Island of Lost Souls (Venice)

And today dear reader I hit the wall. I have had enough of the crowds, the lack of consideration for other people, the endless tour groups stampeding over anyone and anything who get in their way, the pushing and the shoving and dawdlers who block the entire alleyway while they look in shops or chat or just stand there indecisively. It is time for some space and that will happen soon enough. It is Sunday and we begin the long trek home on Tuesday. But let's begin with our last conclusion.

The Biennale is on, expect the unexpected

The fireworks never eventuated. Well they did, but not for us. We lasted until 10:30pm and gave up and went to bed to be awoken by sound of explosions at 11:30pm. The rumoured 45 minute display was just that, rumour. Obviously they commenced at 11:30pm to conclude at midnight. We both acknowledged the show had commenced with a weary sigh and drifted back to sleep. Fireworks are a bit passé for any Sydney-sider.

And I have nothing to say about this

When we emerged in the morning light, the evidence of the previous night's party had pretty well been erased. Except for the occasional smell of urine in the narrower alleys. Very reminiscent of Paris on a Sunday morning at this time of year. We ventured to our local Campo for breakfast - the usual, coffee, brioche and OJ. Not the cheapest but not the most expensive either. I paid and went to pick up my change when I noticed that amount on the counter was more than I had given him. He had given me change for 50€ not the 20€ I gave him. He looked somewhat surprised when I told him he'd given me too much money, but was grateful to put 30€ back in the till.

It was time to make our way to the Church of Santa Maria della Saluté, but before we reached our destination we came across the Gallerie dell'Accademia, San Marco. This was reached via a 'temporary' wooden bridge which has resisted its temporary nature and stands today, much like the temporary demountable classrooms of Australian schools. The Accademia was quite deserted so we detoured and spent a few hours there. I had tried to book tickets online earlier in the week, but that proved as difficult to negotiate as the alleyways of Venice or a ticket machine at an Italian train station. It was a bonus to find this museum so crowd-free. I imagine it was due to the late night festivities and fireworks.

The ancient race of ninjas

Another sign that we are nearing the end of our trip: the Accademia had a sameness about it to many other works of art we have seen over the past few weeks. More works by Tintoretto, Titian and Verenese. All special and spectacular in their right, but also similar to so many others. This is not a criticism, these artists and the many they influenced had a profound impact on the world.

Old or new?

What do you prefer?

There was also an exhibition of the work of Philip Guston, responding to the work of various poets such as Yeats and Eliot. The juxtaposition of his work next to the classics is puzzling. Well it is to me. All it does is to serve to highlight his lack of talent. I'm sure an art critic would tear down my comments, but his child-like renditions of feet, or scratchy depictions of every day objects against the work of Titian? Please. What was most interesting in this particular exhibition was the number of people who managed to repeatedly encroach on the alarmed spaces in front of the exhibits - all very clearly marked on the floor by lines and/or railings. As we moved through the spaces, we continuously heard the alarms being set off and actually observed one woman who set the thing off three times in less than a minute before her friend worked out it was her that was causing the alerts. Mind you, none of the security staff seemed remotely concerned or responded in any discernible way so may be they shared our opinion regarding the artistic merit of the works.

From the Accademia we walked down to the point occupied by the Church of Santa Maria della Saluté. It has views back across the Grand Canal to the San Marco area and down towards the main pier where the big cruise ships berth. It is certainly less crowded on this island and the views in large part are interrupted only by water craft, pylons and pontoons.

Looking back across the water to San Marco

Walking around the other side of the island we went down to Chiesa del Redentore to cross the pontoon bridge that is there for the Festa del Redentore. It is only there for one weekend a year and that is when the festival is on to commemorate the redemption of Venice against the plague through the intervention of the Virgin Mary, the patroness of Venice (in most artworks we have seen, Venice is represented by the blonde Queen of Heaven). The walk across the bridge is meant to be an experience reminiscent of either being on a boat or drunk, whichever best describes the rocking sensation that  is exaggerated by the wash caused by frequent boat traffic in the channel. This reminds Venetians of the precariousness of our earthly existence and the need to be grateful for the intervention of Mary to keep Venice safe. We walked across the bridge to the church just in time for midday mass.

The pontoon bridge

Then it was time to get hopelessly lost again. We staggered back across the bridge - swaying and moving with the waves and mapped our route back to the Accademia where we needed to cross on the other temporary (since the early 1900's) bridge back to the main island. Somewhere, somehow, we missed the Accademia; we think perhaps we walked around the back of it and down the other side and missed the bridge. We wandered happily until we realised we weren't where we were supposed to be. We were geographically embarrassed. We were lost. Hence today's title, Island of Lost Souls by Blondie. We couldn't find any of the nearby streets on a map, we were lost on an island of lost souls. In a moment of dejà vu, I thought it would be a good idea to follow the signs to Piazzale Roma, which we did for a while. Until we decided to locate Piazzale Roma on the map and saw that it was miles away from anywhere we wanted to be and it appeared to be a transit terminal of some sort.

No idea where this was, but it's where gondolas go to die.

Back to the drawing board. Then I lucked onto Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, a ginormous church that would have to be on the map. It was. Wow. We were way off course and a long way from where we wanted to be. So, it was time to retrace our steps and find that elusive bridge near the Accademia. This time we were successful and thought it prudent to stop for a drink, a bite to eat and a rest. Semi-accidentally we located one of the cicchetta osteria's that was recommended to us but we couldn't get a seat so went around the corner to a cafe and took up a position people watching and enjoying a birra alla spina with a panini.

And that is Venice.

It was then, dear reader, that the crowds started to get to me. We were following a circumlocutious path home, as one does in Venice and the paths seemed to be narrower and the maddening crowds larger and the mindless tour groups more plentiful. Unusually, we did not pass a shop where you could buy wine so we had to back track and head towards San Marco and the area behind the square. Not good at this time of the day because the day-trippers were all still here. Eventually we found a shop that sold wine, Jayne made a quick purchase and we made directly for the apartment. Time to rest and recuperate before dinner at Da Jonny's at 7pm.

Dinner was beautiful once again. Tonight we shared a bowl of mussels and clams followed by gnocchi with red sauce and prawns and Jayne had rib-eye fillet and I had cuttlefish, finished off with desserts and coffee. Service, atmosphere, food, everything was perfect. We sat outside which meant we got to watch many a confused tourist wander past, not once, in many cases twice and occasionally three times. Not all of them were amused by their geographic dislocation. Sitting eating delicious food with a glass of wine - I was vastly amused. Although the call of the night goes to the older French lady who stopped to ask directions to the station and how long it would take to get there. Our waiter happily pointed to map and showed her the route to take and said it would take about an hour to walk there. Off she went only to return about 10 minutes later, a face like thunder, ignoring the directions she had been given. When we told the waiter, he laughed, shrugged his shoulders and said, "It is Venice".

Then is it was back to the apartment to sit in the altana and listen to the sounds of Venice changing gears into a more relaxed pace once many of the tourists had returned to the mainland. That's a happy thought with which to conclude this post.

Fun fact: The two most common sights in Venice?

1. People walking with a map in hand or sitting at a cafe with a map open, trying to work out where they are or how to get some where else.
2. People walking with the mobile phone in hand, following google maps.

Deep water (Riomaggiore to Venice)

Riomaggiore

The time came for us to leave the Italian Riviera and we were both OK with that. The party that never ends, to borrow a phrase from Richard Clapton's lead into the live version of Deep Water, continued last night until 3am. My fervent hope is that those inconsiderate revellers had accommodation very close to the early morning garbage trucks or, at the very least, the clunking of our bags on the cobble stoned paths woke them as we left for our train at 6:45am.

Monterosso

There is no doubt that Cinque Terre has a natural beauty and a slightly fraying charm about it. The buildings are looking, like Jayne and I at the moment, a little tired and could all do with a fresh coat of paint. After visiting four of the five villages it appeared that there was a sameness about each of them in terms of what they had to offer. While that was OK, there was nothing to really keep us there for more than the three days I had allocated.

Vernazza

No doubt I would have a different perspective if I were living over here. It is a place where you can go and sit and relax and do nothing, but not somewhere you can get sleep. The nights were very hot and if the air was still, it became more problematic because you really needed the windows open and then of course there were those dicks who sat and drank at the harbour all night and didn’t mind everyone knowing they were having a good time. I watched a few of them staggering up the hill after 2:30 this morning, shouting their goodbyes to those who continued partying, oblivious to those trying to sleep in the buildings that towered above them.

We managed to get a booking at the restaurant recommended by our hosts on our last night. It was a fitting way to end our time here and the food was excellent. We shared a plate of octopus, followed by seafood ravioli and then a mixed grill, also seafood. Well dear reader, it was a seafood restaurant.

The trip to Venice requires a couple of train changes. Our initial train was 7 minutes late arriving at Riomaggiore and 5 minutes late getting to Sestri Levante. That gave us 10 minutes to catch the connecting train to Milan. As it turned out, we needn’t have panicked - the Milan train arrived on the same platform as we did from Riomaggiore and it was also running 5 minutes late. We changed from a regional to an intercity train and from 2^nd class to 1^st for the almost 3 hour journey to Milan.

We were slightly late arriving in Milan (14 minutes) but I had allowed 45 minutes between trains so there were no concerns. We are in Business Class for the last leg of the journey to Venice. The Frecciarossa would have us there about 2:30pm. It's a long day of travel, but it is easier and far less stressful than driving. So far, all my plans have gone like clockwork. This is the fourth country in which I have enjoyed high speed train travel and I can't believe the politicians are still procrastinating about it in Australia. After all, we have the wide open spaces and vast distances. It just makes sense, so that's why you'll probably never see it - at least in my lifetime.

As mentioned, the final train was about 15 minutes late getting into Venice. We exited the station and turned left as instructed and went to the water taxi rank. Where we waited for about 10 minutes for our pre-booked taxi to arrive. It's a very busy area and Jayne learned today just how lightly we actually travel. Two Indian families turned up with a porter from the railway and a trolley to hold their bags. The first family consisted of husband and wife and they had 4 large bags between them. I glanced down at our one medium sized bag and my carry on. The next couple also had a pre-teen child and they had 6 bags! Amazing.

Into our taxi and out onto the Grande Canal. The water taxi was recommended by our hosts and while there are significantly cheaper options, it is a great way to meet the fabled Venice. The trip to our accommodation in San Marco occupied about 20 minutes and we saw all manner of interesting things that hopefully we will re-discover as we walk around and get lost in this unique city.

From the dining room window

Anna met us at the pier and walked us through to our accommodation. Another top floor unit - I just can't help myself, but we have a terrace which will provide an uninterrupted view of the fireworks on Saturday night. Don't be afraid to get lost, we were warned. It happened on our first outing, but that's OK; it just means we discovered some really interesting shops. Masks and glassware abound.

Gondolas, gondolas and ...

We found the supermarket and a wine shop. The wine shop sells wine on tap as well as the bottled stuff. You just turn up with your empty bottles: glass or plastic, it didn't appear to matter, and then you choose your wine and get a refill (I hope to get pictures). Can you imagine that in Australia? The nanny police would want to close it because it wasn't hygienic enough, or the discounted prices encourage drinking, or just because it is a bloody good idea. We didn't have any empties, having just arrived, so we purchased the more standard fare.

Venice from our terrace

Dinner was at Da Jonny, recommended by Anna. Excellent. The food was superb, so much so that we have booked for later in the week as well. Once again we shared a couple of smaller plates, scallops and ravioli before having separate mains. Jayne had fish and I had duck breast - they must have been huge birds, I could barely eat it.

Then it was back home for a glass of red on the terrace in the breeze. I think we are going to struggle adjusting to Australia's temperatures when we return. I paved the way to the terrace, or altana, as I believe it is called in Venice. The sun was setting, the seagulls were wheeling in to settle for the night. Jayne turns up and says, "I just looked out the window at the road and thought, gee, the road is wet. It must have been raining". OK, a canal can't get much wetter and it is a road (of sorts) for boats. You've gotta love her. We laughed about that until the mosquitoes tried to carry us away.

Good night dear reader.