July 12: Italia - Venezia

Few things can ever prepare you for your first sight of Venice. Drifting on the promise of a long, unwinding dream, rocking domes and spires seem to hint at something magical on a distant horizon which begin to make an imprint onto you long before you reach the flat, sapphire waters of St Mark's Square. The approach to Venice along the Canale Della Giudecca is slow. Beautifully slow. It's almost as if nature is trying to whisper to you that the more time you take on your journey, the more you will fall in love with your eventual destination. Ignore what people say about Venice being smelly and overcrowded - go anyway, and enjoy what feelings arise in your heart as you sail towards it. A subtle uplifting, a veil of mystery being removed from one of the most beautiful places on earth - Venice.

The haunting opening to Luchino Visconti's cinematic adaptation of Thomas Mann's novel Death by Venice comes close to the real thing. The mists of morning clinging close to the colours of a thawing sunrise as the music of Gustav Mahler's Adagietto from his Fifth Symphony opens the film is beautiful. For as long as I am alive I will never forget seeing Venice for the first time. Having spent most of my childhood and adulthood dreaming of those peaceful canals and red-and-white striped mooring poles, I felt incredible excitement sailing towards them. The realisation of dreams are either a great anticlimax (hence the eternal warning to enjoy the journey) or a sublime moment spent basking in a smugness of pure self-indulgence. The smile I wore as I sailed past the dome of the Santa Maria de Salute up onto the Piazzetta de San Marco is something few in this lifetime will ever see again.

The trouble with something as incredibly beautiful as Venice is that human nature soon takes hold; as with anything of great beauty, you eventually desire exclusivity. Wandering through its narrow back streets, and over delicate bridges you resent the other tourists there. You wish you could have the whole of Venice to yourself. Just at dawn, maybe at sundown, just for a moment. The more you explore the labyrinth of arches, the more you are carried off along your own private canal. No time is ever enough. With things of great beauty there is also an avarice, where there is never enough; we always want more. How do we combat that? Try to keep a loose reign on those things we love most; be grateful for a moment of bliss and let go. Things of beauty are never ours to own, instead there to share with others, in order that our own appreciation of them might grow. Love affairs with Venice grow stronger each time you say goodbye.

I read a message inside a Baci chocolate:
Come ti vidi m'innamorai. E tu sorridi perche lo sai (I loved you at first sight. And you smile because you know it). I smile and I know it. This is only one aspect to Italy I have seen so far, Tuscany awaits, as does the deep South. Dreams sail on forever.