René Seindal

David H. Johnston of the Paddling Instructor blog have published an interview with me in the series “I Want Your Outdoor Job” series on the blog. I’m deeply honoured.

via I Want Your Outdoor Job: René Seindal, Owner of Venice Kayak | paddlinginstructor.com.

In the five years I’ve lived in Venice, I haven’t had any one home for long. It’s been a lot of moving around, and basically camping out in the various places, hauling along a bare minimum of stuff to reduce the burden of the next move. Every time I thought I had found some kind of stability, something happened to mess up my plans.

I have lived for periods in a tent on a camp site, with a friend on the mainland, in a shared room in an apartment in Venice, in a small apartment on the Lido where the rain came in through the outer walls, and in a shared apartment where my flatmate suddenly left for whatever reasons, and left me with a double rent for the remainder of the contract duration.

A home is a basic thing in life, and living for prolonged periods without the stability and certainty of knowing where you’ll sleep the next night, or next week, or next month,  can be very burdensome.

I have now, however, found a place I believe will be a home for the next years to come. At the very least I’ve signed a contract for a place I like, in a fantastic location, for a rent I can pay.

The location is in the centre of Venice, on the Campo S.S. Giovanni e Paolo (shown in panorama above), which is one of the major squares in Venice, and one of the most beautiful too, in my opinion.

The apartment is small, but on the third and top floor, accessed from a courtyard on the main campo, with windows on an internal courtyard. That means light, air and little noise, all properties that are very hard to find in Venice, at least at an affordable price.

The previous place I lived was on the first floor, windows on a calle about 1 metre wide, where drunk tourists often roamed up and down, howling as they fought to find their way around the labyrinth of the calle, rughe and salizade of central Venice.

None of that here, though. The only noises in my new home are the nearby church bells a few hours a day, and my landlady across the courtyard singing along with the radio or trying to get her kids to do their homework.

The building itself is old, even by Venetian standards. It originates in the 14th century, and was originally the embassy and hostel for tradesmen from Brescia, hence the name Bressana of both the front courtyard and the adjacent calle.

(this painting is from the mid 18th century – little has changed)

Most important, I have a contract for at least two years, and extendible to four years.

Its good to have a home.

Between this and that it was late January before we got the kayaks out on the canals of Venice. It was before the cold set in, so there was no snow or ice on the canals. We had much of the city to ourselves, as most other boat people in Venice are having a slow period in January.

I’m not quite sure what to think about this, but I’m fairly confident a lot of Venetian rowers wouldn’t like the way these gondolas are punted rather than rowed.

http://www.gondolagreg.com/2011/12/more-gondolas-in-egypt.html

Unless you’re in the police

The entrance of the Arsenale is across a small bridge over a narrow canal. Officially the canal is closed to traffic, if not for any other reason that it is too narrow and the bridge too low for most boats.

Most of the navy people guarding the entrance don’t mind our passing under the bridge, but every once in a while some particularly obnoxious official will claim that the area under bridge is military even if the canal is clearly public and well outside the marked military area.

Still haven’t seen a crab in uniform under there, and they’re plentiful, so I don’t believe the annoyed officials and pass anyway.

The entrance of the Arsenale (the navy docks) in Venice is guarded by two huge lion statues, the most beautiful and majestic animal statues I have ever seen.

Ambulance speeding down the Canal Grande – whenever you here a siren there you better move out of the way.

We later saw the ambulance at Campo San Barnaba, where they picked up a little boy who was hurt, but not more than he could walk on board the ambulance and there was no siren on their return.

There’s a speed limit of 5km/h in Venice, for all private motorized vessels.

This seems to have missed that memo, though.

A few photos from a 6am paddle yesterday morning.