A place once visited
City lights are enchanting, nowhere more so than in Venice. June 2008
“Venice appeared to me as in a recurring dream, a place once visited and now fixed in memory like images on a photographer’s plates…” — Gary Inbinder
Sometimes a place seems magical because of the circumstances of our time there, but some are inherently spellbinding. Venice is certainly such a place, especially as the daylight is waning and the lamps begin to sparkle.
I have fond memories of a night Jeff and I spent wandering among the canals and seemingly endless bridges, winding pathways through shops, restaurants and alleys, past silent buildings closed for the night. Moonlight and lamplight were reflected in the canals, and the music in St. Mark’s Square wafted over the breeze. The atmosphere was so thick that even several years later, it comes back vividly in my imagination, ever-alluring and probably slightly embellished by my memory.
What are your favorite enchanting places? Take a few minutes to daydream about your ideal visit there. Feel free to share a photo or a memory in the comments.
This post was originally published seven years ago today. The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.
- Posted in: Uncategorized
- Tagged: canals, city, city lights, dusk, enchanting, Italy, magical, memories, romance, spellbinding, strolling, travel, twilight, Venice, walks
Defeat Despair 
We were in Venice two years ago and it was magical. Just for a day, but we had a great tour. Somehow my husband and I were the only two on the tour, with a fantastic guide. When we arrived by train during a weekday the streets were not terribly busy, but when we were walking back to the train it was the end of the workday and people were pouring out of their offices to commute home. It was an interesting reminder that even in the most exotic tourist places there are people doing regular kinds of work.
Susan, that’s a thought that has often occurred to me as I travel. I remember being in Bermuda back in December 1975, watching the shops closing up for the day and seeing people lock up and get ready to go home. It really amazed me to think that people in this tiny sliver of paradise had “normal” lives that were, in many respects, not so different from mine. It’s a realization that I carried with me wherever I went after that, and I actively looked for the everyday places and sights anywhere I visited. People really are more alike than different, I think. Isn’t Venice one of the most unique places in the whole world? No wonder it’s so famous!