Free Gondola Ride

Earlier in the month I wrote a post called Free Vaporetto Dance, all about how lax ACTV is about collecting fares on Venetian water busses.

And now I present you with Free Gondola Ride, a post about a book by San Jose, California based educator and writer Kathleen Ann Gonzalez. In it, Kathleen chronicles a summer she spent researching Venice's gondoliers and their crafts, lore, lifestyles, libido and language. There are excerpts on her site and they are fun to read. Her book can be purchased online from her site, some San Jose area bookstores, or at several librerie in Venice, including my favoritie, the Libreria Toletta in Dorsoduro.

Comments

[Kurt]

I picked it up this summer behind San Marco's this summer and read it on the way home. Kathleen accomplishes as a narrative what you are accomplishing here: making real little slices of Venetian life. She sets up a bit of sexual tension between her and some local gondoliers, painting a picture of them as human beings just like the rest of us.