Venice, April 2014. Some thoughts ...
 

"You don't have to do anything in Venice. It is enough just to be there." Philip Gwynne Jones, "The Venice Project", 2013.

That's all well and good, and first one has to actually get there. So the tickets are bought, an apartment rented, bags half packed, and then in a week, we can be in the happy place of just being there.

Half your luck Peter!! Enjoy, enjoy!

Will there be another of your super good Venice trip reports?

Peter, I arrive in Venice next Saturday, the 12th. Going to be there for five nights. Would love to meet up with you for an aperitif or lunch!

Just shoot me an email if you're game. :)
[email protected]

Paula

Hi Peter, we will overlap your Venice time too, I believe - we'll be in an apartment owned by a friend of a friend in Castello 29th May to 6th June.

Let's meet up! Caroline has my email info.

you're making me jealous.

enjoy your stays in Venice and your GTG too.

Yes, you have to get there. But that's not really quite true, because "there" is now "here". About 34 hours door to door, Emirates from Melbourne to Dubai, with a couple of hours on the ground in Singapore, five in Dubai (an airport which I find it in myself to really dislike), and then Venice. The usual angst standing by the carousel, wondering how come our first bag has come out, and the second bag is taking ages. One wonders if it is broken zippers, theft, or just bad luck that that bags not made it. That feeling of relief when that bag drops out.

Shared water taxi to Ca' Rezzonico, walk down Calle Lunga San Barnaba, and here we are.

Venice.

Peter, possibly a dumb question but I'll ask anyway. We'll be in Venice in June with another couple and plan on taking a water taxi from the airport. How many passengers do the taxi's take? Just wondering if it will just be the four of us and the driver/pilot on board.

Is there a jumble sale going on in Campo San Barnaba?

Did you wave at Stefano behind the counter at Pantagruelica?

Thin

Cathies, if you use the shared water taxi, there might be eight or nine on board plus driver. The shared taxi costs 25 euro a head. A taxi costs 100 euro, so there is no cost advantage in using the shared taxi, and better fun if there are just the four of you on board.

You can book a taxi at the airport, or just walk down to the dock, ten minutes easy walk. We use an airport baggage trolley for our bags, and you need a 2 euro coin to get one, same as a supermarket trolley in Aus.

Thin, no jumble sale - but Campo San Barnaba is full of chairs and tables.

Funny, we have never patronised Pantagruelica, for no good reason. But given that you have, we should at least be giving that establishment a chance.

Does one need to dress?

Aaahh Peter!
How wonderful to be back in the pink city!
I hope you'll let us savour your trip vicariously through your usual interesting, off-beat and insightful trip reports.

Can't help but agree about Dubai airport. Not even the dashing Arab men in their whites can make up for the rest of it!

Cathie - you'll have a ball, and couldn't wish you both more. It's been a wild year!

I am sure, darling, a Missoni cardi worn with slim pants and Roger Vivier flats would be sufficient for Pantagruelica.

Thin

How could you think of yourself as a lover of Venice if you're a slow traveler who has never tried Pantagruelica's fresh basil pesto? What exactly does he do in San Barnaba neighborhood? Maybe Peter should spend more time exploring Venice and less time blogging about it. And, no, you don't need to wear any special clothing to visit. The store is the size of a closet.

Alilaguna is the best deal from airport to various destinations in Venice. Check the website - lines from airport to where you need to be - reasonable, better than water taxi. We are in Venice for the past two weeks - wonderful weather!

Now, Snobby, you know that Australians are very rugged, very outdoorsy and Peter and Lou kayak around Venice.

I have seen kayakers around San Pietro Church near Arsenale and it looks like fun.

Not everyone can sit at Quadri all afternoon reading articles in Hello Magazine about Princess Michael.

Thin

<i><font color=#555555>"you know that Australians are very rugged"</font></i>

Sure didn't seem that way in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

<i><font color=#555555>"very outdoorsy…kayak around Venice."</font></i>

I think I'll pass. If I step into a boat, there better be a drop-dead gorgeous Italian man on board holding his oar.

<i><font color=#555555>"Not everyone can sit at Quadri all afternoon"</font></i>

I'm so sorry to hear that.

PS Happy to see you in good humor, Thin.

Jet lag can work in your favour. Eight hours time difference can be good. It means that you an see a little of Venice in the very early morning, when the city is coming alive. Mixing it with the street sweepers, getting in the first coffee before the crowds come. So we've done a bit of that, generally getting organised, stocking the larder, getting the phones working. Running into a couple of friends, purely by chance.

Also, purely by chance, seeing a boy in school uniform in Campo San Barnaba. A school about two kilometres from our home in Melbourne, actually the school that Lou's daughter attended. He was a member of the school choir and chamber orchestra, on their European tour. They gave a concert in San Salvatore last night and it was excellent, especially taking into account that the age range of the performers, about 13 to 16 years old. A lot of talent there.

Next few stops for them are Salzburg, Vienna and Linz, quite a busy agenda. But first they had to get to Mestre, all sixty of them, where they were staying. Getting the choir and orchestra plus instruments onto a vaporetto bound for Tronchetto and their bus, quite a challenge. I felt sorry for the double bass player, a big instrument, even bigger in its carry case. Even harder because the carry case had lost one of its wheels. Near impossible, given the crowds on the No 2 vap, but I guess they made it. Note to self - never complain about large luggage on a vaporetto.

Fun to hear "Waltzing Matilda" in Venice.


We shared our flight from Dubai to Venice with a fourty-strong girls choir, also from Aus. Interesting to see teenaged girls reading music scores instead of trashy mags, singing short passages when they got a bit bored, and airports can be really boring. They stayed in their seats when we arrived at Marco Polo, and serenaded we other passengers off the aircraft.

The vegetable boat at San Barnaba trades well, particularly as the grumpy pair of gentlemen who ran it previously have moved on, replaced with a pair of pleasant blokes. We bought a bunch of agretti, a vegetable that looks a little like chives, like a round stemmed grass. It a sort of marsh grass, a bit salty and tasting, more than anything, like the sea. Great with scallops. Agretti is said to be one of the oldest cultivated vegetables, and we never see it in Aus.

We are following Phil's advice. You don't have to do anything in Venice, you just have to be there. But even things that don't count as "doing" are fun, like taking a traghetto across the Grand Canal, or buying a leg of lamb at the Rialto.

We bought a bunch of agretti, a vegetable that looks a little like chives, like a round stemmed grass. It a sort of marsh grass, a bit salty and tasting, more than anything, like the sea. >>

I saw that in the Rialto market, Peter, when we were last there shopping for Easter lamb and wondered what it was. I'd like to think that my italian is now good enough to ask the question and even to understand the answer! [well, I can dream!].

we have a rough equivalent here in Cornwall called marsh samphire - it grows in brackish water, and is salty. Very good with fish, scallops, etc. you steam it and then serve it as a veg or with drawn butter.

enjoy your lamb. the butcher threw in a large sprig of rosemary with ours, which you don't get here. we also got some peas and potatoes, and were surprised and pleased to be asked if we wanted ones for boiling [no] or roasting [yes]. Again not something that happens at home.

Thanks for the info Peter, the water taxi into Venice has been on my wish list for ages and I am looking forward to it,

Yes, Bokhara, it has been a very wild year! We really are looking forward to this trip. We have 10 nights in Scotland, three in Venice, two in Trieste staying with an Australian friend who owns a villa there, then 6 nights in Rome. I'm looking forward to returning to Venice which we loved last time.

I will remember to pack my missoni scarf Thin. Thanks for mentioning them, although by early June I may not need it.

Sorry I missed you, Peter. Ironically, I spent the better part of Monday afternoon (15th) in and near San Barnaba!

I was on the hunt for my "Summertime" locations and was very successful. :) I considered stopping in to the DaVinci exhibit at the church, but it was so nice and sunny out, I decided against it.

(Wasn't it you who turned me on to the website [A Lover of Venice]?)

Imagine my delight when I guessed at the location of the Piscina Sant'Agnese and came around the corner from the exact camera angle when we first see Kate there at the cistern!

Also very happy to find the San Cristoforo bridge, etc.

We may have passed on the street! :)

I hope you have warmer weather and a great stay!

We stayed in an apartment almost opposite the veggie boat, brings back great memories. I will enjoy reading another Aussies experience.

There is a very cute antique shop set in a courtyard next to the San Cristoforo Bridge.

I like to walk that path when going to Salute to see my late sister's apartment.

Thin

Many boys aspire to being firemen when they are little, but this was never a goal for me. But after seeing a Venetian fire boat yesterday, blasting down the Rio di San Trovaso, lights and siren, full noise, the crew ducking their heads as they shot under the bridges, I've changed my mind. Being a fireman in Venice would be fun, messing about in boats, and they were probably heading off to pump out someone's boat. Probably not rescuing a cat from a tree, as they don't carry ladders on board.

I've not been a regular church attendee since I left boarding school in 1966, where church was compulsory, on threat of corporal punishment. The Anglophone community in Venice have their church, St Georges, on the Campo San Vio. It's rather Anglican High Church, which might not mean all that much to our American brethren.

Good Friday is observed in Venice rather by the lack of anything in particular. Shops trade, the tradesmen over the way were on the job, but for the Protestant faiths, Good Friday is the most sacred day in the Christian calendar. So I found myself at St. Georges on Friday afternoon, as part of a compact congregation of some thirteen or fourteen, being invited to read a passage from John, the trial of Jesus before Pilate. Besides being profound in religious terms, that passage also says something about the political and legal jurisprudence in Galilee two thousand years ago.

This morning, Sunday, the church was packed, standing room only, many visitors, euro, Stirling and USD notes in the collection plate. Easter Day, the big one, something of a celebration, and a sung Eucharist.

Historically interesting. The Anglican Church community was facilitated in Venice by Henry Wotton, Ambassador to Venice, around 1604, a year or two after the death of Queen Elizabeth I, and five or six years after Shakespeare wrote the Merchant of Venice. We used the 1662 Book of Common Prayer for the service, and the language, all those "thees" and "thous", is rather archaic, and yet at the same time quite grand. A stained glass window in the church, honouring the Bishop of Gibraltar under whose Dioceses the Venetian outpost falls. Windows honouring Robert Browning (safely ignoring the misbehavour of said Browning while he was resident here), and Ruskin, author of the Stones of Venice.

All in all, rather pleasing.

The Bishop of Gibraltar makes several appearances in Anthony Burgess' Earthly Powers.

John Ruskin's wife fled Madonna dell'Orto upon viewing Tintoretto's Last Judgment.

Thin

We visited the Ca' Rezzonico today. Pretty much the usual works on display, but there was an exhibition of works by Pietro Bellotti, a nephew of Canaletto. Bellotti painted "views" of Venice, plus other places such as London, and the exhibition is titled "The other Canaletto", or something like that. Bellotti produced works to meet the tourist (or should one say traveller) trade, gentlemen making the Grand Tour in the 1700's and 1800's, and needing something to take back to demonstrate that they were now somewhat cultured. AC Milan tee-shirts and plastic gondolas were not available back then, but a Bellotti or Canaletto work would do the job and impress people.

Bellotti's work is somewhat formulaic to my eye, almost as though he was producing say four views of the Salute at one time, and they seem very static, somewhat photographic, f32 at 1/60th on a bright day. In terms of draftsmanship, very accurate, but lacking the atmosphere, action and light of a JMW Turner.

Interesting, none the less.

I don't think I ever knew just how many Tiepolo works there are in the Ca' Rezzonico, and I really like them. The Tiepolo family were prodigious producers of paintings, and Giandomenico created one ceiling fresco in ten days, an Allegory of Matrimony. I'd love to know how those works were created, the teamwork and organisation required, scaffolders, plasterers, paint mixers, a whole production crew, a bit like making a movie.

It's been suggested on another thread "Venice Canal Boats - Best Deals", that I might be in my dotage. I think not. However, it was economical when asked somewhat apologetically whether I might qualify for a seniors discount for the Museum Pass. Yes indeed, but only just. What a thrill for the first time in my life to be offered such benefit! My wife does not think that I look 65, but then she is not seeking any handsome Italian gondolier.

Peter, you're so vain. I'll bet you think that post was about you. :-)

I love the series of paintings by Pietro Longhi that show scenes of domestic Venetian life in the 18th century.

I also love that corner bedroom with the dressing table in Ca Rezzonico.

You should visit Palazzo Querini Stampalia.


Thin

Thin, the Longhi series is great, quite ironical,. The silver dressing set in the bedroom certainly says something about how a Venetian lady conducted herself.

Palazzo Querini Stampalia is on the list of places to visit - I am a fan of Scarpa's architecture, particularly the garden there. There is a fine intellectual story in the long pond and the little bronze overflow at the end. A bit Japanese, also a bit Frank LLoyd Wright, a micro homage to Falling Water, I'm inclined to thin.

We have done a couple of tourist things now in Venice.

On Monday, we went to the church of Can Salvador / Salvatore, where they were displaying a superb silver altar screen, the Pala d'Argento. Generally it is not on display, but it is displayed between Easter Sunday and the following Sunday, so we were lucky. It is a huge work, silver on wood, dating from about 1590, about 2.5 metres by 3.0 metres, very detailed with a Last Supper image, other saints and scenes. When you insert a one euro coin into the box to turn on the lights, it is though the sun has risen over the altar.

In the church, there is also the tomb of Caterina Cornaro, a sad figure in Venetian history. She became Queen of Cyprus by marriage, the marriage contract stipulating that if she did not have a son, she would abdicate and Cyprus would be a Venetian colony. Her husband died, and she had no sons (some historians believe that her son was poisoned, which would not be surprising, given Venetian venality) and she returned to Venice. In 1510, she was given a heroine's funeral, and her body buried in San Salvador around 1600. Just an early chapter in the unhappy history of Cyprus, as eventually the Venetians were defeated by the Turks and expelled, and now Cyprus is in the sad state of being divided between Greek and Turkish influence.

A picnic yesterday on La Certosa. Certosa had a monastery once, as did just about every island in the lagoon. The island became a military garrison facility, complete with munitions factory, casting lead and making gunpowder, so there is quite a legacy of pollution. It is being cleaned up, along with the trees that were blown over in the tornado a couple of years ago, and the place is being turned into a park of sorts, while maintaining an area of natural vegetation. A good place for a picnic, very quiet, rabbits, but we did not sight the herd of goats that we saw there a year ago - maybe they finished up at the Rialto market.

Certosa is being developed also as a shipyard for smaller boats, yachts and a sailing school. There is a boat building course happening there in November if they can get enough participants. They need six people to run the course, and so far have two, and I'm hoping that four more people sign up.

On the way back from Certosa, we alighted at Osperdale. The easiest route from the vaporetto stop seems to lead through various hospital corridors, and you exit onto Campo Ss Giovani & Paolo. We got lucky - the Hospital Library is now open to visitors (Open from 10:00 to 13:00, and 14:00 to 17:00, closed Sunday and Monday, but you might want to confirm the times, free entry). The library is in the former Scuole of San Marco, and is magnificent. You enter by climbing two flights of stairs with red carpet and brass stair rods, so there is a feeling of really arriving once you enter the library. The ceiling, royal blue and gilt, is like a huge patterned carpet.

There are displays of surgical implements along with engravings showing how they were to be used, including trepanning drills and cutters, amputation kits, very fine implements for eye surgery, catheter sets. Not for the faint hearted, and one can only be thankful for modern surgery. Doctors would find it fascinating, maybe not the best place to visit just prior to luncheon. There are also more modern documents on display, such as the 1908 plans, sections and elevations for the new laundry.

Even the display cases are delightful. They are suspended over older furniture, and appear to be floating, supported by a bowstring bridge. There is a feeling of contrast or conflict between the tension and compression members, and something I notice in Venice is not just what is being displayed, but the manner in which it is shown.

Your friend Caterina Cornaro sounds a
lot like my old friend Ines de Castro.

I like to sit at Rosa Salvo in the campo outside Giovanni e Paolo and have a spritz.

I like to have an olive in my spritz, not an orange slice.

Thin, knows his stuff

When you insert a one euro coin into the box to turn on the lights, it is though the sun has risen over the altar. >>

a very good reason for keeping some small [and not so small] change about your person when in Venice, and indeed Italy. it all sounds lovely, and required reading for those who say that you can "do" Venice in a day and a half. There is a chance that our italian class will be descending upon Venice next year and i am saving up all your ideas for interesting places to see that are off the beaten track.

The hospital library is definitely on the list!

We went to Torcello on Thursday for a picnic. Torcello, once home to 20,000 people, and now about 20 people live there. There is little remaining of the 20,000, and I believe that when they left, they demolished their houses and took the bricks to Venice, where they settled near the Rialto.

There would have been every trade needed to support a township - coopers, stonemasons, priests, shoemakers, boatbuilders. Strange to think that all those trades have disappeared.

The Torcello campanile is still covered in scaffold, as it has been for the last five years. The restoration work goes fairly slowly, maybe because the site establishment for the tradesmen looks so comfortable. The campanile is massive, probably a bigger footprint than the San Marco campanile, and I'd never noticed that before.

We went into the Cattedrale di Santa Maria dell'Assunta, the oldest building in the lagoon. Last time we were there, it was in the middle of Winter, ice forming in the canals, and the church seemed quite small. Maybe it was the sunshine, or maybe better illumination this time, and the church seemed much larger, almost Gothic in its proportions and scale.

The mosaics are brilliant, the Madonna over the alter appearing to have the cares and knowledge of all the world on her shoulders, and the mosaic on the far wall of the apse gives a detailed commentary on the Last Judgement. The fires of Lucifer clearly await those who ignore the "No Photograph" signs in the church, and other lesser sinners.

Friday, 25th April, St Mark's day, ANZAC Day for Aussies, and also the day when Italy commemorates her war dead. Wreaths on memorials, also roses being given to women, as the rose is the symbol of St Mark. For once, the rose vendors were not seeing push-back from potential clients. A public holiday in Italy, relatively quiet on the canals, a good day for a kayak tour.

We embarked on Certosa, a small group, an English couple, Lou and I, and our guide Marco, who is Venetian by birth with good English. We were able to paddle into the Arsenal, the Darsena Grande, which is normally closed to casual visitors, as it is a military area. There was an Arsenale festival on 25th, 26th and 27th, all sorts of boating happening, rowing lessons, dragon boats, so it was fun to have a look in there. The mast tower is interesting, allowing the mast to be stepped in a large vessel, part of the production line system at the Arsenale, the world's first military/industrial complex, able to produce 300 vessels a year. When you think that a galley sailed with ten tons of oars, 100 oars at 100 kilos each, to say nothing of ordinance, powder, shot, food, sails, cordage, anchors, everything needed to equip a fighting ship, one must admire Venetian endeavour.

Napoleon trashed the Arsenale - engravings in the Maritime Museum show the extent of destruction and looting.

We paddled on, threading our way around three sides of the Arsenal, through Castello, past San Francisco della Vigna with the huge red columns, pulling the kayaks from the water for lunch at Campo SS Giovani & Paulo, and a chance to admire the statue of Corleone. On through a bit of Cannaregio, and I noticed how strongly the tide flows in some of the quite small canals. Cross the Grand Canal, dodging vaps and gondolas, through Dorsoduro, past the Squero di San Trovaso, down the Grand Canal under the Accademia bridge, and then up the Rio del Santissimo, which runs clear under the sacristy of the Church of San Stefano. The original church burned down in the 1300's, and was re-built to a larger footprint in the early part of the fifteenth century. The larger footprint took the church over the Rio del Santissimo, hence the bridge, an easy Venetian solution.

Round the back of San Stefano, and down the Rio Malatin, to experience one of Venice's more disturbing sights. The San Stefano campanile is beside the Rio Malatin, and we paused at the base. Look up - the top of the campanile leans half way across the Rio, ready to collapse on the head of an itinerant kayaker.

Down to the Punta della Dogana, happily devoid of the boy with frog statue, or unhappily, depending on one's artistic sensibilities, and across to San Giorgio. The Giudecca canal carries a lot of traffic, and we were dodging vaps, ferries, cruise boats, the lot. Wait a bit, and then go for it. Back over to San Biagio near the Arsenale and back to La Certosa. A great day on the water.

Marco our guide was great. A lot of local knowledge, pointing out things like survey marks on canal stonework, the way that stone has been coursed in where a canal have been filled to create a Rio Terra. In all, we were on the water for about five hours, sometimes drifting along behind a school of gondolas, other times on major canals where the water can be quite choppy. A good variety.

www.venicekayak.com finds them, and they have emailed us about 250 photos taken on the voyage.

bkmg

The fires of Lucifer clearly await those who ignore the "No Photograph" signs in the church, and other lesser sinners.>>

Peter - we abided by the prohibition and instead I bought a book of postcards showing the mosaics. I use these as bookmarks so i get to see the Torcello mosaics every day, and hopefully I will avoid the fires of hell as well!

the kayaking trip sounds terrific!

Anne, you would never be at risk of Lucifer. Apropos of nothing, the area just north-east of the Ferrovia used to be a match factory. Nicely placed in conjunction to the factory on the Fondamenta Fabbrica Tabacchi.

We got a bit lucky yesterday. For years, I've been wanting to get inside the Arsenal. Mostly it is closed as it is a military area, although a year ago, we walked in from the Bacini vap stop, as a gate was open. But this last weekend, a lot of the Arsenale was open.

The buildings are being restored, albeit slowly, and there is great architecture to be seen. The original Arsenale buildings are enormous, so new building are being erected inside them, leaving the old building fabric intact. In many places, concrete floors have ben laid, but leaving a perimeter gap of a metre or so between the new concrete and the walls, which is filled with pebbles, maybe to allow drainage in the event of acqua alta.

There is one building at the north side, with a massively deep basement, I think a former engine house as there are a pair of engine silencers still mounted on the external wall. Maybe there were generators there, or perhaps pumps to drain the dry docks - I don't know. The service crane for the engine hall has been left in place, speaking about the industrial legacy for the building, and then free-standing offices built inside.

Thetis, an Italian infrastructure company, have created a great sculpture garden in the area, also the Mose control room, and also have refurbished spaces that are used for some of the Biennale exhibitions. After a couple of centuries, it is as though the Arsenale is coming alive again, although I think it will be a while before we see again blacksmiths hammering at the remaining furnaces there.

It is easy to see Venice as being in some sort of time warp, with very few new buildings, the bank in Campo Manin being about the only new building in Venice visible to most. The Palazzetto dello Sport near the Naval Museum gives a fine example of Functional Brutalist architecture, as ugly a concrete box that one could wish for, fortunately well hidden. The hospital on Fond. Nuove is being extended, but in a sympathetic architectural style, heliport notwithstanding.

But there are lots of modern architectural treasures, Scarpa's interiors, the new work inside the Arsenale, little architectural treasures.

Fun to discover them ...

The place over the road (the road being all of two metres wide) is being done up. I think the last renovations were decades, maybe centuries, ago. The tiles have been stripped, copper gutters - a little work of art in themselves - installed. The roof has been covered in bituminous felt, awaiting new tiles, and now the guys are scaffolding in preparation for rendering the facade. It's fun watching it happen, and hopefully before we leave here we will see the new facade, and maybe a newly tiled roof.

Scaffolding is interesting, well, for an engineer at least. Our street sees its fair share of acqua alta, and salt water is not good for steel scaffold, which is based in the street. Solution - sink a sacrificial zinc anode in the garden, connected to the scaffold, in the same way that an anode is used to protect marine structures. A Venetian solution to a very Venetian problem.

Access to the scaffold is difficult, but the guys seem to have cut a deal with the resident of an apartment on this side of the street, and I can see bits of scaffold tube and clips being handed out the window.

One might be unamused, should the rental apartment have the windows obscured by scaffold. But maybe that is just part of the Venice experience.

What you should be observing is where the builders go at lunchtime.

<i><font color=#555555>"...where the builders go at lunchtime."</font></i>

That's easy. You'll find many Calle Lunga hardhats joining the college kids at Suziecafé in Campo San Basegio, taking advantage of their 7€ pasta, bar, and its outdoor tables. Mostly, the construction workers drink their lunch away. A lot of tourists don't get to this neck of the woods. If we're rating the food, I wouldn't go out of my way, either, for this place. It's simple, fun, cheap, and convenient; a neighborhood joint. The average San Marco tourist might not feel too welcome.

Lots of workmen at Trattoria Storica near I Gesuiti Church off of Fondamente Nove.

I have always wanted to see the marble curtains inside this church but it is always closed when walking by.

Thin

Sorry for the dangling participle.


Thin