It was something of a milestone event for me; I felt the need to make a statement to mark my 50th birthday. I travelled alone, making fairly last-minute arrangements for both flights and accommodation, flying via Schiphol to Venice. I allowed a four-day visit, time to settle and explore the city at leisure with plenty of leeway for people watching and following intuition. I stayed in a B&B overlooking a small piazza in the heart of the labyrinth of streets between the main bus station and the Rialto, two landmarks that would give me reliable bearings. Practicalities sorted, the journey was very much a pilgrimage towards Self; a journey through the maze-like medieval streets like neural pathways through a huge brain. The city, like the human brain, has two ‘hemispheres’, separated by the grand canal and traversed by small ferry-boats and of course the Rialto bridge – a metaphorical corpus callosum to provide connection, communication, between the two sides. My meditation and channelling would provide direction for my meanderings through the city, following the flow of energy. My host, a Venetian and a house-husband, was intrigued by my meditative approach – he’d seen my reading material and was curious. On a visit to the Gallerie dell’Accademia, where Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man sketch is housed (though not on display during my visit), I overdosed on renaissance masterpieces packed full of symbolism and meaning which conveyed so much more than just an artist’s appreciation of the subject. I overheard one eager matriarch lecturing her young charge on the merits of the paintings – delivered monotone from a guidebook. She then warned him that at the end of their visit she would want to know his favourite painting…and why. Chilling, and a reminder of some of the worse elements of my school years.