I headed back a different way so that I could discover more of Venice. After the Tolentini bridge I turned left toward the Calle dei Amai, which brought me to the bridge over the Muneghete canal. To my surprise, the old lanes turned out to be deserted, and there was not a soul in sight. The canals, too, were dead: along the narrow embankments various vessels – rowboats, motor boats, longboats for cargo – floated immobile and crewless in the water.
I felt a sudden desire to see another human being. The city seemed to have been emptied of people; locals and visitors alike had all gone off somewhere, vanished, or fallen into the water, as if Venice had been struck by a plague (as it had been several times in its history).
Imagine how eerie it was on Tolentini. The bustling crowd at the Riva
