Italian Hours

'It is a fact that almost everyone interesting, appealing, melancholy, memorable, odd, seems at one time or another, after many days and much life, to have gravitated to Venice by a happy instinct, settling in it and treating it, cherishing it, as a sort of repository of consolations; all of which today, for the conscious mind, is mixed with its air and constitutes its unwritten history. The deposed, the defeated, the disenchanted, the wounded, or even only the bored, have seemed to find there something that no other place could give.' Henry James, Italian Hours, 1909

Marble Lions

I glided off, in one of the dark boats, until we came to an old Arsenal guarded by four marble lions. To make my Dream more monstrous and unlikely, one of these had words and sentences upon its body, inscribed there, at an unknown time, and in an unknown language; so that their purport was a mystery to all men. " Charles Dickens, An Italian Dream, 1844

City of Haunting Dreams

"Venice appears to us as if in a dreams, its breathtaking architecture and overwhelming weight of history challenging the soulless uniformity of our modern-day world. This unique city of so many contradictions, of shifting light and dark shadows, subtle movement and fleeting glances, quickly seduces us with its timeless beauty. It is only later that we become aware of its other, more sinister side." Simon Marsden, Venice City of Haunting Dreams 2001

A Little Lost

"I thought I knew Venice but suddenly you're in the middle of that kaleidoscope of people and places and little pieces and little bridges and little canals and you don't know where the hell you are." Alan Whicker. Sunday Life March 12, 2006