Different things.
We were talking about Italian bars, and whether the concept would work in Melbourne. Could Melbournians be persuaded to take a coffee standing up, help themselves to a croissant, if it were cheaper than being seated. In Italy, coffee at a table costs typically twice a coffee taken at the bar. Could the concept of a slug of espresso, consumed at the bar, work. I don’t think that it would fly – we expect too much service, I think – and yet in Italy we are comfortable with it.

Melbourne likes to think of itself as having a sophisticated coffee culture, annual awards for barrista of the year. Coffee beans selected from those grown on the north side only of a remote valley in Patagonia, picked by workers being paid above average wages who sing special coffee-picking folk songs as they go about their business, etcetera, the full catastrophe.

Italians just want that caffeine slug. If they want more caffeine, they order a second coffee. There’s no concept of small, regular or grande, people rarely do take away, and you don’t see those half a litre paper cups anywhere. Nobody drags a spoon across the café latte to make a cute pattern, or dusts the cappuccino with cocoa. Nope, it’s all about the caffeine, and the bottomless cup is an unknown species here.

Service, or the lack thereof, extends to supermarkets. Weigh your own produce and put the bar coded sticker on it, and everything is sold by weight. The cashier will shovel all your stuff over the code reader, and you pack it yourself after you’ve been growled at for not providing the exact change. It certainly makes it fast, as long as you don’t get behind people who are paying with tickets or vouchers, which formalise the Italian barter system, and provide a convenient means of siphoning off revenue. A woman got a chocolate bar as change when paying with tickets the other night – Billa won’t give cash as change to people paying for their groceries with tickets.

Europe still retains one and two cent coins, which really are pretty useless pieces of copper. Australia dumped them years ago, to the pleasure of just about everyone. If the bill at Billa comes to 51.51 euro, the one cent will be expected – unless you proffer a 50 note, a one euro coin and a fifty cent coin, and in that case you’ll be rewarded for your endeavours by being excused the one cent. If the bill comes to 49.98 euro, you won’t get change from a fifty – thank God. Small change is always short in Italy, and was the case decades ago. I remember in 1975, patrons at markets being given a handful of olives to bring the amount up to a round 500 lire, and when offering a 100 lire note for a fifty lire glass of wine, being given a jetton, a phone token worth 50 lire, as change.

And using said jetton to pay for the next glass.

There’s an awful lot of art in Venice, and a lot of awful art. Ditto for glass. Street art seems to have a single theme – a bridge and a gondola. But we’ve found an artist who really CAN do gondolas, and he’s done a series of gondola paintings – from Giotto to Picasso, and they really grabbed me. http://www.collezioneimpossibile.com/introen.html refers, and it fun. How would Leonardo have painted a gondola? This guy’s thought it through, the result being a little Leonardo series of details, so similar to Leonardo’s sketches for, say, a helicopter. The Van Gogh gondola is painted in typical Van Gogh fashion, Picasso’s gondola is all over the place, ferro to port, multiple oars. Magritte’s gondolas are floating in the air. The one I liked most was the series of three, showing how Mondrian might have interpreted the gondola. I’ve never been able to “get” Mondrian, always seeing his work as a bunch of interesting patterns, primary colours. But seeing this mock-Mondrian has allowed me to maybe see his work in a different light. The gallery is easy to find – walk down the Riva degli Schiavoni, left into Calle del Dose, through Campo Bandiera e Moro, into Salizzada Sant Antonin, and it is on your left, next to a toy shop. (Apropos of nothing, an elephant that escaped from a visiting zoo was shot in the Church of San Antonin, in about 1815.)

This artist, Giorgio Ghidoli, has also painted some great views of ordinary Venetian life. One work that I covet, but can’t afford, shows a traghetto pulling in, probably at San Sofia. There’s a static quality to the work, and at the same time a sense of impending movement, men in overcoats getting ready to alight. I can’t afford the original, but there’s a sketch, a preliminary, that I’m of a mind to buy.

Just around the corner from us, there’s a great photographer, Fabio Bressalano, who’s doing good stuff, and an artist up the way in Calle Lunga, who combines vintage fabrics, Morris and Fortuny, photography and paint to crate interesting works. Not much to my liking, but she has just completed a lovely portrait of a little girl that I’ve enjoyed watching develop, and that painting will be a treasure. And down the street, the other way, another artist whose work we rather enjoy, Davide Battistin. One can enjoy peering through the window, seeing a work develop.

I wonder if that is how it was when say, Tintoretto or Turner, were producing their latest works.

Probably was.

That "Collection Impossible" is really something! I love the Caravaggio, especially.

It's snowing,
It's snowing,
Your cheeks
Are glowing.

Peter: I could read your reports over and over. They are just full of so many things.
Don't blush, but your writing reminds me of Patrick Leigh Fermor (one of the saints of travel writing) as he writes A Time for Gifts, about his walk from Rotterdam to Istanbul in 1934 at the age of 18.... just full of history and ephemora and people and what-not. Delicious.

Hikerchick, bad info, discovered as we strolled around the Frari this morninf. You enter the Frari through the main door in the nave, not the door in the trancept. Poliero is to the left as you face the main door. Check out the leather bound volumes in the window - the tooling on the leather is quite something.

We’re staying in an apartment, and many people have donated guide books when they have left – I’ll be donating a Fodor’s Italy, because it’s too heavy to carry. There’s a Rick Steves Italy book here, which I browsed a little. I was taken by his introduction, describing Italy as a land of emotion, corruption, stray hairs, inflation, traffic jams, body odour, strikes, rallies, holidays, crowded squalor and irate ranters shaking their fists at each other one minute, and strolling arm in arm the next.

Gosh, I thought, I should visit that Italy, it sounds much more vibrant, chaotic and exciting than the Italy that we’re visiting. There’s a little corruption – pay cash, get no recept and a bit of a discount. Strikes are publicised weeks in advance. Rallies seem pretty tame by Australian standards, emotion seems to emanate, in Venice at least, by tourists who are lost. Holidays are as per calendar, easier to interpret than say, Thailand. One man’s crowded squalor, washing strung across the street, is another man’s close functioning community. We’ve not seen any irate ranters.

A few things are different from Australia. We have found that the trains run on time, pretty much to the second. Prices in bars are always posted, showing the difference between bar and table prices. Even Florians explains, quite clearly, that a coffee in San Marco will attract a bunch of extra costs, depending where you drink it and if music is being provided at the time. Public transport works pretty well, and the ferries in Venice are reliable, and operate to a well-publicised timetable. The ticketing system is easy – Melbourne has been trying to implement a similar system for the last ten years and it still does not work. Inflation does not seem to exist – we now are paying 2.10 euro for a coffee and brioche, and we were paying 2.10 two years ago. Food costs no more than in Australia.

Some things are different – the way meat is presented in butchers, for example. I had a mate in Aus who had worked as a butcher. I asked him, how come you never see offal, lambs brains, liver, tripe, whatever, in the butcher’s window. He said that the people who want will ask, and that people who don’t like offal will be put off from even entering the shop, so everything is nicely presented, in serving portion sizes. In Italy, they have big lumps of meat in the window, and your chunk will be cut to order. In Aus, that would never work – maybe Italian cooks are better at dressing and cooking meat that Australians.

Most guide books warn against theft, probably for good reason. Maybe Venice is more law abiding than other places, but you see goods unloaded from a boat, and allowed to sit for a while beside the canal, and they don’t get stolen (although the case of Scotch that I saw seemed to have been double wrapped, to remove temptation). The news vendor has articles all around his kiosk, but in Melbourne, that would be inviting people to take them. The postman leaves his trolley of mail outside a friend’s shop every morning at 10:30 and heads off with the shopkeeper for 20 minutes for a coffee. In Australia, I’m certain that this would breach the regulations for handling Her Majesty’s mail – but here it’s OK, and nobody will steal the mail. In bars, it’s mostly the barman’s job to keep track of what you have consumed, and you pay at the end, a spritz, a tremazzino and a panino, that’ll be 5.50, grazie. In Aus, it’s pay as you go.

So I’m searching for Mr Steves chaotic Italy, but yet to find it.

Good.

"Inflation does not seem to exist – we now are paying 2.10 euro for a coffee and brioche, and we were paying 2.10 two years ago."

An Italian friend explained that even as other food prices have become more inflated since the lira/euro conversion (in some cases doubling in price), coffee prices had to stay the same or there would have been a true revolt.

Ellenem, that would make sense - Italy seems to have a coffee driven economy.

DH and I did see some of the Italy RS described in Roma and Napoli. And we witnessed an amazing argument between a cabbie and a bus driver that stopped traffic and made pedestrians pause.

Italy is what you describe and what RS does too. It can be anything on a given day-just like the U.S.. I am surprised he didn't mentioned grand art and architecture.

Peter, you put it so brilliantly about the bus passes and the two way sense of ownership - I wish I had your gift of expression.

Thank you for mentioning the garden under snow too - I am imagining it and thinking it really must look magical. I expect you will be able to see more of it than we could, as most of the leaves will be off the various trees, creepers etc ? And I take it the flat gets nice and warm ?

I noticed you earlier mentioned the price of wine at Billa and I meant to say - do you also go to the draught wine shop on Calle Lunga ? We thought that was one of the great finds of our last stay - we were paying €2/ltr for Pinot Grigio, €2.20/ltr for a red (forgot what exactly now) and €2.50/ltr for Proscecco and found it all very drinkable and tastier than many examples we've paid 4 or 5 times as much for at home; although we found the Prosecco really needed drinking the same day Going there was another thing that made us feel we almost 'belonged', especially when I got a "bravissima!" from the lady on our second visit when I produced my own empty plastic water bottle.

How nice of you to donate a new shopping trolley ! We used the old one for our initial Billa stocking-up-with-essentials trip, but from the state of it I suspect it may not have been used since you were last there. A wheel fell off on the way back but DH managed to hammer it back on again. After I started going to the farmers' market at home I bought a shopping trolley and although it's a sign of old age here, I love it. Although I think the apartment we're renting next year in Venice (since it sounded like 'yours' wouldn't be available) actually involves no bridges at all on the way to Billa, which seems remarkable.

Keenly looking forward to keeping up with your new reflections and insights.

Thanks, Peter, for the correction. I'll be writing it down for certain! I cannot wait to read more, you really have a way with words!

Caroline, when aqua alta really comes, the trolley parked in the lobby has salt water over its axle. I think it had survived remarkably well. Whether Venice is sinking, or the water rising, I don't know. And I don't know if the Mose barriers will prevent mortality of the next trolley - but one can hope.

Three euro does not go far in Venice – about three espressos, or a couple of cappucini, as long as they don’t come from Florians or Quadri. But three euro will also take you, vie elevator, to the top of the San Giorgio Maggiore campanile, and it’s something of a trip. As you ascend, you can see the ramp that winds its way, Scala Bovolo style, up the inside the campanile. And when you alight at the top, all of Venice is laid out before you.

You can imagine yourself as Doge, surveying your entire domain. It really is quite a view, a change of vista from the cramped streets, and if the day is clear, you can see as far as Torcello in the north east, through to Chioggia in the south west. The Lido looks a stone’s throw away, Sant’ Elena is quite a big land mass. You can identify that campanile that disturbs your sleep; pick the campanile of the San Giorgio dei Greci that looks about to fall.

Yes, three euro for one of the world’s knock out views, and at the same time, you can get a close up look at the mechanism that rings the bells. If you are lucky, there will be no queue, and you’ll have the campanile almost to yourself. When you come down from the campanile, you can view the choir stalls, about eighty seats behind the altar, carved in walnut. The detail in the carvings is remarkable, no two pieces alike, and doubtless some Venetian notables have their faces represented there.

We walked the length of La Guidecca a couple of days ago, pretty cold with the chilly air dumping down off the Dolomites. I don’t think we’d ever appreciated how big Giudecca is, and the Hilton (ex Moline Stucky) is enormous. We walked the deserted streets of Giudecca, and the equally deserted lobbies of the Molino Stucky, strolled over to the Municipal Swimming Pool, closed for the winter. I could imagine that in summer, it is a different scene, but in winter it is quiet.

Christmas is coming. Decorations are strung, shops are offering Christmas stuff, the Chiesa Medallana has about twenty Nativity scenes on display, and they are worth a look. The detail is fun, and the church is one of three, I think, circular churches in Venice. It’s normally not open, but at Christmas entry is available. Billa is offering fireworks, 29.99 euro for a pack about the right size to start World War Three, so the smell of black powder is appearing in the streets. We are seeing things cranking up, more visitors on the streets, and if Billa sells enough of those little arsenals, New Year’s could be pretty noisy.

A couple of unconnected facts:
1. Paolo Sarpi, Venetian philosopher, said, “I never, never, tell a lie. But the truth not to everyone”.
2. We bought a Mondrian-inspired vase that Lou had spotted on her morning run at the Guggenheim gallery shop.

And while buying the vase, I came across a great guidebook to Venice, Thomas Jonglez and Paola Zoffoli’s “Secet Venice” www.jonglezpublishing.com if you are interested, costs 18 euro. The book certainly echoes Sarpi’s comment, demonstrates that there are at least two, often half a dozen, explanations for just about anything in Venice.

For example, the small face in high relief of La Donna Onesta at the Ponte ditto has four explanations, two are too long to transcribe, one is trivial, and one I like. “The name simply comes from …..that of a local prostitute whose rates were so reasonable that they were described as “honest”.” In the book, there is also a detailed explanation of the symbology of Canova’s monument in the Frari, which will cause me to make a return visit, and the reasoning behind an Istrian stone barbican in the Calle de Madonna near Rialto, an official measure of how far a barbican was allowed to protrude from the wall.

It advises that the vegetable market at the women’s prison on Giudecca, open from 9:00 to 10:00, Thursdays, at the Palanca vap stop, is really worth visiting, if only to observe the contest between the grannies of Giudecca as they jostle for the best produce. It sounds as though getting between that shopping trolley and that fresh aubergine could be a dangerous endeavour. The book comments o the Chapel of the Vision of St. Mark “Now used as a storeroom, the chapel is of no particular aesthetic or architectural interest”. However, the chapel does stand on the exact spot where an angel appeared to St Mark, taking into account the caveat “the truth not to everyone”. I think this book will draw me all over Venice yet again.

There are companion volumes, Secret Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Paris and so on. Worth a look, particularly for anyone who is a bit “over” the big ticket sights, like me.

I mentioned that the San Giorgio campanile was pretty good value at three euro, and equally good value is the Rialto market, and it’s free! We went this morning, at about 7:00, so still early morning for the Venetian winter. Sharing the calle with sweepers, early morning dogs, and the first commuters. Coffee and brioche smells coming from bars, a boat with pump and tank pumping out someone’s grease trap, which does not smell so well, but that’s Venice. The Rialto market is a hive of activity, and it is worth forsaking the second “B” of one’s B&B to be there. Fruit and vegetables from all over the lagoon, artichoke discs being cut – a Venetian delicacy, although to my taste they are not all that flash. Butchers arranging their windows, complete with trays of offal and heads of animals, which in Aus would not automatically cause one to enter, ducks, roosters, pullets, turkeys, rabbits, lumps of carne. The horse butcher has a range of equine flesh, but I can’t bring myself to buy it, for no good reason.

I just can’t.

The fish market is like an aquarium. Eels alive in shallow trays, scampi wriggling their legs, razor clams pulsating. A great variety of fish, scallops (a big meal for two costing about 16 euro, and we’ll enjoy them). Fish being filleted, pine boxes of Scottish salmon. It’s a great sight. The fish market looks quite old, and it’s not. Built around 1905, so in Venetian terms it was built more or less yesterday. The stone capitals on the columns are worth a look – heads of fishes, heads of the patron saints of prawning, trawling, long line, oyster farming and shallow water netting.

Peter, I once saw the fruttivendolo on the barge around the corner from your flat "refreshing" the artichoke discs in a bucket of canal water. Didn't fancy them after that.

Thanks for letting us readers share your stay in Venice.

Peter, what a wonderful report. Your humor is so erudite.

We enjoyed Chioggia but we drove there after exploring the Veneto and Padua. We liked its rather rough demeanor and the ease of getting to canals by car rather boat. Nice, though, to know it's relatively easy to get there from Venice. Maybe a day trip sometime. Thanks for that info.

Having been in Venice twice a year apart, did you, like I,detect a decline in vendors at the Rialto market?

I meant a decline in number of vendors, not their quality.

Julie, I think there may be one or two less fish vendors, and certainly fewer fruit vendors. The fruit and veg vendors have dropped out from the area closest to Rialto.

I am not surprised that the San Barnaba fruit vendors would use canal water to refresh artichoke. They are a grumpy pair of blokes. But then, thay are located at the Ponte de Pugni, the Bridge of Fists. Perhaps thay are waiting for a fight to break out.

There it is again, that erudite humor. Thanks. This is such fun to follow.

People often complain that food in Venice is not all that good, and it’s not known as the gastronomic capital of Italy. Maybe Bologna is, and we’ll find out shortly after Christmas.

But there’s no need to eat. You can almost breathe in a meal as you walk around. The smell of fresh brioche, pizza, bread, fish cooking, and the chocolate shop in Calle d’ Campaniel in San Polo near the San Toma vap stop can almost satisfy ones hunger. There are other smells too, sensations that one can only experience on foot, like the smell that emanates from the studio on the corner of Calle Lunga San Barnaba and Calle Sporca d’ Pacienza.

Artist in residence Davide Battistin works in oils, and the smell of linseed and turpentine permeates the street. It must be pretty potent inside his studio, and I do hope he has a fire extinguisher to hand. The fumes don’t seem to affect the quality of his work – fumes that strong would make me paint psychedelic work – but he’s producing some pretty good stuff. I like them.

Another artist has given me the solution to a long standing problem. Lou’s been suggesting, requesting, asking, demanding and finally nagging me to buy No 1, Santa Croce for her. She fancies having a micro-palazzo of her own, and I should just get on with it and purchase the place. The fact that I’d have to win the lottery – twice – to fund the purchase and restoration is not seen as any impediment.

We’ve compromised. Giorgio Ghidoli does good water colour paintings, along with gondolas as Paul Klee, Mondrian, Picasso and Jackson Pollock would have painted them, were they so inclined. I bought a watercolour of the Ponte San’ Antonin, almost the view from his studio, as I like San’ Antonin, the slaughterhouse for the escaped elephant. We asked Giorgio whether he’s painted No 1, Santa Croce, and while he indicated that no, he hadn’t, he’d be happy to produce a watercolour if we could furnish some photos. Too easy.

So I’ll at least buy an image of No 1 for Lou, which will hopefully get her off my back. The painting will be done in a week or two, so she’ll own No 1 before we leave Venice.

And less hassle than negotiating the Venetian Conveyancing Act, Peter. I'm enjoying your trip very much. Thanks for sharing it, and Merry Christmas from home.