Venice, my spirit city.

I arrived in Venice on a cool, winter's morning. My first winter in Europe. Before now, we had travelled to the husband's hometown at the height of summer. In the continued theme of being pseudo rich, I look for my name on a board at the airport exit, am found by the taxi driver and then driven to the water taxi. My back is an expensive partner to maintain. There was no way I could travel with two suitcases with my years worth of clothes and items in them over the many bridges to my hotel. The water taxi driver is handsome of course, it's Italy after all: he takes my hand and helps me navigate my way in. Nautical curtains in the seating area, all wooden surrounds with highly polished metal. Like the gondoliers, who are a revered profession here; so too are the water taxis drivers. It's early morning and quiet. We glide in and out of canals, the water a snail trail of dusky pinks, mercury and a touch of blue obsidian on the outskirts as we turn into the Grand Canal. I stand and watch the fading palaces, the softened colours of early morning; the traffic comprised of mainly boats carrying vegetables and other goods to keep up with the demand of this tourist hub.

The boat pulls in at a designated stop and a porter is waiting for me to take my bags and guide me to the hotel. I am an actor in a dream scenario for a brief moment in time.

I have always been embraced by Venezia, from the first time my then boyfriend (later husband), told me to close my eyes as he guided me out of the railway station and then said: Look! I was paralysed with wonder then and still am thirty years later.

My room in the hotel is beautiful, the hotels here in the winter are half the price of the summer. The room is decorated in dusky violet shades, the bed huge; just for me. In one corner there's the fading remains of an old fresco. Most of the hotels are old palaces, history and art hidden within their crumbling facades. The porter opens the shutters of my room and there is a series of bridges over the canals. I have been upgraded! I'm sure the late husband arranged that one. I change into warm clothes and head out into my dream world. I can't believe how lucky I am to be here, with the ability to travel for a year.