Venice sounds and sights: Gulls, skull, bells, blinds and boat horns

View from the Grand Canal at dusk

Metal sculpture in front of the Palazzo Grassi: view from the Grand Canal

Although there is plenty around me to make me realize how different Venice is from my home, I find that the sounds I hear do that pretty convincingly as well. First in the morning, as the sun is coming up, I hear what I think is the sound of children laughing faintly, which, in my groggy, hypnopompic state I slowly realize is the sound of sea gulls in the lagoon. Nora tells me that there are two types, that the local gulls are stubby and bullet-shaped, but I have yet to determine if they sound like laughing children.

Usually in the early morning or at night, I hear our neighbors singing, sometimes from their apartments and sometimes from the calle below. Groups of young men seem to enjoy this particularly, but often it is one man alone. From the balcony in the back, it's easy to hear televisions and chatter from the apartments clustered about the courtyard.

Church bells ring in the afternoon and in the evening, and from the livingroom I can see the bells actually swinging in one tower. Around 9:00 p.m., I hear the scrape and slam of blinds being lowered and shutters closing in the many apartments surrounding us. Nora and I wonder why the neighbors prefer to spend the warm night all closed up rather than leaving the windows open as we do.

Several times, as I was walking, I heard the clop of horses's hooves behind me, but when I turn around, I see only a stylishly uncomfortable woman wearing heels on the stone pavement.

I was here for two days before I noticed that the horns I kept hearing were from the vaporetti only. Because they cannot necessarily see well at intersections, they honk before turning. There are no cars here. I have not seen a car since I left the mainland on Sunday. These stone streets are for walking, not driving, and the canals and boats are the streets and cars of Venice.

Occasionally, I hear the low rumble of a cruise ship's horn harbored very close by.

Here is a short movie of the sights and sounds of Venice, on the Canale di Cannaregio to the Tre Archi stop closest to Nora's place.

Here is a short movie from a vaporetto on the Grand Canal.