloud of spice. When the rain streams down the marble façades of the Basilica, the very slabs seem covered in breathtaking brocade. Even the waters of Venice sometimes look like shot silk. Even the floor of the Piazza feels yielding, when the moonlight shines upon it. Even the mud is womb-like and unguent."
From Venice
Venice - where we have spent the last few days - was all I had hoped for and more. I have a few pictures and observations to post, but I was so struck with the place that I'm not yet fully articulate, struggling to say more than that it was simply breathtaking. I can't wait to return.
