Now what more can honeymooners ask?
For it is chiefly for honeymooners that this is done, since Venetians do not spend money to sit in stationary boats.

These concerts are popular, but they are too self-conscious.

Moreover, the songs are from all countries, even America; whereas purely Venetian, or at any rate Italian, operatic music should, I think, be given.

The stray snatches of song which one hears at night from the hotel window; gondoliers trolling out folk choruses; the notes of a distant mandolin, brought down on the water--these make the true music of Venice.
But just as the motor-launch has invaded the lagoon, so has other machinery forced its way into this city--peculiarly the one place in the world which ought to have been meticulously safeguarded against every mechanical invention.

When I was living near S.Sebastiano, on my way home at night the gondolier used to take me up the Grand Canal as far as the Foscari lantern and then to the left.