From 'La Mole' to Penge

I normally arrange a surprise trip or a surprise something for Adrian's birthday, and as he had never been in Venice (a city he adores) on his special day, it was high time  we did!
Add to this that La Traviata - an opera that we love - was on at La Fenice, et voila'!

Adrian's birthday started with breakfast in the hotel courtyard








(window boxes opposite our room)

and this is birthday boy looking out of our room




Awww, he looks happy!

One of our favourite things in Venice is to travel down the Canal Grande on a vaporetto. So we took one from S. Stae to the Piazzale Roma terminus, and one back all the way to the Lido.
We managed to get seats outside although it got busy  later on with people standing: an Eastern European tourist invaded my personal space many times, with her arms surrounding my head on each side trying to take photos. But I stayed calm.

I told myself that I didn't need to take yet more pictures of the Canal Grande (I have a large collection of photos taken over the years), but well it's impossible to resist!
















(The gondoliere on the right was on his mobile phone... tut tut!)











I had promised Adrian a lazy day but it's an unwritten rule that on his birthday we always end up walking/marching somewhere.
We decided to have a look around the Lido (we had been before but not on the side facing the sea) but it turned out that the map from the hotel was not quite to scale!
So we walked much more than expected and in the end had to catch a bus back to the vaporetto stop (the Lido has cars) as we were pretty exhausted.

All the beaches were already closed for 'winter' (but it was so warm that we had to remove all but one layer)


This is the Palazzo del Cinema, famous for the Venice Film Festival


You get a different view of the lagoon and of Venice from the Lido






We took the vaporetto back to Venice


and got off at Accademia. Crossed the bridge




and had a pizza at a restaurant on Campo S. Stefano





We then walked to Palazzo Grassi, a palace on the Canal Grande which is used for art exhibitions.



The palazzo - as part of the Biennale - houses a retrospective of Italian artist Rudolf Stingel.

The main attraction was the palazzo itself because it had been transformed into an art installation by fitting carpet on three floor - and from the first floor up - on the walls too. The carpet is a photographic reproduction of Turkish rugs; they have the peculiarity of looking blurred close by but sharp from a distance. (Apparently the inspiration was the rugs that Sigmund Freud had in his Vienna studio).

It's quite impressive











Some of the art left me rather underwhelmed...






(now this is Art!)



We really enjoyed our visit at Palazzo Grassi.
When we left we had to rush to catch a vaporetto (water bus)





back to our hotel to get ready for the evening.
The vaporetto was packed; just before we got off at S. Stae, an old lady pushed through the crowds complaining about how busy it was. She went on to state that she was a Venetian, 100% disabled and that she had to put up with all that.
Fair enough, I thought (although my 2 crutches won over her 1 stick) but couldn't help smiling considering that without the tourists the vaporetto wouldn't probably be running. In many ways, she represented what most Venetians think of tourists: we want your money (a vaporetto ride is 7 euros!) but not you!
If it wasn't for the tourists, I don't know where Venice would get the money to survive.

Anyway, we got back to our hotel, changed and we were back waiting for a vaporetto in the opposite direction (luckily we had bought a 24-hour pass for 20 euros each).



The vaporetto was rather late and there was a lot of traffic on the canal (rush hour!), so we got to La Fenice only 10 minutes before the show





I had booked (last October!) 2 tickets in the gallery, in central position. I was expecting 2 seats in a row but it turned out that it was a little (unadorned) box with 4 chairs. We had the 2 front ones and there was no-one else in the other two. Eccellente!







The performance was preceded by the Swedish and Italian national anthems (to honour the presence of the Swedish ambassador in the audience).
It was excellent and we loved it.
I expected a modern staging (which it was - it was directed by Canadian Robert Carsen) but it was quite lavish at the same time.

It was wonderful to see La Traviata at La Fenice as the opera had its premiere there in 1853.

We noticed that people dress up much more than they do in London. We had a drink in the intervals (the first one was very rushed because some of the ushers started yelling to go back to the seats when we still had 10 minutes ago and we had just been served the drinks; a German gentleman got very irate and just thrust his drink into the hand of an usher saying "You drink it then!" Needless to say, in the second interval we just ignored them until it was really time to go back)








Bravi!


Buon compleanno Adriano!

Now how can I top this next year? LOL!

In the morning we went to Ca' Mocenigo di S. Stae, which used to belong to one of the great Venetian families, and which we had visited once before about 10 years ago.
The palazzo houses a collection of costumes and fabrics. At present instead of Venetian dresses from the 18th century, it hosts a temporary exhibition of Edwardian and Art Deco dresses from all around the world.
All of this under the stern stares of a number of doges and other distinguished member of the family.

It was lovely and just the right size (large museums give me museum-itis!)


(Getting lost in Venice is very easy and to make things slightly more complicated, the house numbers are not per street but per sestiere i.e. neighbourhood!)

Adrian (london1952) really enjoyed his 6th trip to Venice with me (8th, if you count two family day trips in the 60s and 70s).
I think that if he had the chance he would be very happy to become  venice1952 !!
And he would fit in very nicely too. I'm sure that he loves Venice more than many Venetian themselves. The English love being on islands... and the romantic decay. 

We had time for a trip on the vaporetto to the Lido taking in usual and unusual sights




After a light lunch with view on the Lido 


it was time to get back to the B&B for our luggage and to go to the airport.

Thank you Venezia for another romantic visit.


We'll be back!

First stop of the day was the island of S. Giorgio Maggiore (seen here later in the day when the sun had come out).



The island sits opposite St. Mark's square and La Salute.



We had visited the church before but not the former monastery, which houses the Fondazione Cini.
Vittorio Cini - an Italian politician and financier - bought the monastery from the Italian government after the war (it had been used as army barracks since the times of Napoleon), restored it and created a cultural institution.

The monastery has 2 large cloisters designed by Palladio




and now a new topiary maze,  the Borges Labyrinth "a reconstruction of the maze that architect Randoll Coate designed in the writer’s honour".


You can see the cloisters and the whole of Venice from the top of the campanile









The church itself is quite lovely too:






A short vaporetto ride and we were in S.Zaccaria, 200 yards or so down from St. Mark's.
As we didn't have anything else planned we just wandered around, ending up first next to the Arsenale and then by the Franciscan church of S. Francesco della Vigna.
There's something to see at every corner! 
The church of the Ospedaletto has some funny characters




It was high time for a drink and a snack. We sat outside an old cafe' near San Zanipolo (Venetian 'slang' for Santi Giovanni e Paolo)

where we had a glass of prosecco and a bitter spritz


followed by two large ice-creams! 


The statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, known as Coglione (testicle, in vulgar Italian - a term used as an insult too). He was so proud of his  name that his coat of arms was made up of 3 pairs of testicles. The legend says that it had a 'spare' one.

The statue is by the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, one of the most magnificent in the city and full of tombs and monuments to the doges.








Oh they did love a nice beard then!







Overwhelmed by all this art and walking, it was time for a rest. And what better way than sitting on a vaporetto going down the Grand Canal, admiring the scenery and the palazzi?









There was even some action, straight out of the BBC series "Venice 24/7"!


Emergency vehicles are the only ones allowed to travel fast in the canals (the waves damage the buildings). As most of the city is built on wood, houses can get destroyed by flames very quickly.

We got off at La Salute and walked down to the tip of the island where the Dogana (Customs House) was




There was a slightly weird statue of a naked boy, holding a frog. And it appeared to be 'invigilated' by an armed security guard!




While we were walking back to the B&B, we saw yet another cruise ship (it's almost non-stop!). It's amazing how big they look when they sail past the ancient city


After dinner, we went to La Pieta', the church of Antonio Vivaldi for a performance of his 'Le quattro stagioni' and some Bach movements, by the Virtuosi Italiani.

A lovely end to a lovely day!

Is he a famous film star in the Venice for the film festival? No, it's the gorgeous london1952!





Adrian sat outside our our hotel (the Ai Mori D'Oriente)