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Whispers of Venice: A Weekend to Remember
Posted on 23rd July, 2025
Venice at night is magical. And imposing. I’ve just returned from a few days in the city, and one of the best experiences was a gondola ride at 10pm. It was dark, creepy, beautiful, atmospheric, and scary. All the things this crime writer loves! And as we seemed to crawl silently across the top of the still inky water, with just the swish of an oar, I had so many ideas for stories. The crumbling buildings towered above us, and we caught sight of people in their flats and houses, glimpses inside hotel kitchens, and long expanses of dark, deserted canals where the pale yellow lamps fizzed and flickered. And just when I thought the large cloud moving above us might be a ghost, we burst out from under a bridge, moving past a glittering piazza filled with people at restaurant tables.
I’ve been to Venice twice before, staying in hotels, but this was the first time I stayed in a house looking out on the canal. It was at the end of a long, narrow street ending at the water. By day, it was bright and filled with people, and there was a school playground opposite, but at night it was deserted, and I didn’t sleep soundly. The flat had an atmosphere, not necessarily a bad one, but I felt the vibrations of all the people who’d lived there before. A few times a noise woke me in the night with a feeling like we weren’t entirely alone. I loved wandering the city streets during the day with no particular plan, and early morning and evening, we sat in the living room, watching the world punt past. Time was marked by the movement of the tides as the water slowly uncovered the five stone steps from our windowsill encrusted with oysters and seaweed.
This and previous photo, the views from our living room
Venice has no roads – you probably already know this – but that means that everything travels by boat; supermarket deliveries, rubbish collection, parents on the school run, funerals, ambulances, the police, building supplies, and of course, the locals going about their business and tourists in Gondolas. We watched it all, and here are my observations in no particular order. Venetians who work on delivery boats and the rubbish collection have great arms, the guys muscly and the woman beautifully toned, and so many of them have beautiful tattoos. Children who get to go to school by boat look like they’re having so much fun every single time. Also, the same goes for dogs travelling with their owners. At times, the canal was a crush of boats, but there wasn’t one collision, and everyone seemed to work together to keep things moving. So many tourists on gondola rides (which are expensive) never look up from scrolling on their phones! Also, there were quite a few young guys with excited young girls who looked really miserable (post-proposal regrets, perhaps? Or maybe they didn’t bring their sea legs.) And finally, so many people hang their washing out from windows, some as high as five or six stories above the canal, but I never saw any dropped socks in the water.
Venice has also become the place where influencers go to make their content; swinging around lamp posts with bunches of roses, skipping along the road with Venetian masks, gazing myopically off into the distance. And, of course, everyone who orders a coffee and cake combo needs to take a photo of it. This isn’t unusual, but when we visited Café Florian in St. Mark’s Square, there were people setting up tripods and ring lights by their tables, crashing into waiters while their ice cream melted and coffee went cold. Perhaps I’m just becoming an old fart, but it seems like the world has gone mad. Still, I suppose Venice is the place where you go to have a magical experience, and modern magical experiences should be documented in 4K with great lighting. My husband, Ján, proposed to me in Venice in 2008, and I can’t believe how quickly time has passed and how much things have changed. Back then, we took photos, but something went wrong with the memory card in Ján’s camera, and we lost them all. I have to admit we more than made up for it this time, and we joined in photographing our Negronis and Tiramisu. I love café Florian so much that we went three times, (we also went for coffee and cannoli made by Nonnas in which was equally delicious). Florian had a band outside in the square who were wonderful. They even played ‘I’m Ken’ from the Barbie movie and made it sound like it was from ancient Venetian times.
We only stayed for a couple of days, and whilst I loved Venice, I also found it a little overwhelming. Every day it fills with tourists. We got up super early each morning and enjoyed the city before it became like a stadium concert crush. It’s easy to forget that Venice is a real place, with real people trying to go about their day, shopping, walking their dogs, taking their kids to school.
It seems that every time I visit, I have more questions, and there are more streets that I want to explore. I hope Venice can survive as a real place, it’s such a beautiful unique city.
My new Detective Erika Foster book, Chasing Shadows has just been published and you can get your copy here: https://geni.us/Chasing_Shadows