Rio del Mancanton, Venice

Arrival by train: First view of Venice

On the Grand Canal

Somewhere in Cannaregio ...

Sottoportego, Cannaregio, Venice

Ca' d'Oro

The facade of the Ca' d'Oro (Palazzo Santa Sofia - Golden House) is famous. But there's a side entrance in the calle you walk through from the Ca' d'Oro vaporetto stop:

It's a heavy, carved wooden door, with a small, gridded 'window' just big enough to give you a peek into the courtyard of the 15th century palazzo. And what a wonder it is!

Wired up

I wouldn't want to be around when that corner stone fell ...

Permit parking only

Held together

Still in Venice :)

This image was captured near the Scuola Grande della Misericordia - one of the Great Schools of Venice, which were confraternities for lay people (i.e. those not in the official church hierarchy; ordinary citizens, not just nobles, could join) which carried out religious and charitable functions.

Venice brings out so many conflicting emotions - it's so incredibly beautiful, but so sad, proud and yet humble. The residents of this palazzo obviously care a lot for their home, with those lovely window boxes, and I'm sure it's beautiful inside, but outside she is crumbling and looks like she's held together with staples and luck. For how much longer?

Water gate

Water gate to a palazzo on the Grand Canal, Venice.

The white on the bricks is salt. When the tides are higher than the marble at the base of the wall, the water gets into the porous brick. The salt causes the brick to disintegrate. Venice is literally crumbling away.

Garden terrace

Near the western end of the Venice Giardini, just across from Riva dei Sette Martiri.
[Taken 23 September 2012, and enhanced in Photoshop]

Men and monsters 2

Close to the strange face in yesterday's post, just off the Campo Santa Margherita in Venice, is this winged lion. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of them throughout the city - not all as menacing as this one.

Men and monsters

Just off Campo Santa Margherita, in Venice, there are a number of carved men and monsters up high on the wall of the old tower, largely ignored by passersby. I wonder where this one originally belonged, and what he meant to the sculptor or the person who commissioned him ...

The travellers return

We're back. Actually, we've been back for two and a half weeks, but there's been plenty to keep me occupied and no time for blogging. I'm planning to share photos from the trip, but in the meantime here are some of the things we brought back.

I bought this necklace in Paris, from a little shop on Rue des Abbesses in Montmartre. We were stating up near the top of the hill, and walked past the shop many times during our two week stay, on the way to and from Abbesses metro station. The necklace was in the window, and caught my eye almost immediately - I bought on Day 2 of the trip, and later went back for matching earrings. The range of colours means it goes with just about everything :)

And this is how it looks on (with the earrings, and a new hair colour):

The next two photos are of one of my Venetian purchases. It was my birthday while we were in Venice, and I was given some money to buy something for myself (thanks everyone - you know who you are!). Nan McElroy, who I'd engaged to give us an introduction to Venice, suggested that I have a look at Attombri, next to the Rialto bridge. I did, and I met one of the two designers (brothers Stefano and Daniele Attombri - we met Stefano), who showed us some of their pieces. I couldn't choose between this one:

... and this one:

... so I came away with both :) The small glass beads in each one are from among thousands bought by the brothers when a Murano glass factory closed down - I was told they date from the 1920s. The larger beads are newer, and some are specially designed and made for Attombri, like the etched blue disk above.

And then to Rome, where we found Sancesario Bijoux on via dei Banchi Vecchi. Another artisan workshop, the family of designers only make a maximum of six copies of any one piece. The jewellery is all made by hand, using old techniques, and the glass in the earrings and bracelet I bought is Venetian.

Travel blogging

We''ve been in Paris for nearly two weeks, and tomorrow night we'll be on the train to Venice. We're blogging daily on http://travelpod.com/members/silsby and you're welcome to follow along.

Travel Books - part 3: Venice

Everyman Mapguide: Venice
Eyewitness Travel: Venice and the Veneto
Venice: Pure City [Peter Ackroyd]
Frommer's 24 Great Walks in Venice
The Venice Experiment [Barry Frangipane]
A Thousand Days in Venice: An Unexpected Romance [Marlena De Blasi]

I've spent a lot of time on websites researching Venice. I suspect I'll spend a lot more time reading novels set in the city once I get to know her a little :)

Travel books - part 1

I'm a bit (well, more than a bit) of a sucker for books. And when I'm planning a trip, my focus is on books about the places I'll be visiting, because I like to know stuff before I get there.

I still have my Eyewitness Travel guides to Paris and Rome on hand from the 2010 trip, but I've added the Venice and the Veneto guide from the same series this time.

They're great guides for planning, but pretty heavy to cart around, especially if you're going to more than one city, as I realised last time while dragging my bag up flights of stairs from the London Underground and up to our second storey apartment. So I'm using them a lot for planning, but don't intend to take any of them with me. With that thought in mind, I also bought the Eyewitness Travel Pocket Map and Guide for each city - a very condensed version of the larger guides, with a foldout map in the back of each book. They're only 154 x 74mm in size, and less than 10mm thick, so very portable. The writing is pretty tiny though - not too bad in good light, but I'm not getting any younger, so I kept looking to see if there was anything better.

I also have the laminated StreetSmart Paris map and CityFlash/Hallwag International Rome map from the 2010 trip. They're both good clear maps, although not all the smaller streets are named. You can write on them with an erasable marker - handy for planning routes - and just wipe them clean when you're done. The Paris map includes a metro map - very handy. I'll probably take these with me.

Then I found the Everyman Mapguides. These small (124 x 74mm) books divide the city into sections, with a foldout map and information (what to see, where to eat, etc.) for each area. While not all the small streets are named, the maps are very legible, and the format means you're not trying to deal with large folding maps in the wind. These ones will  be going with me.

Yes, that is a New York edition tacked on the end. Not for me - my parents are going to the US while we're in Europe, and I thought this might be handy for the couple of days they have in NYC.

Mmmm ... coffee!

I was browsing through the website 'A Guide to Rome' a few days ago, and came across a page on Caffè Greco in Rome. The author mentions that there are three 200+ year old coffee shops in the world: Le Procope (Paris, 1686), Florian's (Venice, 1720) and Caffè Greco (Rome, 1760).

Le Procope, which is now a restaurant - we may need to try it (they even have a children's menu if the boychild isn't feeling adventurous).

Caffè Florian in Venice, which over the years has attracted such notables as Goethe, Ugo Foscolo, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, Grabriele D'Annunzio and Eleonora Duse, Rousseau, Stravinsky, Modigliani, Antonio Canova, and Casanova.

 Caffè Greco, via Condotti, Rome, has its own list of famous patrons, including Liszt, Strauss, Mark Twain, Hans Christian Andersen, Baudelaire, Mendelssohn, Stendhal and Wagner. 

As we'll be travelling to all three cities on this next trip, I feel a need to check them all out ...

Getting a feel for Venice

Lately, when I have a free moment, I've been reading about Venice. At this stage, I'm trying to get a feel for the city - without having been there! - and an idea of which area I might like to stay in. It's not a huge place - I've read that you could walk from one end to the other in 40 minutes - so location probably isn't crucial as far as being able to get around is concerned. As we'll be there for a week or two, it's not as if we have to cram everything into a couple of days, and long meandering walks sound like a great way to get to know it.

I think I would prefer to have a little distance from the Piazza San Marco and the Rialto Bridge - the immediate area that all the day trippers from the cruise ships flock to. Of course, we'll go to both those places, but I'd like to stay somewhere a little further out - perhaps Cannaregio?