Travel Journal - Venice, Italy
I don't know why some places seem to call to me more than others, but I have been dreaming of going to Venice for as long as I can remember. It's not that I had any specific reason or specific connection to the city, but for many years when Lou and I dreamt of places we'd like to visit in our lifetime Venice was always at the top of the list. And the other week we finally got to make that dream a reality and I'm so happy that we brought the camera along to film, so we can go back and re-live these memories whenever we'd like. And I hope that you enjoy the adventure too :)
It was such a beautiful day exploring Venice, browsing bookshops, relaxing at museum cafes, watching the boats go by, meeting a mask maker, and so much more. I tried to take all the little moments of the day and transform them into this entry in my travel journal. I loved the book of black and white photographs of Venice that Lou found and tried to incorporate more collage in this entry. I am definitely going to keep using images from this book even in future entries not about Venice because the photography is so beautiful.
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It's funny how the biggest take away I had from our day exploring Venice was the beauty of not having any expectations. Doing very little research with our main prep being finding a day that wasn't raining in the weather forecast, Lou and I had our favorite day exploring a city so far of our entire van life experience. We didn't rush around all day, but still had plenty of charming activities from riding the ferry in the morning to admiring paintings in the Guggenheim, or just sitting on the side of the canal and bask in the sunshine. And then because the day was so magical when I then got to my travel journal I could feel this sense of internal pressure to make the entry live up to these memories. I wanted it to be special, carefree, and colorful. And just as quickly as I had learned this lesson of letting go of expectations, I forgot it and got in my head about making something impressive. Luckily for me, travel journaling is really forgiving so I was able to work through all the hiccups in the spread by being patient and continuing to layer more and more into the collage. I am actually really happy with how it all turned out and will definitely keep trying to go into all experiences whether travel or art related with an open mind and the least amount of pressure I can because I just love the joy that comes with spontaneity.