The Perfect Sunday
It was the perfect Sunday. Up early - an adventure in the morning. We stepped off a secret dock - like platform 9 ¾ at Kings Cross - but this was at San Zaccaria. We were looking for the Vaporetto 20. Platform B. But a side gate which is rarely opened.
We left Venice and 15 minutes later arrived in an Armenian outpost - Սուրբ Ղազար, Surb Ghaza - San Lazzaro degli Armeni.
This tiny island once a leper colony in the Venetian Lagoon has been home to the Mekhitarists monastery- an Armenian Catholic congregation since 1717. We step off the boat and the monks scatter like scarafaggio, disappearing into the walls. The smell of bread floats from the kitchen. My stomach grumbles.
The grounds are well manicured. Agave grows amidst the famous roses. Rumors have it the monks eat rose jam for breakfast every morning. They bottle it and sell 5000 jars a year.
I find myself as enchanted by the locale as once was Lord Byron when he worked here in the library. The library is a wunderkammer of delights from centuries BC, an Egyptian sarcophagus lies ay rest in one room, scroll after scroll of papyrus unfolds. Once this island - 3 hectares (7.4 acres big) housed one of the of the most important printing presses in the world.
Illuminations enlighten.
Byron was a poet, you would expect him to be enchanted - but even Napoleon fell under its spell. His sword swathed through the Venetian Republic and he abolished all monastic orders of the Kingdom of Italy except that of the Mekhitarists.
Here he declared an academy.
Leaving the monastery we were served the local rose juice, not cloyingly sweet or overly perfumed as I expected but fresh like elderflower water. Once home I opened a bottle of over chilled sparkling rosé wine, and watched as a friend made me lunch in my kitchen. Greek salad, a base of red peppers, cucumbers sliced in long slow strokes as the skin unraveled like the peel of an orange. A nap in the heat of the afternoon. Lingering under cool covers. A perfect Sunday afternoon.
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