For a city in danger of disappearing underwater relatively soon (what do a couple hundred years mean in the large scheme of things?), Venice is so calm and constant that it makes you think it's not aware of the impending disaster at all. Perhaps this is also the reason Venice is the only city where everything is always the same.
The basis for my ideal city is Venice, Venice of parallel universes, flowing queens and the smell of violin polish I always sense around Rialto. Actually, Venice is more than a base: the only element my ideal city would differ from Venice in is boulevardslike those of Rome. Venice doesn't have boulevards for it's too dense, its houses and streets crammed together so tightly that they encage high humidity and summer fevers, making them almost endemic. Rome respires in a similar way, but as it's spread across seven hills, the air has more space to unfold.
Venice on Saturday was dozens of adorable tiny dogs, women in summer dresses and men in jackets, a particularly good cannolo (second in my life) from a random bakery, vaporetto stopping at the other side of the Giardini where we discovered the house with the number 1 (it has something to do with the military), calmness of Lido, ...
Venice is not easy to understand, but it's not a mission impossible if you put sincere effort into getting to know it. These are some of the books that have helped me in this quest a lot over the years. ...