There is not much profit in standing around in church for half an hour despising a succession of strangers who encroach upon your space. So before attempting to hear Mass at St Mark’s in Venice, it is absolutely necessary to set yourself not to mind the interruptions.
The tourists (always them, never us, of course) walk their course between iron barriers, like cattle on the way to auction. The wear of their feet is diminished by spongy mats, the dry smell from which mingles with the canal-water smell as the tide wells up in the narthex.
Like visitors to the Louvre spending three minutes in front of the Mona Lisa, these tourists have spent a lot of money reaching Venice, and perhaps more eating here, but they simply cannot stay still and see what lies about them. Even if a wife sits down on a bench, her husband soon comes to move her on after a minute or two.
Yet in January it is easy to walk...