{"id":2123,"date":"2016-10-09T10:55:52","date_gmt":"2016-10-09T17:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/?p=2123"},"modified":"2016-10-09T10:55:52","modified_gmt":"2016-10-09T17:55:52","slug":"the-beauty-of-venice-continues-to-last-even-after-thousands-of-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/golf\/courses-and-travel\/2123\/the-beauty-of-venice-continues-to-last-even-after-thousands-of-years","title":{"rendered":"The Beauty of Venice Continues to Last Even After Thousands of Years"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"There

There are few cities which inspire a sense of romance in the Cinderella fashion of Venice, Italy<\/p><\/div>\n

There are few cities which inspire a sense of romance in the Cinderella fashion of Venice, Italy. It\u2019s softly dramatic, Renaissance period, gothic-style, red-roofed palaces line more than 100 tiny islands connected only by canals and small bridges. It was good enough for Casanova to call home (the infamous womanizer did from 1725 to 1798), and it\u2019s still fantastic enough to fulfill flights of fantasy according to those who have visited.<\/p>\n

Casanova came 400 years after Marco Polo (Venice named its\u2019 airport for the world explorer), but I know my \u201cdiscovery\u201d of Venice, this Christmas, will be less arduous that it was for Polo.\u00a0He told the Khan \u201cEvery time I speak of a city, I am speaking of Venice.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m told walking across Piazza San Marco to see the gleaming, golden Byzantine tiles in the 11th<\/sup> century St. Mark\u2019s Basilica, one can virtually hear the music of Vivaldi (a Venetian violinist in the Baroque era) often used in wedding preludes, playing in one\u2019s head \u2013 despite the sacred silence in one of the world\u2019s most famous churches. The basilica boasts five delicate domes supported by 500 columns.<\/p>\n

So moved by Venice, it was there State Senator Joe Hune, of Fowlerville, proposed to his now wife. “Marcia couldn’t possibly say no in a gondola outside Casanova’s house,”\u00a0Hune jokes.<\/p>\n

Author Truman Capote, who wrote \u201cBreakfast at Tiffany\u2019s\u201d compared visiting Venice to \u201ceating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.\u201d<\/p>\n

But American Humorist Robert Benchley, upon his first visit in the 1950\u2019s, took one look and immediately sent a cable home to his friend reading: \u201cStreets full of water. Advise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Venice has canals in place of streets, and a famed ride in a gondola \u2013 the iconic, handmade Venetian watercraft \u2013 steered by a striped-shirt, singing gondoliere under the romantic bridges is the type of traditional experience ICBellagio.com arranges for tourists. Sipping Prosecco along the way, one need not\u00a0wonder any longer what\u2019s behind the gothic windows of the palaces along the Grand Canal since a private tour can take one behind the closed doors of the noble families of yesteryear.<\/p>\n

Between Christmas and Lent, centuries-old legend has it aristocrats and peasants hid their identities behind the artistic, colourful masks associated with Venice to this day. Another of ICBellagio.com\u2019s tours allows visitors to craft their own \u201cmask masterpiece\u201d using Swarovski crystals and precious metals.<\/p>\n

Water is life, and, since I will be there at Christmas, I am buoyed (pardon the pun) by the words of poet Joseph Brodsky, who wrote of the restorative powers of waking up in Venice in the winter and flinging open the windows to let in the \u201cdamp oxygen and prayers.\u201d: \u201cNo matter how autonomous you are, how much you\u2019ve been betrayed, how thorough and dispiriting in your self-knowledge, you assume there is still hope for you, or at least a future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Patrick Shiels may be contacted at\u00a0<\/em>InviteYourself@aol.com<\/em><\/a>\u00a0or via TravelTattler.com\u00a0His talk show can be heard weekday mornings in\u00a0Lansing\u00a0on 92.1 FM.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are few cities which inspire a sense of romance in the Cinderella fashion of Venice, Italy. It\u2019s softly dramatic,… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":2124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[107689,1044565,1749,15],"class_list":["post-2123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-courses-and-travel","tag-venice","tag-travel","tag-italy","tag-europe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/34\/2016\/10\/Venice.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2125,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2123\/revisions\/2125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaposition.com\/traveltattler\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}