Four years since my last swimming competition have passed. Back in 2008 at the Pinheiros Esporte Club, I swam slow and worried, in a year mostly remembered for the difficulties of a thesis to be written and a job to be kept. The South American Championships were a nice send off and days later, I hanged my swimsuit in complacency.

‘Once a swimmer, always a swimmer’ they say. Life in Ireland brought me back to the pools, first as leisure, then as a hobby that developed as fast as the times and speed. I mulled the idea of swimming at my first World Masters Championships and this year, I decided to participate.

Cruising over the Alps before landing, the summer looks bright and almost touchable with the hands. The aircraft soars violently over Lake Como and abruptly lands in Bergamo. I bus to Milano Centrale and look at the departure boards on the Brutalist train station dome for ideas. Across the platform, local and bullet trains parade their ‘Formula One-esque’ beauty and whistle goodbye to the largest city in Lombardy. A train catches my attention for its white sleek lines and more importantly, for its destination. I soon see myself finding an empty seat on the Frecciabianca train bound for Venice Santa Lucia. Outside, the train uses a high speed line that cuts through soft round hills and narrow valleys. At Padova, a tall church sentinels the nearby mountains in the hot afternoon and at Verona, the amphitheatre opens up like giant tile shell to the Alps.

The train stops at Mestre and crosses a long causeway. We have now detached ourselves from the continent and entered the entrails of Venice. One of the most romantic cities in the world, and I am here on my own. Venice is like no other city. Its uniqueness lying in its extravagance. An urban landscape that heavily hits for its peculiarity as one sets a foot outside Santa Lucia train station: canals of murky blue water cruised by big and small boats, the messy queues around the vaporetto stations, the thousands of tourists walking around with selfie sticks, the restaurants serving al fresco dining across narrow streets splattered with high tide.

It is a hot day to explore the city once capital of a wealthy empire. On the narrow streets, the air is heavy with must, asbestos and salt water. It is a playground for the imagination, a chance to imagine life in Medieval times, of blacksmiths working alongside traders under dim candlelight.
At Rialto, I feel smothered by the hundreds of Chinese tourists that look from the top like pigeons on an electric cable, their selfie sticks protruding like a forest of pure annoyance, yet I feel refreshed at the largest open space in the city, Piazza San Marco, where an orchestra plays a mellow tango to wealthy patrons. The Campanile, a tall red-bricked tower, act as a beacon in a sea of narrow alleyways, in the afternoon packed with tourists from all over the world.

I walk towards Accademia for a bit of fresh air. A cruise liner is seeing manoeuvring across the archipelago like a walrus turning around its offspring. I take a seat on the steps Santa Maria della Salute and contemplate the sunset across San Marco in peace, calzone and wine in hands.
The vaporetto helps when stamina fades, or simple just because. Just to see the city from the water, underneath the hundreds of tourists at Rialto, pass the Main Canal with its tall waves and down the Lido for dropping off loud and fed up commuters.

A small doorbell opens a heavy wooden door and a series of dark steps leap to the top floor of an old house. I share a room with two Finnish girls and an Australian guy and we agree on al fresco dining under a canopy of fairy lights and roses in one of the many narrow Venetian streets.

Before the sun fully rises, I indulge on a solitary city. Desolated streets only populated by stray cats rummaging through last night’s leftovers. I follow the signs to the train station completely alone, with not even a sign of a selfie stick for miles.
The fast train departs the lagoon and follows a long flat plain of vineyards and vegetable patches all the way to Bologna, where I change trains -avec a nutella croissant and espresso- and follow the Adriatic coast towards Faenza and finally Riccione.

Once the train pulls into the main train station, I follow an array of streets that contour the beach like a neatly adjusted dress. Around me, the landscape of a beach town: apartment blocks for rent, windows shut for months now re-emerging from hibernation, convenience stores selling wine and plastic sandcastle moulds, gelatto stands open out in the hot midday air.
I meet my friends in the main streets and room with one of them. We spend the evening catching up on old swimming rivalry while our fast swim suits hang by the balcony waiting to be worn, for racing like old times’ sake.

At the aquatic centre, thousands of Master athletes roam like headless chickens in between two pools bare exposed to the Adriatic sun. I warm up and stretch my arms after the long trip, change back into flip-flops and shorts, and spend the evening sipping on strawberry gelatto by the deserted and dark beach.