Our first objective today is Giardini Publici second stop on the vaporetto. This is where the Bienniale takes place. It is in fact an annual arts show, but alternates between Art and Architecture. There are national pavilions, themselves showpiece modern architecture where each participating nation displays it's goodies. A sort of upmarket EPCOT centre. This all takes place in June till October. In March even the gardens are closed. Eat your heart out Enzio Piano and us.
Next plan is to visit Palazzo Grimani walking via Arsenale and along the banks of the Grand Canale.
The Renaissance Palace has been decades in restoration and today the C16 frescoes are the main draw. We really went because we were given free tickets when we paid to enter the Academia. However it was well worth it, see for yourself.
Expand the pictures and you will see the fantastic quality and details. The Palace closed at 2-00 but they locked up behind us at 1-30. We were the only visitors in the place.It was just after we left that I realised that the paperwork for the gondola trip was safely stored in our hotel room back at the Lido. A quick calculation indicated that it would take about an hour and a half to get back, collect the paperwork and return to St Marks Square. Venice is probably the easiest city in the world to get lost in. Everyone does it, even the locals. We were no exception and undertook a more scenic route back to the Lido. After an interesting journey back again to St Marks we arrived at the rendezvous at 3-30 on the nose. The representative did not want to see the paperwork and we were shown to our gondolas.
The gondoliering was good fun and it is amazing how precisely the gondoliers can control their craft. We went up the Grand Canale for a bit then turned right down a very narrow canal, then right again to take us back to the Grand Canal and our starting point. These narrow canals were very busy with gondolas all seemingly going the opposite way to us. They say that there are more canals in Birmingham than there are in Venice, but I'm not so sure. On balance I prefer Venice. Off to St Mark's Basilica, something Birmingham is definitely a little short on. What really impresses with this building is the extravagance of the decoration, the mosaics in the domes and on virtually every available bit of free space. The mosaic tiled floors are, after all this time, stunning with trompe l'oeil perspectives that M C Esher would be proud of.
It all started in AD 828 when some enterprising Venetian merchants stole the body of St Mark from Egypt, concealing it in a barrel of pigs lard. Two important messages here for Cathedral owners. One get a Saint's body, the bigger the better. Two stealing from Muslims is always best done with the assistance of pigs. The whole extravaganza is a testament ( indictment?) to the vast wealth of medieval and Renaissance Venice.
Above is the Pala d' Oro. It is placed behind the main altar which is also St Mark's sarcophagus. This slightly obscure location allows the church to charge €3 to view it. But there is no entry charge. The gold panel is studded with 2000 emeralds, sapphires, amethysts, rubies, peals and other gemstones. The most priceless treasures are the cloisonné enamels of the biblical figures. It was begun in 976 in Constantinople and finished in 1209 by Venetian goldsmiths. The detailing in the enamels is spectacular.
What do you call a long deep audible exhalation expressing sadness going over a river?
Now it's time to go back to the Lido and a bit of exploring I think. We want to see the beach on the Adriatic Sea side and where Death in Venice was filmed. It's only a short walk, or maybe we'll just catch the bus. The stop is just outside our hotel.
Why we didn't just ring the bell I will never know, but we didn't. Probably it was a mistake to have that cup of tea in the room before we left because it cost us the light. I didn't think the bus would wait 15 minutes before leaving, but it did. It was really quite full when it left, a few passengers boarded but nobody left. Including us, of course. None of the maps I had seen actually showed all of the island of Lido but it is quite natural to assume that it is pretty small. After about twenty minutes of travelling whilst we dithered about where to alight, the decision came to us in a flash as the bus drove on to a ferry. Now! We jumped off the bus climbed up the rising ramp and leapt the increasing gap twixt ferry and quayside. There was some shouting in Italian but it was quickly lost in the gloom and distance. I gather now there are three more islands before Scilly. All we had to do now was to get home. We were in the uninhabited part of this dark and now strangely quiet land. Neither of us had mobile phones with us which would not only provided light but also reassurance we were still in the 21st century. Well, we lived to write this so you can guess that another bus came off the next ferry and took us, no, not to Count Dracula's castle,but back to our hotel.
For more fun with buses, read tomorrow's blog.
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