Seasons-Scape
This section has a different focus because it is about taking a seasonal perspective. A Venetian walk for each season is suggested along with a short seasonal description. The words and music of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is used as the framework for this section. It’s thought that Vivaldi wrote the words of the poem himself, though no one really knows.
The Four Seasons is a ‘sound poem” and this section makes it the focus for a mindful meditational experience
Spring
Venice in spring is about bright skies and a radiant blueness with fast moving clouds. Spring breezes but with some suddenly warm days. Of walks in San Polo and Castello with sight of wisteria and magnolia behand faded brick and stone walls.
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Summer
Listen to the music and drift and imagine summer days. In Venice that can be dry dusty days of seeking shade and staying out of the direct sun. The heat can be intense and the city almost deserted of locals during the hot Ferragosta days in August. Then a sudden dramatic thunder storm and sheet or jagged lightning washing the streets free of dust.
Autumn
Season of mists. Some fog and days when the Vaporetto navigate by their radar. One day we were on a vaporetto near the Giardini stop in the early morning and the boat stopped and we were stunned to see an immense cruise liner emerge from out of the fog.
By November, however, the city is much quieter, the Calles filled locals and a far fewer visitors. There can be bitter cold and sleet as winter takes hold of the city. Melancholy mists wrap Venice in a cloak of limited visibility and the vaporetto need to use their radar to navigate around the canals.
Winter
Of all the poems which inspired the Four Seasons Winter seems closest to reality in Venice. Listen to the music and the imagined sound of icicles and frost in the music. My favourite movement is the Largo of Winter. Imagine the streets of Venice and the Largo music in your head. It fits so well as a soundtrack to the winter streets.
At some point the window boxes in the medieval buildings change from Geraniums and Begonias to Cyclamen and Violas or Pansies. There are fewer frosts here because of the sea air but there is still a definite chill in the air. There can be whole days in November and December when the mist never lifts and the city is shrouded in a shift of fog and the buildings seem a different star. Then suddenly the sun may break through and it feels warm with the promise of warmer weather in the spring.
