Here’s the title of your post: “An Offer I Couldn’t Refuse.”Set a timer for ten minutes, and write it. Go!
The Chamber Choir of Pamplona had a concert in Venice in 1994. I was a reporter in the local newspaper with years of experience writing about culture and music and had been followed the highlights of the choir, so they invited me to go with them to write the reportage about the trip and the concert. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I’d never been in Venice.
I remember that when we arrived I had a terrible migraine. But I was not ready to stay in bed and spoil my time in the city. So I got up and went out of my little room and ventured alone, while the others were rehearsing, through the narrow streets and the channels. We had some planned visits to the touristic places as St. Mark and the Ducal Palace so I decided to go to see some exhibitions. They had portraits by Titian, and Tintoretto.
I liked a lot an exhibition of the original wooden models of the renaissance buildings made by the architects like Michelangelo and Bernini. The exhibition was presided by a huge model of the Vatican. With each model there was a history of the building, planes, paintings of the architects presenting the models to the Maecenas or the Pope of the time, and so on. Really interesting.
My migraine worsened and the night of the concert I was so sick they had to help me walk all the way back from the church where the concert (a success by the way) took place, to the hotel.
But I had been able to visit the city, attend the concert and visit the exhibitions I wanted to see. what else could I ask?.
