Week 3: A Literary Jungle

It is always fascinating to wander around Venice and get lost. There is no better way to be in that city than discovering new streets, new Calli, new Rios, new palazzi, new churches, new Art. No matter how many times you have been there, every time you get lost you open yourself to see something new, unnoticed, magical and inspiring.

And that is the spirit I had in a beautiful, cold, sunny winter morning when I decided I would pick a Sestriere I am not very acquainted with, and discover something new by walking through its streets and bridges with no set direction. Many buildings captured my attention. But the most interesting thing was a peculiar doorbell sets, with funny faces to pull to ring the bell. The temptation to ring the bell and run away was very strong and hard to resist. But  my  sense of responsibility prevented me from doing it.

 

Walking around the semi-empty streets I found myself attracted by some stands outside a shop. I went there to see what they were displaying and found lots of old printings, with movie posters  and old pictures of Venice and of the small countryside towns around it (San Dona’ di Piave and Jesolo among others). At that point I could not help it and I entered the shop, which turned out to be a well known second-hand bookstore I had read about but never visited. And oh boy was I missing something! This bookstore was able to throw me into a different world. Walking through the many books displayed on boats was like a literary adventure. Dust and eau de chardonnay, together with the bookstore’s cat were my companion in exploring this jungle of books. Titles of all kinds were capturing my attention and I was picking up one book after another to read the synopsis, the first lines, to figure out what it was about and what worlds could it open to me if I read it. Some were hilarious, like the one about how to cook Chinese recipes in the microwave. Some others were classics, some had inscriptions on the first page, which made you wondering who that book belonged to, and how it ended up there.

The books appeared to be displayed in no particular order. But when I asked to one of the owners about a particular book, he knew where to find it. After few minutes of moving books up and down, left and right, there it was, the book I had requested, found among that apparent chaos. I advice heartily, if you happened to go to visit this bookstore, to spend some time chatting with the people working there. A more venetian discussion and atmosphere is very hard to find elsewhere.

And so it is a fire exit such as this one:

 

Or such a stair to admire the canal from:

It was just a bookstore after all, but sometimes is the attitude you have toward new places that you visit that can make the experience magical and memorable And that is what made this visit to “Libreria Acqua Alta” so unique.