On Saturday we got up relatively early (thanks to incessant ringing church bells next door) and took the vaporetto (boat-bus) along the Grand Canal -
- to the very famous Piazza San Marco (or St. Marks Square) -
The day started a bit overcast but had cleared to a fantastic blue sky by 11am, making it perfect for the thousands of photos I was inspired to take (which never seem to capture real life exactly). It really is beautiful and just so…what? I don’t know…but so picturesque.
It’s not quite so perfect as Bruges or Tallinn, but it’s just so damn charming with its flaws and imperfections.
At Pizza San Marco we took the elevator to the top of the Campanile (elevator in tall, old building - finally!!) to check out the views at the top.
Yep, spectacular. After that we visited the Basilica di San Marco, going up to the top to the museum and to see the famous horses.
From there we walked to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum which is essentially the home of Peggy Guggenheim without the furniture (and Peggy). Full of modern masterpieces – Picasso, Chagall, Kandinsky, Ernst, Pollock – with photos on the wall showing Peggy as she lived there – with the same paintings and sculptures in the same places they hang/sit now. Me in the courtyard on the canal -
After that, we went to the Gallerie dell’Accademia – full of amazing Venetiana art from the 14th to 18th century, but not quite as exciting for me as the Guggenheim.
We then took the vaporetto back to the Ponte di Rialto - from the bridge -
and looked around the market there before following the winding streets back to our hotel. So strange to be following a signposted route back towards the Piazzale Roma (just near our hotel) and yet be directed through tiny, narrow streets that twist and turn and lead you to the edge of a canal from which you have to find your way over and then pick up the route again. But surely one of the best things about Venice?
For dinner we found a small trattoria in one of the aforementioned winding streets and had a very good, very Italian dinner.
On Sunday we went out for breakfast and spent the rest of the morning wandering around, taking in the sights. We also visited the Gallerie d’Arte Moderna and the Museo d’Arte Orientale, both in the Ca’ Foscari building. After that, more walking and some lunch.
The shape of Venice and the ‘s’ of the Grand Canal makes it very disorienting to walk around – when you think you are actually far away from something, you turn a corner and there it is. And then when you are actually looking for something, it’s impossible to find – like this pink dog, outside the Palazzo Grassi -
- we saw this from the vaporetto but then spent a good couple of hours trying to find it by foot.
After revisiting Piazza San Marco we took a different route back towards our hotel as it started to get dark. After some dinner at another trattoria, we finally collected our bag and headed back to the airport for our flight back to London.
