Time to get back to man-made structures – and also time to don some pink glasses to persuade ourselves the world is not all dark and grey….. this week I am rummaging through the archives for poles of all sorts. Fence posts, telephone and utility poles, barber poles, you get the idea.

 

We start with the pink of Venice, found in its lamp posts, in its pilings, in rain spouts (a kind of post, sort of….)

Venice was the first European city to provide public street lighting. Doge Domenico Michiel decreed in 1128 that every night small lamps would be lit at shrines, gondola stops and intersections around the city at state expense in order to improve public safety and combat night time crime. The pink glass you see now in most of the Venetian street lights was originally more of an amethyst color, the natural color of the glass produced at Murano.

Pink has clearly become a preferential color, complimented by azur skies, or grey clouds, depending on the season.

Cheerful, in any case, as long as you don’t think about Venice’s ultimate fate….as already described some 20 years ago

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/bickering-while-venice-sinks-1316639.html