A Year in Venice

"I walked miles all over the city, at any time of the day or night", wrote Peggy Guggenheim in 1936 as she visited Venice alone after the tragic death of John Holms, her English lover, "and ate anywhere I happened to find myself. I revisited all my favourite churches and museums...I was unhampered by any influence or criticism and could enjoy Venice to my entire delight...It had never occurred to me before that I could be happy alone."

I read Judith Mackrell's excellent book, The Unfinished Palazzo in which this quote lies, and it chimed with me as I attend to the final few details of packing up and leaving my lovely flat in Ladbroke Grove. Can I be happy alone? Can I wander, a casual flaneur, through the streets of this wonderful city, avoiding the celebrity crush of Jeff Bezos and his wedding guests, the cruise shipments, the summer visitors paying the daft five euros for entry?

For twenty-five years I have come to Venice for work, for sixty years I have visited, from early childhood, through my teenage years and now, in my mid-sixties I am returning to see how the quotidian life might taste like.

This 'diary' aims to describe the experience.

My brother, sister and myself 1960's