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Published: August 4th 2010
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Rialto Bridge
Christmas 2001 It was Christmastime 2001, and unseasonably windy and cold on the night my fiance Lisa and I arrived in Venice.
The Rialto Bridge, its shops, and those of the nearby Campo San Bartolomeo were decorated and lit up for the holidays. The shop owners were eager to welcome us inside to escape from the cold hoping we would make a purchase. We were shown shoes, we were shown jewelry, we were shown luggage. We accepted each shop’s hospitality and warmth but saved our money until picking up some cappuccino chocolates from the local candy store.
We had an even chillier stroll the next day braving Venice’s famous outdoor landmarks such as St, Mark’s Square, the Accademia Bridge, the Salute, and the Dorsoduro. As the day wore on, dark clouds moved over the city from the sea. Tired as well as cold around mid-afternoon, we decided to make an early return to the proximity of our hotel.
We nonetheless took our time negotiating and enjoying the maze of streets and passageways and bridges of the San Marco neighborhood on our way.
And the snowstorm caught us before we made it back to Rialto.
The curiosity of a
light dusting quickly turned grew into a blizzard of fat flakes which brought both Venetians and tourists alike out into the streets to marvel together at this unexpected weather.
An inch of snow coated the gondolas and their candy striped mooring posts. The growing flurries began to obscure the view across the Grand Canal toward San Polo. Soon it was two to three inches building up on the edges of the canals. After circling around incredulously snapping pictures of this Mediterranean winter wonderland, we headed into the hotel to eat our dinner and climb early into a warm bed.
By morning the snow had stopped. The sun was shining, but the cold had increased. A bitter wind was howling down the Venetian streets and the evening/night of snow had frozen into a dangerously slippery layer of ice along the canal-side walkways.
This was our day to visit Murano Island however, famous home of the Venetian glass industry. Lisa vowed that no weather would stop us, although I wasn’t nearly so keen. We boldly, perhaps foolishly, boarded the vaporetto water bus to cross the lagoon toward Murano. Out on open water, the wind was brutal. Hopes for a
romantic cruise around the aquatic city had turned to irritation and discomfort.
This of course led to sniping and snarling between the two of us. I wanted to eat lunch, but Lisa wasn’t hungry. Lisa admired the Millefiori glass, and I told her it was tacky. Lisa headed into browse in the glass shops, and I waited outside. We ended our day on the island utterly sick of and irritated with each other. We rode the vaporetto back to the city on different ends of the boat, Lisa at the bow, and I at the stern. We hardly acknowledged each other as we began our cold walk back through Cannaregio.
Our path back took us across the Campaniello Widman, a small residential square on the city’s east side. We approached the square and paused to discover that its uneven paving stones were thoroughly and completely covered in ice. This was going to be a slow careful traverse for both of us.
No sooner had we stopped than an extremely frail old woman, bundled up against the cold, appeared to our left. Like us she paused and considered the state of the square. After a moment’s thought she
looked over at the two of us. It did not appear that she spoke English, but the situation required no words to be understood. The old woman had no hope of crossing this icy square on her own.
And so we did what we obviously needed to do. Lisa took her left arm and I her right. Very slowly, very gingerly, taking each step with great care and intent, we began to walk her across the square. She smiled up at each of us a few times, speaking a few words which included “grazie” several times. With her eyes and a few nods of her head, she guided us toward an ancient looking doorway on the far side of the square, apparently her home.
Lisa and I too glanced over at each other a few times. This unplanned encounter, this unexpected good deed was obviously having a thawing effect upon our moods, although not upon the weather.
We walked the woman up two or three uneven steps until she could reach the door, unlock the lock, and step gingerly into the warm interior.
Before disappearing inside, she gave each of us a knowing look. Now there
The Grand Canal
Looking north from Rialto Bridge was no way the woman could have been aware of our terrible situation before meeting her. But somehow her look held a bit of instructions as well as thanks, as if to say, “there now, you two be nice to each other from now on. You’ve got a lot to do together.”
The two of us of course had no one to face but each other in the old woman’s absence. Arm in arm we found our own way across the remainder of the icy square. Warmth had returned to our glances, and we began a silly laugh at the spectacle we had made of the day. And we now looked forward to the evening.
And that is how a bitter cold Venetian winter nearly destroyed, but ultimately and permanently healed our relationship. Lisa is now my wife.
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