Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Summer Storm: Three Views

Strike up the band: A couple on the Giudecca try to exert some control over the opening series of lightening flashes

Summer storms in Venice come on like the apocalypse, and if you find yourself trapped by one beneath an arcade or, more fortunately, in a little bar on the Giudecca, as I was at the end of last week, you can wonder if you'll ever see your home and loved ones again. But they rage--never losing their conviction--for just a half hour or so and then move on, usually leaving behind them, like a note of contrition for getting so carried away, a beautifully clear view of the mountains around Venice.

This sailing cruise ship headed out to sea while the storm was at its worst

The rain doesn't let up, even as the sky begins to clear to the northwest

6 comments:

  1. Trapped?in a bar?in Guidecca? Poor Steve :-)
    Great photos again.

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    1. Okay, Rob, I'll admit it wasn't exactly waiting out a blizzard while tucked into the carcass of a horse, but, hey, what if the beverages ran out in the 45 minutes or so it took the storm to pass?

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  2. It was in Venice (in an open-fronted bar on an empty Riva degli Schiavoni) that I remember the first clap of thunder that really frightened me. Our storms in s-e England must have been much gentler. It was in 1959 and I remember a pope was lying in state in the basilica. It was only recently that I learnt from one of your fellow bloggers of Venice that it was Pope Pius X who had died many years earlier and his remains were brought back in order to fulfil his promise to return after becoming pope.

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    1. What a marvelous memory (and description), Rosalind, with its combination of details. It suggests a singular experience of Venice at a particular time better than any photograph.

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  3. Without straining my imagination that far, I can vividly imagine worse places to be trapped during a summer storm. :D
    I think I had my breakfast most every day in that bar when I last stayed in Venice during Redentore. The apartment I rented was just around the corner from there.

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    1. I don't know how I just came upon this comment, Andreas, but if the bar you're thinking of is the one with the suitcases that cover the front of its actual counter--stacked up almost like brickwork--then it is indeed the same one. It's a nice area.

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