Dear Readers, I had never been to the cemetery island of San Michele before, but today we decided to make the short hop across the lagoon. The vaporetto was filled with local people making a visit to their deceased loved ones – there’s a vaporetto strike tomorrow, which may have contributed to the crowds, or perhaps the closeness to All Souls on October 31st was also a factor. There is a florist where you can buy flowers for the grave, a coffee dispensing machine, and a map for those who want to seek out the graves of the many famous people buried in Venice.

There was a funeral while we were there – coffins, bedecked with flowers, arrive by boat, often at the back entrance.

The cemetery is a real haven for wildlife, particularly birds, like this jay who was finding something delicious on the trunk of this palm tree.

As you would expect, burial space here is at a premium, and I imagine that strict conditions have to be met before you can be buried here, including a period of residency. There are also strict conditions for being scattered in the lagoon. Many people who do meet the conditions have opted for cremation niches, and I rather liked the ladders scattered about so that you can reach your loved one if you’re on the ‘third floor’.

Lots of famous people are buried here: probably the most famous are Stravinsky, the composer, and Diaghilev, who founded the Ballet Russes.

Visitors to Diaghilev’s grave have left a small mountain of ballet shoes.

I also really wanted to visit Joseph Brodsky’s grave – Brodsky wrote a book about Venice called ‘Watermark’, but he was mainly a poet. I loved this, in particular…

So long had life together been, that once
the snow began to fall, it seemed unending;
that, lest the flakes should make her eyelids wince,
I’d shield them with my hand, and they, pretending
not to believe that cherishing of eyes,
would beat against my palm like butterflies.

— from “Six Years Later”,” Trans. Richard Wilbur

It took a bit of a search, but we eventually found his grave.

I didn’t realise how much I’d been missing green space until I came here, but it was good to sit on a bench and listen to the birds (goldcrest, robin, blackbird, black redstart). And the boat back was filled with Venetians, heading back to the land of the living.