Opening the Venetian Blind...

Post no 6. Greetings from Florence! It's an overcast day - hey but I'm in Florence! Also got a pretty bad cold as well but hey, I'm in Florence! I could do a few more '...hey I'm in Florence' sequences but that would become extremely annoying very quickly and would likely cause you to logout even faster than you might otherwise, so no more HIIF's although you probabaly did notice that the acronym is back!

Leaving behind the tribulations of the days past, which included indigestion from the late night Americano RealMeal Cheeseburger Deal secured at frightful expense while watching German revellers juggle full beer bottles outside an Irish pub in Milan, I really want to tell you about Venice. I am well aware I will become sidetrcked along the way (no surprises there!) but Venice is worthy of reflection, even the most inadequate ones, like mine.

I have posted on the blog a few pics of the city the Italians call the 'Queen of the Adriatic' and will add more over the next few days. Some of you may have been there youselves and these images are not unfamiliar. I was there only a day - oh, so not long enough - and despite the obvious focus on tourism and the commercialisation of the rich Venetion history, I found it hard not be swept away by its romance and poetry. A city built on water that never surrendered willingly and is slowly reasserting itself. Depending who you speak to, Venice is being reclaimed by the sea. Maybe the ingenuity of man will win out in the end but higher and higher tides mean that the city is having to readjust and reassess. For two hours when we first arrived on Saturday, we could not get to St Mark's square other than via the raised boadwalks that are now such a prominant feature of the city. To me, it made no difference - I was happy to get wet feet if it meant getting to see something special somewhere - and there were something specials everywhere.

I am not sure how much you know about the purpose of this trip but its focus is pilgrimage. While I have been travelling, I have asked a few people in my group what this means for them. Obviously their answers were not all the same but they were all pretty close: for them this is a journey to see sacred places and spaces as an act of religious devotion. I know I have not spent much time writing about my fellow travellers but I hope to do that at some stage. I want you to know that they are lovely people. I am inspired by their deep and rich faith that I can see is central to who they are and what matters most in their lives. But I am still trying to clarify what pilgrimage means for me. To be honest, I did not give enough (actually, any) thought to this before setting off. (As you have probably already realised, shallowness is one of my dominating traits!) But I will now because I suspect that it may be different to others in my group. Maybe in the course of writing, I will better know where may sacred spaces are...

We completed two guided tours in Venice - at the Palace of the Doges and at St Mark's Basicila. For those who know Venice, these are its two most dominant historical landmarks. Both are soaring structures that impose themselves on the landscape and dominate its history. The exterior of the Doges Palace belies the beauty of its interiors of exquisite mosaics, tapestries, tiles and canvasses. The wealth and power of the Venetian democacy, under its 120 Doges, is visable everywhere. Anything I write couldn't ever do justice to the beauty and mystery of this one-time seat of Venetian democracy and power.

And yet, despite the paegentry of its architecture and art, I could do no more than see the Palace of the Doges through the eyes only of a lover of history. I could not make any spiritual connection. I walked and looked and waited for a reaction but none came. Please don't get me wrong - I would have loved to spend the whole day exploring every room and asking questions and trying to work out the religious symolism in the Renaissance and Gothic art that adorns the walls and ceilings. But simply by its nature, being on a guided tour has, for all its benefits, the effect of opening up a door only to close it again just as quickly as time demands that you move on to the next room or exhibit. I guess I struggled to see the building as an 'exhibit'. I found that hard. For me, the experience was both overwhelminmg and unfulfilling. Now if that makes no sense to you, please forgive me. I hope I have better luck trying to explain other things more clearly.

As you might gather from the photos, St Mark's Basilica is a soaring and imposing structure. If I had been a better listener, I would now remember when it was first built and then rebuilt and whose art adorns the walls and ceilings as well as other things about its incredible history but, ah, I think I was in the bathroom at the time when some of this was revealed. Sorry about that. What I do remember is that we had arranged for us a private Mass celebrated by our tour Chaplin Fr Andre in a tiny underground crypt/chapel deep inside the Basilica. (Fr Andre's life is a story worth telling! With his permission I will try to find time to relate that to you sometime later...) I think that we actually become part of history when we do things rather than just observe things. So I suppose that in the smallest of ways, I and my felow travellers are now part of the story of this colossal Catholic shrine. Even though I know less about the history of the Basilica than I do about the Palace of the Doges, I actually have some cennection.

In the time between the tours, I walked the streets of Venice. Good grief, the place the busy! There were people everywhere! A bright cloudless warm Saturday meant that the place was crammed with people, just like me, clambouring to see and hear and feel. The presence of so may others did not dampen my enthusiasm or enjoyment at all, as it might at other times do. Apart from a visit to a shop to buy a camera battery (I discovered that the one in the camera was flat as soon as I tried to take my first picture of the day - apparently that happens when I didn't turn it off after a previous use. Who'd have thoght...), I had a wonderful time meanderng through the narrow cobbled Venetian laneways, watching the craft of the gondola operators as they guided their long ornate canoes through the laneways of water (Look, I accept that the word 'canoe' sounds tacky here but I have already used the word 'gondola' in the sentence and....well, they are big canoes, aren't they?). I was fascinated that the operators rarely ever spoke to their customers but instead conducted boisterous conversations with their fellow canoe-operators both near and far away. I particulaly pay my respects to those who were brave enough to keep their boater hats on while canoe-driving. That was impressive. I ate at a ridiculously priced cafe (and didnt care - would have paid double) where I was served by a very efficient and efficious waiter who was neither nice enough to be polite or gnarly enough to be rude. That cafe needed to churn through the customers on what could easily have been the 'day of the year' for local businesses, and by God he was the man for the job! I was lumping around my big camera bag, which was a bit of a pain but mostly it was in my hand ready for the next magic moment for me to destroy with an inadequate photo. So many shops full of frightfully expensive clothes, Venetian glass ornaments and jewellery (also, in the main, frigtfully expensive) and just about anything else a shopping tragic could want. There was even a Ferrari store with what I think was a real Formula 1 Ferrari inside. Then there were tacky souvenir carts selling everything from 'genuine' Venetian glass trinkets and masks to Michael Jackson t-shirts and Pele tea towels. Loved it all!

We were in Venice for one day - and just a fraction of its secrets revealed. On the boat ride back, we passed other extraordinary monuments that if located in just about any other world city would by be its landmark building. Such a city of mystery and riches!

I am not quite sure quite how to end this entry. I wrote at the start of my blog that I was mostly interested in how I would feel while when I saw things. I am beginning to realise that the feeling part is not something instantly acquired. That is just the start of the process. It may be well after the trip is over that I may actually start to 'get stuff' and maybe begin to unravel the puzzle posed by travelling to new places. Maybe I might even work out this whole pilgrimage thing too, but I certainly can't promise that. We'll see.

I am about to go for a walk to downtown Florence to see stuff. Tragically, most of the museums are closely on a Monday - what a bummer. Hey, but what the hell, it doesn't matter because (sory, one for the road...) I'm in Florence!!

Apologetically yours
Mark