....after checking the San Marco webcam, decided to stay in - way too many people. However, I went to our rooftop terrace to watch the firework displays just before 12:15.

After reading your report, I am glad I didn't go. I read somewhere that soft music was going to be played at the piazza. Guess not.......

Lou often goes running in Venice. Campo San Barnaba / Rialto / San Marco and back via Acedemeia if it’s early and not too crowded, otherwise the Zattere, and back via the streets around the Guggenheim. Sometimes the greeting from others is Bravo, Bon giorno, or Ciao Bella (she likes that). Yesterday’s greeting, from a rubbish collector watching her approach on the Zattere was different – speaking in mime, but with words including “troppo troppo torte Natala”, gave her to infer “You’ve eaten too much Christmas cake”.

My lips are sealed.

It’s not a good idea to start a revolution in Venice. Don’t even think about starting one. Bajamonte Tiepolo tried it on 15th June 1310 and got himself into all sorts of trouble. Venetians are, I believe, great gossips and so word of Tiepolo’s revolution spread faster than his revolution. A little pitched battle the Piazza, and then Tiepolo plus followers retreated towards Rialto, via the Merceria. A woman dropped a heavy mortar on the rabble, killing Tiepolo’s standard bearer, and the revolution failed. She was rewarded by having the rent on her house fixed, and being allowed to hang the banner of Saint Mark from her balcony on June 15th, and all public holidays. There’s a statue of said woman erected in 1861, at Mercerie, San Marco 50. Tiepolo was lucky – he was exiled to Istria, and the Ponte Rialto went up in smoke as part of the “troubles”.

There’s a little follow up to this – Tiepolo lived at what is now Campo San Agostino in San Polo, and his house was razed to the ground as part of his punishment. A column recording this used to stand on the site, and was subsequently taken to a villa on Lake Como, but was returned to Venice by the last owner of the villa, Duchess Josephine Melzi-d’Eril Barbo. The column is now in the collection in the Ducal palace, but a tablet, with somewhat cryptic inscription, marks the spot, at 2304B, San Polo.

On the base of the flagpole in Campo San Luca are the arms of the fraternities that helped defeat Tiepolo – The Confraternity of Charity and the Guild of Painters.

Just up the way at San Polo 2311, Rio Tera Secondo, a tablet marks the site of Aldo Manuzio’s print shop. He lived from 1449 to 1515, and he opened his print shop in 1494. Gutenberg invented moveably type around 1440, and the first authorisation for a print shop was given to Giovanni da Spina in 1468, who printed the first book in Venice, the Letters of Cicero. It didn’t take long for moveable type to catch on, and there must have been an explosion in literature at that time.

Manuzio is credited with the invention of the Italic font in 1510 – devised so that more letters can be placed in a space, a brilliant invention. I’d never before associated “italic” and “Italy”, so there you go.

Venice is just full of these details – when San Marco and the Ducal Palace are jam packed with people as they are now, they are worth going in search of. I discovered the indoor bowling alley and community gardens in Dorsoduro the other day, and I’ve learned that Mark is the patron saint of shoe makers, after miraculously curing a cobbler, one Anianus, in Alexandria who had injured himself while repairing St Mark’s shoes in AD42. The statue (1446) recording the incident is in Campo San Toma, facing the church.

New Year’s Eve, the 31st December, we almost spent a day in the country, via Burano. The vaporetto trip to Burano is pretty ho-hum, except that just before you reach Mazzorbo you pass an island to starboard. It containd a ruined warehouse, that was a powder magazine before unfortunaltely blowing up.

Mazzorbo was a big town (Mazzorbo = Major Urbis in Latin = Big Town) but it is pretty quiet now, and the trattoria by the Mazzorbo vaporetto stop was closed when we alighted. From Mazzorbo, it’s a ten minute stroll across the bridge to the lace vendors and hard sell of Burano.

Legend has it (but it’s a bit of a Paolo Sarpi “truth not to everyone” kind of legend”) that the Burano houses were painted bright colours to enable easy homecoming for fisher-folk on the lagoon. Even land locked houses in the middle of a campo, were brightly painted, and I don’t believe that those fisher-folk on foot would have been so navigationally challenged as to need those colours. “Yep, my place is easy to find, it’s the blue one in the campo.”

An alternative explanation. During the Middle Ages, houses infected with plague were disinfected with white quicklime, whilst houses that escaped the plague were painted in bright colours. It makes sense, a kind of ego trip. “We’ve been spared, here’s the paint to prove it. We must be really pious, way more pious than those wicked people at number sixty seven, whose house is now painted a drab off-white.”

The house that belonged to Guiseppe Toselli, better known as Bepi Sua (Sweaty Bepi) is worth a look, in Via Al Gottolo, number 339, Burano. Bepi was born on Burano in 1920, painted his house in all the colours of the rainbow, sold sweets, a film lover, and worked as a projectionist at the Cinema Falvin in the ‘40’s. When the cinema closed down, he inherited the projector, and would show films in front of his house, which would have been a most intimate venue – it’s tiny. His other passion was painting, and his house shows it. When he died in 2002, the new owner restored the house, maintaining Bepi’s colour scheme. http://www.casabepi.it/ for some photos and explanation, which are fun. We liked discovering it.

Also on Burano, away from the Lace vendors (Burano/Beijing guaranteed) is the Casa del Professore, the house of Remigio Barbaro, known to locals as Il Professore. He was an insatiable collector, and the house shows it. Via Terranova 79, in the backblocks of Burano, to see a most unusual house (and not painted at all). The statue by the vaporetto stop, of a young woman, is by Barbaro, the statue entitled “Waiting for Peace”.

Traghetto (diesel powered) over to Torcello, and the vap steams along the canal like the African Queen, sans Bogart and Hepburn, charming however. Torcello really is country, despite Cipriani’s manicured lawns and well-ordered rose and herb gardens. We walked out past the church, crossed the canal, and were in the country, on the edge of the lagoon. Cold, cold enough for ice to be forming on the edges of the canal, and for frost to be on the roof of the church all day. Wooden piles being sunk to support the banks of the canal, work that continues all over the lagoon, but maybe a bit late for Torcello.

Torcello, once home to many thousands of people, now home to about thirty souls. It can make you think a little.

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!


A funny conjunction today. I was wandering along the portico of the Doge’s Palace, taking a detailed look at the capitals of the columns, which spell out the Seven Deadly Sins, signs of the Zodiac, the seasons, and a heap of other details. A couple of kids had A4 pages in their hands, writing down the names of the fruits and vegetables on a column facing the Piazzeta, following a treasure hunt.

I wrote that treasure hunt and posted it on Fodors two years ago. I must confess that I took some pleasure in being able to contribute to their Venetian pleasure.

Small world!

ref the colours of the houses on Burano, there is a tradition in the uK [and for all i know, elsewhere] of painting seaside houses in bright colours.

for example in Appledore [the north Devon one, where the shipyard is,] almost every house is painted a different bright colour [my preference is for a particular bright blue we christened Appledore blue].

and on a recent visit to Aberaeron, a fishing town on the mid wales coast, we found the same thing.

but I have no idea why these places should have adopted this habit - like you I doubt that it's got much to do with fishermen's homecomings.

BTW, how nice to see your treasure hunt being put to such good use. did you not feel an urge to go over and claim it as yours?

Amazing, amazing descriptions, Peter. Loved seeing the google map birds-eye view of your secret garden, which theoretically (i.e if you know where you're going!) is only 5 min walk from our b and b . (Also if you see this, elenem, thank you for link to other gardens.)
Happy New Year!!

Re: Lou running, and the remarks. "Yesterday’s greeting, from a rubbish collector watching her approach on the Zattere was different – speaking in mime, but with words including “troppo troppo torte Natala”, gave her to infer “You’ve eaten too much Christmas cake”."

I reckon he was meaning "Mamma mia. Che bella figura!"

Monday January 3rd, and the Christmas hordes have mostly moved on. It’s been busy these last days, a lot of people crowding the streets, fleets of half a dozen gondolas parading with piano accordion accompaniment. It must be unbearable in June, with many more people and hot weather.

Napoleon Bonaparte “invaded” Venice in April 1797, when a French frigate sailed through the Porto de Lido and entered the lagoon – and no other ship had dared such a venture since about 1300. At least it would not have interfered with Carnivale, and some one hundred and thirty six casinos did a brisk trade in the city at that time, as did a great many courtesans. It would have been like invading, say, Las Vegas. The Venetian Guild of Hairdressers claimed over eight hundred members – and this in a population of about 120 thousand.

The ship was duly boarded, looted, and the commander killed. Good enough reason for Napoleon to go to war, so he did. It must have been like having a boxing match with a feather mattress. Doge Manin relinquished his office; the horses from St Marks were trucked out along with other works of art. The thing that is interesting is that the Napoleonic era ushered in some significant civic improvements.

Napoleon was a good administrator (although making war outside Moscow in the dead of winter comes to mind as a contradiction), so hospitals were built, a few churches demolished, the Via Garibaldi created – maybe as a convenient means of moving troops to quell unruly ex-Arsenal workers in east Castello.

We (i.e. visitors like me) see Venice as a static place, a bunch of buildings on a set of islands, connected by bridges. When you go looking though, there are all sorts of traces of things that have gone, churches demolished, canals filled in, Rio Terra Antonio Fosca replacing the Rio Antonio Fosca and so on. In San Marco, just outside the entry to the Correr Museum, is a plaque noting the demolition of the Church of San Geminiano, demolished in 1807. And outside Florians, there’s a plaque noting the demolition of the first church of Saints Geminiano and Menas. That church had been built in the 6th century, and the wrecking ball went through it in the 13th.

Campo Manin was created by “losing” a church – it was put up for auction but, failing to find a bid, was torn down. The church of Santa Croce was demolished, and all that remains to mark the spot is a column embedded in the wall of Fondamenta del Monastero, but at least the Giardino Papadopoli resulted. A Palladian church yielded to the railway station.

Napoleon “gave” Venice to the Austrians, after taking souvenirs for himself, appropriate for the King of Italy, as he so proclaimed himself. Souvenirs like a fleet of galleys, that were thumped in battle by Nelson, and paintings that made their way to Paris, and of course the horses (which were war booty anyway, taken by Venetians from Constantinople).

Austrian rule followed, and over the door of San Marco 2945, the Venetian Institute of Arts and Letters, in Campo san Stefano, remains the only trace of the Austrians that I’ve seen in Venice (other than the sites of demolished buildings). The inscription over the door reads “K.K. STADSUNDFESTUNGS COMMANDO”. I failed German at school – I recollect my school report noted “Has not worked at all in German”, so I can’t offer a translation.

Maybe Venice can be regarded as a gallery of long standing, with works on display that change over time. I’m so enjoying exploring the changing exhibits.

This is so wonderful. I wish Fodors had some kind of way of identifying "classics" --a separate thread or something, maybe a way to search trip reports by locations or to look for threads on the basis of largest numbers of responses. This would surely be at the top on all counts. Thanks so much for all your work to keep this going.

Peter- without looking it up, I would hazzard a guess at "city and monuments department".

I’ve never much understood the electoral system in the USA – What is the Electoral College, does it award degrees? The American system though, is simplicity itself compared to the process for appointing a Doge. Start with the Great Council, about 1000 important people.
Select nine of them by lot.
Those nine elect forty electors, each of those forty getting seven out of nine votes.
Select twelve of the forty by lot.
Those twelve then elect twenty-five more electors.
Nine of those twenty-five are selected by lot.
Those nine then elect a group of forty-five.
Eleven of the forty-five are selected by lot.
Those eleven then elect a group of forty-one.
Those forty-one then elect a Doge, who has to obtain at least twenty-five of the forty-one votes. (I acknowledge Morris for details of this contorted process.)

One can imagine the deliberations.

“How about we give the job to Dandolo, good family, his great great great great grandfather was a good performer at Constantinople? Took the city when he was near blind, and aged eighty eight. That Dandolo DNA should count for something, eh?”

“No, no, Giacomo. His wife is ugly, her hairdresser is on notice of being expelled from the Guild for incompetence, I have eaten the worst meals in my life at his table, his cellar is unmentionable, he dresses appallingly and is in debt to half the Rialto for his gambling losses. Let’s give Manin the gig – it will come as a bit of a surprise to him.”

Newcomen invented the first practical steam engine in 1712, and the last Doge, Manin, was elected by that amazing process in 1789, to give a little historical perspective. By then the office of Doge was so emasculated as to be almost irrelevant – and the process of electing Doge would have taken months. On hearing that he had been elected Doge, Manin is reported to have burst into tears and fainted. In 1796, Manin dispensed with the Ducal hat, handing it to a servant, who kept it as a souvenir, and some 3,231 French troops were conveyed into the Piazza, in a fleet of forty boats, graciously provided by the Venetians. Probably on favourable terms of charter, echoing Doge Dandolo’s provision of ships to the soldiers of the Fourth Crusade, in exchange for invading Constantinople.

It must have been an interesting scene in the Piazza that day. Battle hardened, war begrimed French troops, but with their webbing freshly pipe-clayed, being met by Venetians who were dressed to kill.

The three flagpoles in front of the Basilica represent the three kingdoms conquered by Venice over time, Cyprus, Candia – now the modern day Crete, and Morea – now the Peloponnese. (Cyprus can hardly claim to have been conquered, having been gained via the contract of marriage between the Venetian Caterina Cornaro to James II de Luisignan, King of Cyprus. The contract stipulated that Cyprus would pass to Caterina if the king died without heir, and some say that Venetians poisoned the unfortunate son born to the couple. Now, that’s a pre-nuptial agreement that even Paolo Sarpi, who told the truth not to everyone, would be proud of.

Cyprus was lost to the Turks in 1571, the last Venetian governor Mercantonio Bragadin, holding out under siege for a year. As punishment for being so difficult to deal with, the Turks skinned him alive. There is a mercifully difficult to see fresco in the Church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo (San Zanipolo) in Castello showing the punishment, and his skin, having been retrieved from the Turks in 1580 by a Venetian slave, one Gerolamo Polidori, resides in an urn at the altar to Bragadin. The urn was opened in 1961, just to check, so to speak, and the skin was found to be in good condition. Don’t count on the urn being opened again in the near future.

Once Napoleon took Venice, the flagpoles were seen as a symbol of tyranny by some, and should be removed. Demolition was avoided by re-defining what the flagpoles stood for. Let’s just replace Cyprus, Candia and Morea with Freedom, Virtue and Equality. Problem solved, just like re-naming the “Last Supper” as “The Feast in the House of Levi” in the Accademia – Venetian pragmatism at its finest.

For those inclined, the axis of the Basilica does not coincide with the Piazza, it’s inclined. There’s a brass survey monument about an inch in diameter to mark the axis of the Basilica, set in the white marble tiling at the very edge of the portico. It is just to the left of the Sotoportico del’Arco Celeste, as you face the Sotoportego. It only took Lou and I about half an hour to find, and that’s the luxury of time in this city. The centre flagpole (Candia, Virtue, or now just plain ol’ Venice, Italy or the EU) does not quite coincide with the axis of the Basilica.

I’m not a great fan of the area around Rialto, except for the fish and vegetable markets, and the areas where the boats unload. That’s fun to see in the mornings. But when you walk over the bridge, towards San Marco, amongst the shops selling questionable Murano glass and AC Milan football shirts, on the left there’s a shop that used to be an apothecary, the “Alla Testa d’ Oro”, “at the Golden Head”. High up on the façade is a bronze head, and while being jostled by the crowds and bumped by wheely bags that have just made the transit from San Polo to San Marco, you can just make out the inscription “Theriaca d’Andromaco”.

Theriaca or teriaca was a universal herbal remedy, produced in Venice by a number of apothecaries, who had to be licensed by the State. The ingredients were displayed for three days (the ingredients including live vipers, so the display would have been worth sighting) before the whole lot was pulped by pestle and mortar, cooked in a cauldron (caldo is Italian for hot) and bottled. Outside the pharmacy in San Stefano, the stones have circular indents where the cauldron feet stood, or maybe where the pestle and mortar was placed.

After the Republic fell in 1797, the Golden Head was the only apothecary to continue production, and the teriaca that they made was so well regarded that that were allowed to cook up three batches a year, and was a specialty of the place as early as 1603. Their recipe included opium, but regulations introduced in the 1940’s required this ingredient to be omitted.

And now the Golden Head is just another glass shop! But at least there is still the legacy of the apothecary. But meanwhile, in Cannaregio, you can see the original fit-out of your higher class apothecary, at the Ercole d’Oro, near Santa Fosca. This apothecary was famous for a laxative product, and especially for Mitridato, made from herbs and an oily extract from beaver glands, named for King Mithridates VI (132-63 BC) who was famous for his immunity to poisons (or maybe his Chamberlain had a ready source of food tasters).

There’s another shop legacy which is fun, in the same part of the world. As you walk towards the Ferrovia, on the San Marco side of the Rialto, you’ll cross the bridge by Coin, and at the next bridge, on the right, there’s a shoe shop. It used to be a toy shop, and if you look up, there’s a big Donald Duck in a window, made of Lego.

The fish market is new, in Venetian terms, from around 1907. It contains an old thing, though, if you walk around the back of the market, to where the stairs lead to the offices upstairs. In the 16th century Erasmus of Rotterdam translated the Greek saying into Latin, “piscis primum a capite foetet”, which won’t surprise any fish-buying housewife, as it means “fish begins to stink from the head”. Taken more broadly, I suppose it means that the stink of corruption will come from the head of an organization. Enron, Marcos, Huey Long and those Wall Street banks come to mind.

The metal doors under the stairs display this saying, a reminder that the people running the market should take care to be honest.

There are little things like this all over Venice. Probably not worth travelling all the way from the Mulino Stucky to see, but worth a three-minute detour if you are in the area. Coming from Australia, with just over 200 years of “European” history, the age of these details never ceases to engage and enthuse me. Well, maybe not the Lego duck, but Donald is still fun.

Still enjoying this very much Peter, and anticipating printing it off to take with us next time to remind us of the out of the way sights you've discovered - thanks ! That Jonglez book looks like a good recommendation too.

But I think you have an overly pessimistic image of what Venice is like in the summer. We've nearly always been in June (plus once in September) and don't have much trouble with crowds - you really only need to get just off the the main drag in a few hotspots, like the streets immediately off Piazza San Marco and either side of the Rialto Bridge, and it's not busy - in fact I'd describe the vast majority of the place as really quiet and peaceful. On our first visit we booked in advance to visit the most obvious sights, i.e. St Mark's Basilica, the Doges' Palace and the Accademia, and walked straight in. And when we went up the San Giorgio campanile we had it to ourselves ! The only time I really remember a bad queue anywhere was once to get into the Giardini for the Biennale, when we went there on the day the Arsenale is closed and got there before it opened. Of course I'd like to be in Venice all year round, but if I can only go once a year I like the summer for the light evenings and being able to dine outside - but then I can't do that at home and you can.

HI Caroline, dining al freco is not on our agenda here. I was able to get a reading of the temperature this afternoon, by way of a photograph with tele lens of the thermometer over the road on the windowsill. You’ll know the place. When blown up, it indicated about zero degrees Celsius. So alfresco dining, or Lou doing watercolour en pleain air, is not on the agenda. But lunch outside on the terrace would be nice, so next trip, it will be Feb and March for us.

We find too that if you avoid the main drag, then crowds are not too bad, although I believe that Carnivale can be tricky. It’s the places off that main Rialto/St Marco route that are the most interesting, and the back blocks of Castello can be intrieguing – most visitors don’t ever get to see the remnants of the Castello gasworks – and yet it is the existence of the gasworks that can confirm the fact that Venice is a real place, not just a gondola-themed amusement park.

I envy you being here at a time when the Arsenale could be entered – surely the greatest unexplored treasure of all Venice.

Cheers

Peter (who eats outside frequently in Melbourne)

What an ingenious way of reading the temperature ! I don't remember the thermometer, but is this the place with the cats ?

I agree it is the back routes which are the most interesting - and which lead us most to dream that we could one day live there, sigh. Last time we followed the walks in 'Brunetti's Venice' - the book has its flaws but it took us to places we hadn't been before and we found it was very good for slowing us down and getting us to make a real effort to take in as much as possible (we were typically taking 1-2 days to do each 2-4 hour walk !). But I'm afraid I don't have your fantastic skills of observation, left to myself - after reading Jan Morris for the first time, this time last year, I felt as if I must have been walking round with my eyes closed !

You don't get to see that much of the Arsenale from the 'normal' Biennale exhibition there, which is basically contained within an L shaped brick warehouse (I read somewhere this is a mile long). It has no windows but there is an open area at the far end, with a few other outbuildings containing exhibits and adjoining a body of water in what looks like an old docks area.

However, last Biennale there was a less official and to us more exciting 'Arsenale Novissimo' area of exhibitions in warehouses on the other side of this body of water and it could be approached either by a (presumably specially hired) water taxi from the official space, or through the outside Arsenale wall (the really high one) on the north of the island. It was all very exciting - we got the vaporetto to Celestia (a request stop !), turned left over the bridge and walked along a metal walkway halfway up the Arsenale wall until we found an open doorway which didn't look very convincing but seemed the only option, descended a staircase into a giant hall half full of machinery & whatnot but no people, made our way through to the next warehouse and suddenly there was art ! Still no people though. The exhibitions on that side were all very interesting, wandering through the various warehouses etc (some apparently housing modern day businesses) was exciting and there was even, rather bizarrely, a lovely garden there. When we'd done, we got the water taxi over the water to the official exhibition - doubtless the only time I'll go in one and so also exciting, albeit only going at about walking speed ! This would all have been within the Arsenale's outer walls but I feel there are probably more impressive and historic parts to it which we haven't seen - I think the best impression I've got of those parts is still just looking through the gap in the walls at the front, in the area apaprently still occupied by the military.

Caroline, Morris is fun. I’ve got a copy of the 1993 edition here with me, that I’ve cross referenced against some enlarged maps (OK, pretty anal, but I’m an engineer by trade) and it makes for a different experience when the small things are identified. Tiny things, like Salizzada delle Gatte – the Paved Alley of the Female Cats – a corruption of Papal Legates, whose palace was nearby. Those sorts of details make one think, did that corruption occur because Venice was having yet another dispute with Rome. Who knows, but it’s fun to consider. It certainly makes for many pauses and backtracks when walking around.

I think that spending the time here has given me a different view of history, but it is hard to get it into perspective, trying to think, what was happening in Venice when Columbus sailed west, did Agincourt have any impact on the FTSI on the Rialto, how did the Rialto financiers and insurers adjust their rates when de Gama made it to India in 1498, changing the market for spices. Did the price of coal escalate when the Arsenale was being pressed to produce cannon balls in a hurry, and did the populace thus have difficulty heating their homes? Were there special plantations in the Veneto, growing trees for oars, given that a galley sailed with about ten tons of oars on board?

I think that is why Venice has got under my skin. The more time I spend here, the more questions are thrown up. Answers don’t come so easily, so one reads and wanders around.

Did you read the directions on the Casa Bepi link?

"First of all you need to come to Italy"

"remember to looking for us in Burano not in Murano"

"we'll take you up and we'll make you visit it!! "

Yesterday was Epiphany, the end of the official Christmas season. My knowledge of scripture is scant, and I’d always thought that Epiphany may have been a cousin of John Betjeman’s nanny, Myfanwy, a nice Welsh lass. But I’m wrong – Epiphany celebrates the arrival of the Magi in the stable, the last phase of the Christmas story, the Son of God being revealed to Gentiles. There’s a witch story associated, and this too is celebrated in Venice with a small regatta. (When in doubt as to how to celebrate anything in Venice, a regatta is as good as anything.)

If you are walking from Academia to San Marco, the most direct route will take you past the Church of Santa Maria del Giglio. There is the inevitable souvenir stand, selling the inevitable souvenirs, and also a shop selling, like, ditto. The shop is interesting – not for product, but for architecture. In the 1500 woodcut by Jacopo de’Barbari, “View of Venice”, there is an unfinished bell tower shown before Santa Maria del Giglio. The bell tower was completed in the 16th Century, and leaned at such an angle that its demolition was ordered in 1775. It was meant to be rebuilt, but some things, like Peggy Guggenheim’s palazzo, never get finished. Works continued up to four or five metres, and then seem to have stopped. A tile roof was slapped on, and now the stump of the tower is used as the above mentioned souvenir shop. I think it is one of very few campaniles in Venice, finished or otherwise, that you can walk right around.

The façade of Santa Maria del Giglio (St Mary of the Lily) is the ego wall to end them all. It details the exploits of the Barbaro family, who financed the construction – or rather, re-construction – of the church in 1678. The main statues are the five Barbaro brothers, and Christian virtues are mostly not depicted on the façade, save for Virtue, Honour, Fame and Wisdom – it is Barbaro Central. Antonio Barbaro, the chief figure, may have self-inflated his ego somewhat, as he was dismissed from Francesco Morosini’s fleet for incompetence. It does make the ego wall of my periodontist look a little scant by comparison.

Loving all the detail in your report, Peter. We plan to put this info to good use when we are there end of April. (I'm concerned about the possible crowds, though. We planned this before we realized we would be there in the crunch between Easter and the May 1 holiday).

You may need a pharmacy sometime in Venice, hopefully for nothing serious, maybe you forgot your toothpaste. In that case, try the pharmacy “All’Ercole d’Oro”. It is on the main drag from the Ferrovia to Rialto. You’ll pass Paola Sarpi’s statue on the left, then the church of Santa Fosca, and then about 50 yards on your right is the pharmacy. It’s been there for some time. Beside the modern pharmacy is preserved the old spizeria, with jars for exotic ingredients. It’s worth a look, even if you only need toothpaste. You can look in through the windows, and it’s OK to go inside for a closer look.

You can almost hear the echoes of long gone conversations:

“How’s that sword wound coming along, Giuseppe?”

“Recovering well, I’m using scorpion oil on it. It is the same treatment that Sarpi used after that failed assassination that was commissioned by Rome. He took a dagger in the cheek, you know, and all that is left now is a scar.”

There’s this common statement that “Venice is sinking”, implying that if you don’t see Venice pronto, then there’ll be nothing left to see. The rising water, increasing frequency of aqua alta, is certainly a problem.

The Christmas holidays have finished, and Venice seems full of tradesmen hammering away at facades, digging up streets to fix water mains, replacing gas lines (Vietato Fumare!). That sinking feeling is being countered by some pretty serious repair work. In Campo Margarita, there are at least half a dozen places having work done to them. Rendering being fixed, roofs re-tiled, a lot of work being done. The level of skill impresses me. One shop that we’ve patronised has had a heap of bricks stripped, and a small piece of stone – the size of a goose egg – dislodged from the stone windowsill. The piece of stone has been carefully kept, and it will be replaced.

It is a quiet time now, a lot of bars and eating places closed for several weeks, fewer cameras and maps seen on the streets, the last of the New Year’s fireworks thankfully discharged. The students are back, including a bunch of American students that I encountered at Billa last night. Enjoying the (probably) new experience for them of being legally allowed to buy alcohol. Alcohol is cheap here (we drink wine at about 2.99 euro a bottle) so those students may be in for a life changing experience.

We’ve been in Italy for eight weeks now. I have been ripped off totally once by a cab driver in Rome, slightly exploited (or rather, Lou was exploited) buying a dodgy set of watercolours, which have been proven to be photocopies. But oh, how we’ve had lovely transactions. We commissioned a watercolour from Giordio Ghidoli, an artist that we like, of a building that we like, and he’s done it. We can see ourselves as patrons of the arts in Venice, and the painting will be a treasure. I’d asked him if he had any studies of an oil that he’d done of the San Sofia traghetto, and no, he hadn’t. He’d sold the study I’d seen two years ago. But when we went to collect the watercolour, he indicated “You might be interested in this”. A pastel of the traghetto, arriving on the San Sofia side of the Grand Canal. It captures the stillness as the traghetto pulls in, the bow oarsman reaching for the post, the stern oar just guiding, the arches of the Pescheria just faintly shown, the passengers disinterested in what is happening because they’ve seen it a thousand times.

Ghidoli drew that, knowing that I’d not be able to resist it. Molto Veneziano!

Lou’s bought some bits and pieces from the linen shop in Calle Lunga San Barnaba, and this has opened some doors for her. She’s made contact with a former employee of the shop, keen to develop her skills in English, and Lou wants Italian conversation. Bingo. Lou buys the drinks, and they talk for an hour, half the time in Italian, half in English. And Annalie, who has the shop, has advised the postman that a parcel that we’re expecting should be left with her, as it won’t fit in our mail box. Small connections in the cosmos, but we like it. Two fingers raised in the Ai Artisti bar of a morning is now enough to indicate “Due cappucci, per fervour” for breakfast, help yourself to brioche.

I suppose it was inevitable that after a while here, we’d have to visit some of the big-ticket things. We were not able to see the library at the hospital of San Marco as it was closed, so that will have to wait for next time, but we did see a 500 year old graffiti on the façade of the hospital, of a man holding a bleeding heart in his hand. We visited the Academia, and while the endless altar pieces don’t reach me, the scenes of Venice and the Carpachio paintings certainly can enlighten and amise. I’m still trying to find a good explanation of “The Feast at the House of Levi”. While the story of the title change is well known, I’d love to know why he put in the Germans, the dwarves, the man with a bleeding nose. And is that Thomas, Doubting Thomas, the Apostle to the left of the painting with the fork in his hand.

Today we also visited the Museum of Modern Art at the Ca’s Pesaro. It was fun to see inside, a little linkage with the portrait of the Pesaro family in the Frari, and I can really understand why young Pesaro looked so arrogant – I’ve now looked at the house he was to inherit.

I was not sure what to expect, the Venetian take on Modern Art. In Melbourne, Modern Art means mostly non-representational art, probably 1920 onwards. But in Venice, time has a different scale, and “Modern” seems to start at about 1850. It is a great collection, Venice-centric, or at least Italy-centric, not a huge collection, but of great depth.

There’s a sculpture there called “Mourning the Dead” (I think) by a Belgian sculptor. I’ve never seen a more heart-wrenching portrayal of a grief stricken family, the small gestures that say so much.