"It's all been said before..." a Venice Travel Page by SPW

When we left the station, Susan's reaction to the panorama before her was similar to my first visit 16 years earlier: she gasped, her jaw dropped and she could just stare. We'd read books, seen movies, examined pictures but nothing can compare with your own experience of a place, and for us both it was a case of love at first sight. And the gradual realisation that at last we were really here.
The vaporettos might have been crowded, there might have been too many bridges for our weary legs, heat and mosquitos to make life uncomfortable, but nothing could detract from the marvellous experience of being in such a fabled city. The changing scene at every corner, the variety of water traffic past our apartment window, churches, shops, apartments, strange shaped chimneys, art and yet not a museum as people were living among it all, going about their everyday lives.
We loved
The noises: the sound of the water lapping against the wall of the aprtment as barges passed, the strains of the accordian and singers as flotillas of gondolas passed the windows, the footsteps in the night echoing as the bridge was crossed, the raucous singing of Volare by an illegal flower seller, the clatter of trolleys as they crossed the bridge, church bells....
And the light: gentle in early in the morning and the late afternoon, harsh in the middle of the day, the movement of the shadows, reflections off the water.
And the life in our campo (Santa Margherita): the fruit and fish stalls, the mornin clusters of older people shopping or sitting on the benches, the groups of parents chatting as their children played, people shopping and taking 'caffe e cornetto' at the bars, the quiet in the early afternoon as the stalls and shops closed then the evening passagiata when the whole city seemed to come out to see and be seen. Everyone now dressed up, elderly parents on the arms of daughters or sons, greetings exchanged, the bars busy serving spritzes and other drinks to gossiping patrons, children playing, boys kicking footballs or riding bikes, last minute purchases at the fruit and vegetable stalls and the bakers. Cafes and restaurants filling for the evening meal as the parading stopped.