Yesterday, on a whim, and in order to do vasuli of our day-long ferry tickets, my partner and I decided to take the Vaporetto from San Marco to San Lazaro, an island in the Venetian lagoon. We had read about a monastery there and, although we hadn’t booked our place in the guided tour, thought we’d wing it. We had time to kill. Plus, it was an Italian national holiday, which meant the city of Venice would possibly be overrun by day tourists. It was a good call.

We were among four people on the ferry. It was around 2.45 pm. We were still reeling from the unexpectedly spectacular view from the bell tower of San Giorgio Maggiore. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t been urged by anyone to have made this visit before. I had been eyeing this island ever since I set foot in Venice in 2018, but I hadn’t felt persuaded to explore it, especially given how much sightseeing there always is to do. Then again, I wonder if there is such a thing as mystical timing when one thinks about the series of alignments that lead you to a place, and sometimes even steers the logic of who you happen to be with when you finally encounter something, and you feel sure you were meant to be exactly there, at exactly that time.