The bridge named for despair that's now a spot for kisses

Here's the Bridge of Sighs detail that changes the whole mood of the place. It was built around 1600 for one job only: to march prisoners straight from their interrogation in the Doge's Palace into the New Prison next door, with no detour and no reprieve. Through its tiny stone windows, a condemned prisoner got one last glimpse of Venice, the lagoon, the sky, before the cell door closed on them, sometimes for good.

The name itself didn't come from the prisoners or even the Venetians. It arrived two centuries later, courtesy of Lord Byron, who imagined those final sighs of despair and turned them into something almost beautiful. The romanticising didn't stop there. Today the bridge is best known as a spot for lovers, who queue up in gondolas to kiss beneath it at sunset, on the promise that doing so seals a love that lasts forever. Quite a journey, from a passage to doom to a guarantee of romance.

I painted the bridge in watercolour and ink, that pale stone arching over the water. There's a poster with a letter home and a postcard if you'd like one.

Shop the poster here: Bridge of Sighs, Venice · Travel Poster