Travelling at my desk

I have only visited Milan and Rome, never Venice, but even if I still could travel, I would not go to Venice, because it has been destroyed by other tourists. 

I am reading Donna Leon's detective stories that I really like because there are no bloody details. She is mainly describing the work and colleagues and family of the police commissioner Guido Brunetti, and - Venice. Leon has lived in Venice for thirty years, and knows the city well. She describes the way people are moving from one place to the other, and that is a new experience for the reader. They walk. They walk to the next stop of the vaporetto (the water bus). Then they walk again. Amazing. No cars.

I have just finished reading the latest of her books that has come out in Finnish, The temptation of forgiveness. Inspired by her description of the walks of the police commissioner, I searched and found a site called https://www.venice.nu/maps/vaporetto-stops/ and have ever since spent hours moving about in Venice and enjoying the close-up shots of the buildings.

Whenever I look at a centuries old brick wall, I think of the hands that laid every and each one of the bricks. And prior to that, suitable earth must be found, molds made, the bricks dried and burned, and transported, then hoisted to the bricklayer, who picks up one brick at the time, slams mortar on it, places it on the place, evens up, and takes the next one. 

These walls were made - how many hundreds of years ago? These walls have seen life, different from ours. Unfortunately these walls are going to die, not due to climate change, but due to tourism making every day life of the residents impossible. Most of the houses look uninhabited even in these photos. We know that Venetians are moving away. Even Donna Leon has moved to Switzerland. 

I have watched pictures of the walls and window grilles, doors that open to water, a downspout that has been hidden into the wall to lead the water into the canal, all the time wondering what life was like still as recently as a hundred or hundred and fifty years ago here at these doors...