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 ...

Rome food tour (9 weeks & 1 day)

I've just booked the X-man & myself onto a Walks of Italy Rome Food Tour. We start off at the Campo dei Fiori market, and learn about and taste different foods, including meats and cheeses, bread, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, gelato or cannolo, and coffee - of course! And we get to make (and eat) our own pizza in a restaurant - the X-man is pretty keen on that idea :)

I'm working on more structure for this trip - some tours, guided or self-guided, some museum passes (so we can visit lots of places, without having to stay for hours in each one to get our money's worth), and a few day trips out of the city for contrast.

Dear Diary, today I went for a walk ...

Just a short walk - 16km from home, down the hill, round the lake, and back up the hill to home. According to my Polar heart rate monitor (which I purchased when I started the 12WBT program, and which provides great motivation to keep going) I burnt 1531 calories. It took 3hr 20min of actual walking, with a break in the middle for a breakfast of poached eggs, spinach and one (just one!) slice of bacon, plus a much-needed espresso after an early start - the sun was still coming up when we started.

Many many thanks to my friend Sam who could easily power away much faster than me, but who walked with and encouraged me the whole way (especially that last painful bit uphill!).

In other news - I have booked two tickets for Europe in September! The X-man and I are jetting off to Paris, Venice and Rome for about 5.5 weeks. Yesterday was the point where I'd had enough of tracking fares, and just decided to book it and stop looking. Now there's just apartments, trains between Paris and Venice, and Venice and Rome, and a little matter of a passport for the boychild to sort out. Lots of fun over the next few months :)

Souvenirs

We didn't do any serious shopping in our 2010 trip, but one thing we did buy, and which I aim to make a tradition, was a small Christmas decoration from each place we stayed in.

From England, a royal crown from Hampton Court Palace:

From Paris, the Eiffel Tower in a gift basket:

From Rome, a tiny nativity scene in a jewellery box, bought from a stall near the Vatican:

La Taverna degli Amici

As I start planning our 2012 European adventure, I've been looking back through the photos from last year, thinking about what was most memorable, and which things I want to repeat with the X-man. And dinner at La Taverna degli Amici in Piazza Margana is most definitely on the list. The food was great, but the real highlight was the wonderful Simona!