Page 7 of Gelato at the Villa (Suitcase Sisters #2)

Chi si somiglia si piglia.

Whoever is similar gets along.

Italian saying

Paulina concluded our tour of the Frari by leading us past a number of remarkable statues and paintings.

She paused in front of the burial place of Titian, who she said was the greatest painter in sixteenth-century Venice.

I counted nine life-size marble statues at the front of the staggeringly large dimensional relief.

They looked dwarfed by the columns and detailed carvings in the marble behind the statues.

At the top of the great work was a winged lion that was larger than any of the humans represented.

I tried to take it all in, but it was overwhelming in its size and details.

We headed to the center of the wide-open cathedral, where the red brick and white limestone tiles created a pattern across the floor that seemed as much a work of art as the many paintings on the walls.

As I was looking down, admir ing the floor, Claire was looking up at the soaring ceiling above us and the intricately carved wooden beams.

“Is it safe in here?” she asked Paulina, pointing to the support beams. “You said this was built like eight hundred years ago, right?”

“Yes. The beams have provided support for a long time,” Paulina said. “Everything in Venice is always shifting because we’re resting on wooden poles.”

“What do you mean by ‘wooden poles’?” I asked.

Paulina seemed surprised that we didn’t know that Venice was built on millions of logs driven into the marshy lagoon, with layers of wooden platforms laid across the top of the timber.

“The Veneti tribe wanted a place to live where they could defend themselves against invaders,” Paulina said. “That’s why they fortified and expanded the swampy islands to create Venice. They started during the collapse of the Roman Empire in the fifth century.”

It was difficult to grasp the age of everything we’d seen. I especially couldn’t imagine how a city could be built on a colossal stack of logs. How had Venice been able to endure for so many centuries?

“I remember when I first came to Venice,” Paulina said.

“I was continually amazed. Not only because of the abundance of art and the fact that so much gold had been used everywhere. I was caught off guard by how ancient everything is. That applies to the traditions and family lines. They run deeper than you can imagine.”

“Where we live, in California,” Claire said, “if a house is a hundred years old and still standing we think it should be turned into a museum. That’s what they did with Grace’s great-grandparents’ first house.”

“It was actually my great-great-grandparents’ home,” I said. “They were early ranchers and had a large orange grove. I live in an eighty-year-old house my grandparents built on the land.”

“They had a lot of renovations done,” Claire added.

“You said earlier that you’re a project manager for a construction company,” Paulina said to her. “Did you have a hand in the renovations?”

“Yes. Our company did. One of the things I do is hunt down old blueprints. Everyone wants to have walls torn out when they renovate, but the contractors have to know which walls are load bearing. They end up using a lot of support beams. That’s why I was curious about these beams. They’re huge.”

“And they seem to be doing their job,” Paulina said.

We made our way to the tall front doors and stepped outside. The sun was now shining on the campo and had dispersed the early morning shadows. I quickly hunted for my sunglasses while Claire checked her phone.

“Thanks for the tour,” Claire said to Paulina. “We should find a vaporetto dock. The bookstore we want to go to opens soon. Could you get us headed in the right direction?”

Our shepherdess clearly knew every narrow walkway and bridge in this part of Venice. We came out at a dock on the Grand Canal and boarded the vaporetto with several passengers. I wondered if this was a morning commute to work for some of them.

It had been embedded in me to never speak on public transportation because as soon as the people heard us speaking English, they would know we were tourists. My mom had said it put us at a higher risk of being mugged.

Claire didn’t seem to have the same self-conscious qualms about chatting or about being robbed. We hadn’t gone far before she said, “It doesn’t seem possible that this is the same canal we were on last night. It’s gorgeous. Just like I imagined it would be.”

I nodded but kept my thoughts to myself and took in the views.

We could clearly see in all directions. Other boats passed us with room to spare.

The tattered but still grand edifices on both sides of us cast wavy reflections in the calm water.

What stories these once-grand palaces had to tell!

I tried to imagine all the possible tales of wealthy owners and generations of families raised on the other side of the many arched windows that faced the canal.

Leaning close to Claire, I whispered, “For the next book we read together, let’s find one about Venice. Old Venice.”

“We could always read Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice .”

I nodded and glanced around, making sure no one was listening to us.

A gondola appeared from a smaller canal, and I smiled.

The gondolier was wearing the traditional uniform of long, dark pants and a blue-and-white-striped shirt.

He had on a straw hat encircled with a blue ribbon and tails that fluttered down his neck.

He guided his beautiful craft into a dock marked with quintessential red-and-white-striped poles.

The sight was the embodiment of everything I hoped we’d see on the Grand Canal.

The Rialto Bridge came into view, and once again, the real thing eclipsed the many flat images I had studied before our trip.

I wished I was outside the cabin as we approached because it was difficult to see the whole bridge from inside.

I was only catching glimpses of how the morning light had given the marble and stone of the old bridge the gleaming look of a freshly washed face.

If I wasn’t so locked into the way my mother had taught me to not draw attention to myself on the international trips she and I took together, I would have joined the young man who stood at the helm with his camera.

I would have zoomed in to capture the details embedded into the arched sides of the bridge and especially the sculpted face of the lion at the center.

We were at the dock before I realized the moment was gone. I hadn’t even tried to take a picture, and that made me sad. As we disembarked, I told myself that if I was going to get the most out of this once-in-a-lifetime experience, I needed to make a few changes.

“I think we go this way.” Claire started walking before I was able to pull out my phone and look at a map.

Her hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, so following her was like being behind a fluffy blond machete.

I lost track of how many times her hair swished back and forth, slicing a trail for us.

She led us to the renowned bookstore, where a sign out front said “Welcome to the Most Beautiful Bookshop in the World.” At first glance, I wasn’t sure about the accuracy of that statement.

Out front was a table laden with prints and postcards and a large tree that seemed to have sprung up through the well-worn stone pathway.

A wheelbarrow filled with books was positioned next to a rustic-looking painting easel, and a sturdy chair sat vacant, ready for a reader to stop and peruse their choice of the offerings in the wheelbarrow.

It wasn’t necessarily beautiful compared to the sort of intricate art we had been immersed in half an hour earlier, but for two readers like Claire and me, it was enchanting.

We knew there could be a line for this popular destination, which was why we’d wanted to arrive at the start of their business day. Our plan worked. The door was open, and inside only a few people were browsing in the narrow spaces between the exuberance of books. And I do mean exuberance.

Books were double stacked on the shelves in every direction. They were brimming over the top of an old barrel and filled a porcelain bathtub to the brim. In the center of the main room was a weathered black gondola bursting with picture books in several languages, all facing out.

“I could spend the whole day here,” Claire said. She already had two books in her hands. One was a hardback vintage tour book of Venice. She turned the spine of the other book so I could see what she had found. The title was in Italian.

“What’s it about?” I asked.

“I have no idea, but I love the binding. Look at the gold letters on the cover. I wish they still made books like this. Little works of art.”

“We’ll have to ask Paulina,” I said. “And by the way, thanks for going along with the unexpected visit to the church this morning.”

“I didn’t mind. Paulina is adorable. I would love to return to her café for cappuccinos again tomorrow morning,” Claire said.

“Me too.”

More people had entered the tight room where we were standing.

Two of them began taking pictures. I wandered to the back and stepped outside, where three people were waiting their turn to take a picture on the clever stairs that were made of hundreds of large hardback books.

What could be done with encyclopedias that had been damaged by the high waters of Venice?

Instead of throwing them out, the owner had created an outdoor stairway against a wall.

Planks of wood covered the books, helping to create secure-looking steps.

Brave climbers could scale the steps to look over the wall and see the canal below.