Spring in Venice comes early and you can notice its first signs by mid-February. It’s not just the narcissi and primrose plants you see pop up in the fiorerie (flower stores) and on the balconies, it’s the season of mimosa blossoming (take a look at mimosa pictures in Venice in this blog article).
March and April bring on unstable weather in the first six weeks, with bouts of rain and even nightly thunderstorms transporting a moist and warm breeze from the South Western Mediterranean. What we consider unpredictable is a boon to our plants, and they really get greener every day! One morning you open your windows and get the view I did in the title picture of this blog post. The light takes on a special sparking quality and makes you want to eat breakfast on the terrace overlooking Rio di San Provolo … but it was a little too chilly at 8:00 am :-)
It’s also tempting to drink your coffee with torta greca in the blazing sun light, so bright and hot and blinding like on a fine day in June !
Would you like to join me for my favorite breakfast walk in this luminous spring season ? Click here to read “My Venice” !
So there are those bright days in April but there’s also a very stormy version of spring in Venice. As you can see below, even bad weather can be very striking and colorful. April is one of the most colorful months of the year just as October is, which we call the month of Canaletto colors (read more about Canaletto colors here). You can best witness the stormy season out in the Lagoon and I’ll take you to Torcello for this purpose. For now is the time of the snowy-white tamarisk to blossom.
You may have noticed that the main canal crossing Torcello and leading straight to Locanda Cipriani is lined with tamarisk shrubs that blossom pink in spring. But there’s also a fluffy white tamarisk variety growing opposite Locanda Cipriani’ s. They are sooo beautiful and always catch my eyes when I visit Torcello in April.
The weather used to get more stable and summer-like by 25 April. My grandmother used to call that day “the turning point” with spring turning into stable and quiet summer weather. That is, temperatures were constantly above 25 degrees Celsius during the day. It seems that this has changed for Venice seemed to get more rain and unstable weather in the last five years or so.
And it’s around mid-April when a sweet scent is beckoning while you are going for a walk in Venice. It’s wisteria coming into bloom. This one is grows in a garden along the narrow calle (Calle dei Morti) leading into Campo della Bragora.
That’s where we will continue, taking you on a wisteria walk through Venice in our next blog post !
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