The Venice Sketchbook

by Rhys Bowen

Pensione Regina.

Maltese

crosses,

Baedeker and map.

walkways with bridges over canals. It seems the canals are actually

St Mark’s Square. Gosh.

Doge’s Palace.

cooped

Experience makes one come to terms with life, to be at one with the mind and the heart. And most people are suffering in some way.”

remnant

Je Reviens.

jaunts.

bursary

gamut

ghastly,

uncouth

rabble.

Canal by the Ponte degli Scalzi, a stone bridge of many steps, to the district of Santa Croce, cross another canal by a smaller,

hefted

trudged

rest are spinsters who were at the right age for marriage around the time of the Great War, thus they had little chance of ever finding a husband after a whole generation of young men had been wiped out. It seemed that most of

trifle

relish,

pored

dismayed

C of E, aren’t

daubs.

lowish

beamed

shuddered.

cavorting

thudding

outlandish

juddered

pylons.

dally

a time of stress and tragedy takes away all but the will to survive. She finished her coffee, went to pay

swathes

and swags, overstuffed

erring

traghetto

Fondamenta del Forner.

calle was a street, but a fondamenta was a street that ran beside a canal.

podgy

clammy.

courgettes.

simpatica.

buxom

dais,

rung