One of my favorite things about Venice, Italy, is all of the little alleys. Walking in Venice involves wandering mazes of walled narrow alleys, with glimpses of sky above and doorways and windows on either side. I fell in love with the beautiful doorknobs and knockers.
Such beautiful adornments might seem unnecessary in such dimly lit corridors, but I imagine that they brought the residents as much pleasure as they did me.
Time had impacted some of the hardware, with pieces broken and modern locks replacing older ones. The charm of these lovely lions remains.
This lion’s snout shown brightly in the darkness. I think that a lot of people touched it for good luck.
I love the contrast between the shiny part of the doorknob held by warm hands to open a door and the darker part that isn’t touched.
Even a relatively simple doorknob was so attractive.
And the detail and variety of hardware seem like a lost art.
We loved “shortcuts” through the alleys, although they weren’t always so short. We got lost often. Sometimes GPS on our phones didn’t work and we’d follow its directions only to come to a dead end at a canal, at which point we backtracked to an intersection of alleys and would try another route.
But we wouldn’t be lost for long. Venice is an island after all.
We’d squeeze by people hurrying along their way, sometimes offering a “Buongiorno!”
The alleys were so narrow that when I wanted to take a photo of yet another doorknob, I’d have to wait until people behind us had passed, so that I didn’t hold up traffic.
I’ll share more Venetian hardware in the future. I have plenty of images.
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- Favorite Things, Front Door Sunbursts