Owing to my failure of imagination I couldn't foresee returning to Venice in quite the way it has turned out. When we first visited, in 2005, our daughter had just finished high school and had little interest in continuing on to college and a short time later she would head off instead to Chicago for City Year a Americorps program.
Venice is spectacular with it's ancient history, unique transportation, and its nearly incomprehensible winding streets that periodically open to one surprising view after another. As a guess I would suppose there are more camera carrying visitors per square mile than anywhere on earth. I had just begun using a toy camera back then and was anxious to try point it in new directions. The results, I confess, were less than spectacular.
But still we enjoyed sightseeing and seemed to constantly hoping aboard vaparettos for rides up and down the Grand Canal. We visited the Doges Palace, St. Marks Tower, the Lido as well as the modern art at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. That was also a year in which the large semi-annual art exposition The Venice Biennale was taking place. From time to time we stopped in to the various national pavilions to see what strange and interesting creations artists had come up with. My daughter seemed to take an interest.
Italy made an impression on my daughter and when she finally started college the following year she immediately signed up to study the Italian language. And when she asked if she could enroll in a University in Italy the following year we agreed. Last year she graduated with a degree in Art History and moved to London for further study in contemporary art. Upon completion of those studies my daughter was accepted as an intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. That's why we've returned to Venice, but it doesn't end there. Earlier this month her fine Italian boyfriend Andrea proposed marriage on a Venice bridge and she accepted. My imagination wasn't that large.
Venice is spectacular with it's ancient history, unique transportation, and its nearly incomprehensible winding streets that periodically open to one surprising view after another. As a guess I would suppose there are more camera carrying visitors per square mile than anywhere on earth. I had just begun using a toy camera back then and was anxious to try point it in new directions. The results, I confess, were less than spectacular.
But still we enjoyed sightseeing and seemed to constantly hoping aboard vaparettos for rides up and down the Grand Canal. We visited the Doges Palace, St. Marks Tower, the Lido as well as the modern art at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. That was also a year in which the large semi-annual art exposition The Venice Biennale was taking place. From time to time we stopped in to the various national pavilions to see what strange and interesting creations artists had come up with. My daughter seemed to take an interest.
Italy made an impression on my daughter and when she finally started college the following year she immediately signed up to study the Italian language. And when she asked if she could enroll in a University in Italy the following year we agreed. Last year she graduated with a degree in Art History and moved to London for further study in contemporary art. Upon completion of those studies my daughter was accepted as an intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice. That's why we've returned to Venice, but it doesn't end there. Earlier this month her fine Italian boyfriend Andrea proposed marriage on a Venice bridge and she accepted. My imagination wasn't that large.
