June 14th
Raindrops drum against my umbrella like impatient fingers tapping on glass. Venice isn’t golden today—she’s a watercolor painting bleeding into the lagoon. The canals, usually emerald green, now swirl with slate-gray ripples, swallowing reflections of palazzi whose faded pinks and ochres deepen into melancholy hues. Gondolas bob like solemn black coffins, their gondolieri wrapped in crimson ponchos, shouting “Attento!” as they navigate the mist. The air smells of wet stone, brine, and centuries of secrets.
10:47 AM – Rialto Bridge
I pause midway across the bridge. Below, the Grand Canal churns, rain needling its surface into a thousand fleeting craters. Tourists huddle under café awnings, sipping espresso, their laughter muffled by the downpour. My umbrella becomes a tiny sanctuary—a portable cave where I’m alone with the sound of my breath and the drip-drip-drip sliding off the nylon edges. There’s intimacy in this isolation. The rain blurs the edges of everything, softening the city’s grandeur into something fragile, like a memory I’m afraid to lose.
1:30 PM – A Narrow Alley near Campo Santa Margherita
Lost again (deliberately). Rain slicks the cobblestones into dark mirrors, doubling the world: above, laundry lines sag with soaked shirts; below, their ghostly twins tremble in puddles. An old woman leans from her window, shaking a rug. She catches my eye and shrugs, as if to say, “Che sarà, sarà.” I smile back, feeling a kinship in our resignation. Under my umbrella, I’m warm but emotionally drenched—nostalgic for a past I never lived. Venice in rain feels like a stage after the play has ended: the drama is over, leaving only the raw, beautiful skeleton.
4:00 PM – Zattere Promenade
The lagoon stretches out, hung with a curtain of mist. Seagulls wheel like torn paper against the sky. I watch an acqua alta platform sink slowly into the rising tide. My thoughts drift: rain reveals what sunshine hides—the cracks in plaster, the moss on brick, the way loneliness can feel like companionship when shared with a city. I close my eyes. The rhythm of rain on fabric is a lullaby. For a moment, I’m not a traveler but a ghost floating between realms, cradled by the gray.
Evening Reflection
Today, Venice taught me that beauty isn’t always bright. Rain peeled back her postcard perfection, showing her raw, whispering soul. Under this umbrella, I found a paradox: solitude that connects, melancholy that comforts. The city didn’t just weather the storm—she sang in it. And somehow, so did I.
P.S. Carry waterproof shoes. And a heart ready for gray magic.