Venice - a sort of trip report
Dec 1st, 2010, 02:33 PM
#41
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Ah - this is so enjoyable Peter!
I am really tempted to take up the Qantas double status credits offer that turned up in my email box yesterday and run off to Venice for all of January - but doubt that will happen.
So - I enjoy reading your thoughts, insights and commentary - and store them away for the time when the running away might just be possible.
I too reflect on the way we walk long distances, use public transport and willingly carry goods from supermarkets and small shops when we are staying in Europe - and yet here I am thinking it is too much trouble to go to the supermarket today because there is some event on and I might not be able to park without waiting ten extra minutes!
I am really tempted to take up the Qantas double status credits offer that turned up in my email box yesterday and run off to Venice for all of January - but doubt that will happen.
So - I enjoy reading your thoughts, insights and commentary - and store them away for the time when the running away might just be possible.
I too reflect on the way we walk long distances, use public transport and willingly carry goods from supermarkets and small shops when we are staying in Europe - and yet here I am thinking it is too much trouble to go to the supermarket today because there is some event on and I might not be able to park without waiting ten extra minutes!
Dec 2nd, 2010, 11:55 AM
#42
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Second of December, and time to rattle the other end of the food chain, the one that’s about fish. So I took myself over to Chioggia yesterday. Chioggia might not be everyone’s cup of chi, but I enjoyed it. It’s pretty easy to get to – ferry to the lido, then the No 11 bus, which travels right down through Malamocco, to Alberoni. The bus drives onto the ferry, which goes to Pellestrina, right to the end, at the Pellestrina Cimetro, and then a ferry takes you to Chioggia. There are two buses that run in tandem, only the first goes onto the ferry at Malamocco, so if you take the trip, then the first bus is a good idea. The whole trip is one and a quarter hours. It’s not that scenic – mostly the road runs beside the sea wall, which, although a pretty amazing feat of engineering, completely blocks any view of the Adriatic. At the start of the journey, the bus goes past the beach at the Lido, countless little beach huts, looking like a rather well organised kraal, but a tad desolate in early December. I can’t help but see the contrast with Australia – we don’t have private beaches, so stake out your little patch of sand with a beach umbrella and a towel. A cooler of beer is a viable addition.
I stayed at Caldin’s Hotel, 55 euro for a room, and the heating was on full blast and most welcome. They don’t do breakfast – I’m a bit over hotel breakfasts in Italy, as they don’t seem to be good value – but the bar around the corner does the regulation cappuccino and brioche for two euro. And I ate at a waterfront trattoria, a plate of fritto misto, with fish, scallops, octopus and calamari, chips and wine for eighteen euro, including service. Good value, in a family run place, the owner’s little girl completing a jig-saw puzzle. Brava!
A couple of bonus things this morning. Watching the fleet get underway and head out – a crowded dock emptying itself in the pre-dawn hours. I remember watching the tuna fleet head out from Eden in southeast Australia years ago. We were sailing up to Sydney for the start of the Hobart race, smashed some rigging, and pulled into Eden for repairs. Anyone who thinks that tuna boats run on diesel fuel oil has got it wrong – the Eden fleet runs on beer, bunkered prior to sailing. Just about every crewman from the fleet was in the pub, and it was insane. Six or eight people at the bar on stools – or they were on stools until a guy strolled along, throwing them backwards in turn, drinks and all. This signalled the publican to appear with his Alsatian dog, barking its head off, to clear the bar. The unfortunate dog was on the receiving end of a couple of jugs of beer, reducing it to a whimpering wreck, particularly when the jugs followed the contents. The publican called ”Last Drinks”, and the fleet sailed.
The Chioggia fleet departed in a more sedate fashion, or maybe it’s the difference between early morning and late night – I like being around morning people, there’s always a sense of quiet. Maybe that’s why they exercise thoroughbred horses in the early hours. So the Chioggia early morning routine is a coffee and maybe a grappa or two to hold off the chill, stroll across the waterfront, let go fore and aft, and head out.
The whole main street of Chioggia is given over to a street market on Thursdays. Mostly clothing, but kitchen utensils, shoes, shopping trolleys, coffee makers, some cheese and sausages, and it is huge. It gives the lie to the oft-held opinion the “Italy is hopelessly organised”. The stalls were all in pre-ordained positions, and most comprised vans with huge, electrically erected, awnings. Park van, use remote control to open and erect awning – I’ve never seen them before. A little aqua alta to promote the sale of rubber boots, but nothing much to speak of. From end to end, the market must be about 500 metres, and there must be some sort of circuit that the market traders follow, from town to town.
There’s the fishing boat canal through Chioggia, and another that runs parallel, the one that features in photos. If you go there right now and expect to see it, you may be disappointed – the lagoon end has been filled in for 100 metres, and there is major work being done to restore the canal. It will be pretty special once it is completed, and there are other works being done there as well. There may be a euro crisis, but these public works still continue, and they are quite something. The hoardings around the construction works are fun – blown up photos from the 1930’s, showing sailing boats in the canal. A few years ago, there was a big stink in Melbourne when the city authorities imported a team of Italian masons to lay stone in Carlton. Melbourne’s apology for Little Italy – “what, don’t we have any decent masons?” (I have it on good authority that a second hand concrete batching plant has been converted in Carlton to make Bolognese sauce. In bulk – it is that bad.) The masons on the job at Chioggia are doing fine work, and it is something I notice all over the place – the care, what one may call love, that goes into so much work here.
The canal runs beside the fish market, a slightly smaller of the Venice market, with dozens of three wheeled motor trucks pulled up close by, with little refrigerated boxes on the back. I’ve been looking all over for razor clams, which we love, and have not seen them yet – maybe they are not in season, or the tide is not right for digging them. But there’s every other sort of marine vertebrate and invertebrate on sale. Including eel. Wich I do not love.
Back across the lagoon this morning, per ferry and bus. No rain, but a heavy mist, fishing huts appearing and vaporising, slight view of the Mose works at the entrances, dodge a Panamanian container ship at the Malomocco entrance, with the ship being in ballast. If it was at full draft, it may well have emulated Pepin’s fleet that was grounded near Malomocco in AD 809.
And to close on two nautical themes, or at least a nautical and a water theme, after all Venice is all about water. The water theme - Guiseppe, who represents the American owner of our apartment, just called by to kindly tell me that the tide tomorrow will be 135 cm at 8:30 tomorrow morning, and that’s the highest yet this year. That will have the sirens wailing at about 5:30 AM.
And the nautical note. There were a couple of naval officers in my favourite bar this evening. They were in full dress, epaulettes, shoes polished to within an inch of their lives, short naval daggers on golden chains, and they put on their long boat cloaks as they left. Talk about cute!
I tell you, if those young ladies served in the Australian Navy, our recruitment problems would disappear tomorrow.
I stayed at Caldin’s Hotel, 55 euro for a room, and the heating was on full blast and most welcome. They don’t do breakfast – I’m a bit over hotel breakfasts in Italy, as they don’t seem to be good value – but the bar around the corner does the regulation cappuccino and brioche for two euro. And I ate at a waterfront trattoria, a plate of fritto misto, with fish, scallops, octopus and calamari, chips and wine for eighteen euro, including service. Good value, in a family run place, the owner’s little girl completing a jig-saw puzzle. Brava!
A couple of bonus things this morning. Watching the fleet get underway and head out – a crowded dock emptying itself in the pre-dawn hours. I remember watching the tuna fleet head out from Eden in southeast Australia years ago. We were sailing up to Sydney for the start of the Hobart race, smashed some rigging, and pulled into Eden for repairs. Anyone who thinks that tuna boats run on diesel fuel oil has got it wrong – the Eden fleet runs on beer, bunkered prior to sailing. Just about every crewman from the fleet was in the pub, and it was insane. Six or eight people at the bar on stools – or they were on stools until a guy strolled along, throwing them backwards in turn, drinks and all. This signalled the publican to appear with his Alsatian dog, barking its head off, to clear the bar. The unfortunate dog was on the receiving end of a couple of jugs of beer, reducing it to a whimpering wreck, particularly when the jugs followed the contents. The publican called ”Last Drinks”, and the fleet sailed.
The Chioggia fleet departed in a more sedate fashion, or maybe it’s the difference between early morning and late night – I like being around morning people, there’s always a sense of quiet. Maybe that’s why they exercise thoroughbred horses in the early hours. So the Chioggia early morning routine is a coffee and maybe a grappa or two to hold off the chill, stroll across the waterfront, let go fore and aft, and head out.
The whole main street of Chioggia is given over to a street market on Thursdays. Mostly clothing, but kitchen utensils, shoes, shopping trolleys, coffee makers, some cheese and sausages, and it is huge. It gives the lie to the oft-held opinion the “Italy is hopelessly organised”. The stalls were all in pre-ordained positions, and most comprised vans with huge, electrically erected, awnings. Park van, use remote control to open and erect awning – I’ve never seen them before. A little aqua alta to promote the sale of rubber boots, but nothing much to speak of. From end to end, the market must be about 500 metres, and there must be some sort of circuit that the market traders follow, from town to town.
There’s the fishing boat canal through Chioggia, and another that runs parallel, the one that features in photos. If you go there right now and expect to see it, you may be disappointed – the lagoon end has been filled in for 100 metres, and there is major work being done to restore the canal. It will be pretty special once it is completed, and there are other works being done there as well. There may be a euro crisis, but these public works still continue, and they are quite something. The hoardings around the construction works are fun – blown up photos from the 1930’s, showing sailing boats in the canal. A few years ago, there was a big stink in Melbourne when the city authorities imported a team of Italian masons to lay stone in Carlton. Melbourne’s apology for Little Italy – “what, don’t we have any decent masons?” (I have it on good authority that a second hand concrete batching plant has been converted in Carlton to make Bolognese sauce. In bulk – it is that bad.) The masons on the job at Chioggia are doing fine work, and it is something I notice all over the place – the care, what one may call love, that goes into so much work here.
The canal runs beside the fish market, a slightly smaller of the Venice market, with dozens of three wheeled motor trucks pulled up close by, with little refrigerated boxes on the back. I’ve been looking all over for razor clams, which we love, and have not seen them yet – maybe they are not in season, or the tide is not right for digging them. But there’s every other sort of marine vertebrate and invertebrate on sale. Including eel. Wich I do not love.
Back across the lagoon this morning, per ferry and bus. No rain, but a heavy mist, fishing huts appearing and vaporising, slight view of the Mose works at the entrances, dodge a Panamanian container ship at the Malomocco entrance, with the ship being in ballast. If it was at full draft, it may well have emulated Pepin’s fleet that was grounded near Malomocco in AD 809.
And to close on two nautical themes, or at least a nautical and a water theme, after all Venice is all about water. The water theme - Guiseppe, who represents the American owner of our apartment, just called by to kindly tell me that the tide tomorrow will be 135 cm at 8:30 tomorrow morning, and that’s the highest yet this year. That will have the sirens wailing at about 5:30 AM.
And the nautical note. There were a couple of naval officers in my favourite bar this evening. They were in full dress, epaulettes, shoes polished to within an inch of their lives, short naval daggers on golden chains, and they put on their long boat cloaks as they left. Talk about cute!
I tell you, if those young ladies served in the Australian Navy, our recruitment problems would disappear tomorrow.
Dec 2nd, 2010, 07:53 PM
#45
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Wonderful to read that you are back.
Re the mention of the Venice in Winter article in the NYT, did anyone also see the mention of Watermark by Joseph Brodsky? A prose-poem about Venice. The NYT writer really raved about it. This is all unknown territory for me and I have it on order from Amazon. Anyone read it? Any comments?
Re the mention of the Venice in Winter article in the NYT, did anyone also see the mention of Watermark by Joseph Brodsky? A prose-poem about Venice. The NYT writer really raved about it. This is all unknown territory for me and I have it on order from Amazon. Anyone read it? Any comments?
Dec 2nd, 2010, 07:55 PM
#46
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<i>Liberty!
Fraternity!
Equality!
Dump the Austrians!
Oh stuff it; lets just make it “Gondola”. Everyone knows that.
OK, sounds like a plan.</i>
Too funny, Peter!!!
I am absolutely loving your report and taking notes for my next visit. I love Venice, anyway, but seeing it through your eyes is a quite different (yet, lovely) trip! Grazie!!
Looking forward to more.
Fraternity!
Equality!
Dump the Austrians!
Oh stuff it; lets just make it “Gondola”. Everyone knows that.
OK, sounds like a plan.</i>
Too funny, Peter!!!
I am absolutely loving your report and taking notes for my next visit. I love Venice, anyway, but seeing it through your eyes is a quite different (yet, lovely) trip! Grazie!!
Looking forward to more.
Dec 2nd, 2010, 11:11 PM
#47
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Friday morning, sirens at 5:00 AM, four tones, do, re, mi, fa, meaning the aqua will be, well, alta. As it was, at 8:30 when I headed out, rubber booted. Eight inches of water in our foyer, but the washing machine is well elevated, two inches of water in the local bar, the Ai Artisti, chairs on the tables, but otherwise business as usual, cappuccino e’ brioche, 2.10 euro, which is the same price as it was two years ago. Campo San Barnaba with about six inches of water in it, and the people at the hairdressers all wearing their rubber boots.
Water in the bakery, but the ovens are above the waterline, so baking continues. Sump pumps churning, mostly pumping the water around in a circle, and deliveries not happening too easily, as boats can’t get under the bridges. It’s funny, you don’t hear any conversation about aqua alta, nobody is saying “Well, it’s pretty alta today” – it’s all just part of Venetian life. Closer to San Marco, it must be tricky, as it is lower there – and a few inches makes all the difference, whether the water stays below the Plimsoll line on your boots and you have dry feet – or you founder. A lot of people have thigh length waders, stand around the campo and read the local paper.
Water in the bakery, but the ovens are above the waterline, so baking continues. Sump pumps churning, mostly pumping the water around in a circle, and deliveries not happening too easily, as boats can’t get under the bridges. It’s funny, you don’t hear any conversation about aqua alta, nobody is saying “Well, it’s pretty alta today” – it’s all just part of Venetian life. Closer to San Marco, it must be tricky, as it is lower there – and a few inches makes all the difference, whether the water stays below the Plimsoll line on your boots and you have dry feet – or you founder. A lot of people have thigh length waders, stand around the campo and read the local paper.
Dec 2nd, 2010, 11:24 PM
#48
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I thought the naval officers were men until you mentioned "young ladies." We found the female carabiniere officers in Florence to be equally gorgeously attired, with flowing waist length hair. British police and military personnel seem to follow different dress codes altogether!
Dec 3rd, 2010, 10:10 AM
#50
lot of people have thigh length waders, stand around the campo and read the local paper.>>
sounds like a look that might catch on.
I bought some very cheap and fetching boots for DD when I was in Venice a few years ago. she's been complaining that they have worn out - excuse for another trip?
sounds like a look that might catch on.
I bought some very cheap and fetching boots for DD when I was in Venice a few years ago. she's been complaining that they have worn out - excuse for another trip?
Dec 4th, 2010, 12:11 AM
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The Italian government, like that of the UK, is cutting funding for education, and the local students are not amused. Street demonstrations planned for Rome on the 15th December, and placards advertising the demonstrations are appearing in Venice. We are near a couple of the campuses of the University Foscari, and so we’ve seen a few preliminary rallies. If these are training rallies for the Rome event, then Rome will be pretty tame. Essential equipment for Venice rallies seems to be a packet of smokes, rubber boots, an iPod and a tray of spritzes to go, esporto per favore, in plastic cups.
I took a stroll through the Ghetto yesterday, and it’s pretty quiet. The kiosk was attended by the regulation two guards, and the main hazard for those guys would seem to be boredom. They were keeping themselves amused by playing cards, the aqua alta having reduced the crowds. It’s funny seeing Kosher gelato on sale, and the sign indicating that one does not break the Sabbath by waving one’s hand in front of the press button to open the door to the community centre.
The group of signs, the apology to the Jewish population of Venice and the names of the Venetian Jews who were sent to their deaths in railroad cars can still move me.
I took a stroll through the Ghetto yesterday, and it’s pretty quiet. The kiosk was attended by the regulation two guards, and the main hazard for those guys would seem to be boredom. They were keeping themselves amused by playing cards, the aqua alta having reduced the crowds. It’s funny seeing Kosher gelato on sale, and the sign indicating that one does not break the Sabbath by waving one’s hand in front of the press button to open the door to the community centre.
The group of signs, the apology to the Jewish population of Venice and the names of the Venetian Jews who were sent to their deaths in railroad cars can still move me.
Dec 4th, 2010, 03:06 AM
#54
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Dear Used To Be Our Master and Mistress
We have captured your house sitter, and she is safe for the time being.
Leave 4 tins of sardines and a can opener in a brown paper bag .. we'll tell you where the drop off point is when we work out how to phone you.
Oh, and leave 1 million euro, in used notes, also.
Signed: The Cats
PS Don't call the police.
We have captured your house sitter, and she is safe for the time being.
Leave 4 tins of sardines and a can opener in a brown paper bag .. we'll tell you where the drop off point is when we work out how to phone you.
Oh, and leave 1 million euro, in used notes, also.
Signed: The Cats
PS Don't call the police.
Dec 4th, 2010, 07:28 AM
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I suppose that when you return to a place, you can have the expectation that things will be the same, and certainly the geography of Venice is pretty static. In 2009, I had written, “Two years ago we were here, bought paper products from Legatoria Polliero, and forgot both the name and location of the shop. Paolo, a gentleman of about 70, has been making paper products seemingly forever, and by the look of his shop, his great great grandfather occupied the same premises, probably refusing service to Austrian invaders. There’s still no service as such, and Paolo gets on with his business while you browse his shop. You can stand in a corner and watch a volume being bound in leather, marbled end papers being applied, and the cut leaves being polished with graphite and an agate rubbing stone. It is very special to watch a master craftsman in action.
And then connection is made, and he is the most lovely person imaginable, the apparent mask of indifference hiding a person of great courtesy. I picked up a photo of him with his grandson, and he explained that while he has no English, his son has some, and his grandson, now eight years old, is fluent, like a bird, “e somigliare il uccello”. I envy his grandson, being bi-lingual. As we made purchases, he was at pains to explain “non fabbrica, artisan”, and he cut the wrapping paper on a guillotine. The fine objects that he makes and sells are certainly not factory produced, and he’s an artisan. Shopping like that is more than buying stuff – there’s a little relationship being started as well. ”
We returned today, and I sighted a card recording his death. He died in January of this year, and so a tiny connection for us has been lost. He was born in 1930, and so would have gone through some pretty tough times in post-war Italy, and was aged just eighty when he died.
We will miss him. The expectation that things won’t change is unrealistic after all.
And then connection is made, and he is the most lovely person imaginable, the apparent mask of indifference hiding a person of great courtesy. I picked up a photo of him with his grandson, and he explained that while he has no English, his son has some, and his grandson, now eight years old, is fluent, like a bird, “e somigliare il uccello”. I envy his grandson, being bi-lingual. As we made purchases, he was at pains to explain “non fabbrica, artisan”, and he cut the wrapping paper on a guillotine. The fine objects that he makes and sells are certainly not factory produced, and he’s an artisan. Shopping like that is more than buying stuff – there’s a little relationship being started as well. ”
We returned today, and I sighted a card recording his death. He died in January of this year, and so a tiny connection for us has been lost. He was born in 1930, and so would have gone through some pretty tough times in post-war Italy, and was aged just eighty when he died.
We will miss him. The expectation that things won’t change is unrealistic after all.
