A Special Guest

Recently I’ve had the absolute joy of a visit from my dear friend K.  Introduced by a mutual friend while in Melbourne K and I quickly became fast friends with a shared love of travel, museums, words, fabrics, op shopping and cocktails.  As ever when I get a visitor a Raji tour of Venice is a must and seeing as K is a blogger herself she has written this piece describing a little of Raji’s Venice.

 

K my guest blogger

Friday night, and the Hotel San Gallo had been located just off St Marks Square, after about an hour negotiating maze of streets, canals and tourist-crammed walkways. (K was on her own here hence the hour – arriving after work I took 20 mins to get from the train station to hotel)

Our first action in Venice was to go out for coffee in San Marco. Coffee  punctuated our time here, as did aperol spritz and prosecco, the Italian bubbly. I could liken the weekend to a 3 day pub crawl, but I won’t—because having entered the Rajisphere, it’s more accurate to liken it to a personalised historical tour—with beverages. (really people I don’t drink that much-*fighting the tide of perception*)

After returning to our bright & comfy room with pressed metal ceiling and glass chandelier, we got a bit dolled up and hit the town. Rather than give you the blow by blow (or drink by drink) account, here’s an overview of what our evening included:

A quick giro (tour) through the basilica of San Marco, resplendent in gold Byzantine style mosaics and elegant marbled surfaces, with one pulpit for the priest, and another specially for the Doge, being the important person that he was.

Looking a little serious? or just thinking about the next bar?

 A bar Raji had recently spotted from the other side of the Grand Canal. The view of the Rialto Bridge from its own jetty was very nice. Not many establishments would have this view and still charge single figure prices for refreshments.

A fabulous little shop where I bought Venetian-made boots (who else has a tour guide with a built-in knowledge of one’s taste in footwear?!) (we aim to please!)

 A detour to see Marco Polo’s house. Here I learnt that the small piazza where it is located has the word ‘million’ in its name because of Snr Polo’s post-travel tendency to say ‘Oh I saw millions of those in (insert exotic discovered destination)

A visit to MiTi cocktail bar, acclaimed venue for a certain person’s recent Indian cuisine night, which was such a success she is being asked to give up her day job. (very kind of you to say but am a long way from giving up working for a living.)

Dinner at a place called (if translated into English) Paradise Lost, situated on a long canal in – ok let’s try this – Miseriacordia? (In Cannaregio on Fondamenta de la Miseriacordia but kudos on the spelling)  In the most northern segment of the main Venetian isles anyway.  Raji had phoned to book but the woman on the other end snapped ‘give me a name I can understand’. Hence we arrived to find our table for two booking for ‘Roberta’. Here we indulged in a fabulous seafood starter and some rather good pastas, while our neighbouring table had a huge cheese wheeled to the table (on a trolley, not by itself) by the chef who then ladled out  their pasta sauce from its molten interior. (I have never seen a cheese become its own serving vessel before. )

The night wouldn’t be over without a sambucca or three at the bar owned by Raji’s ‘Venetian Dad’ – a cheeky imp of an old dude who told us about dealing with the Acqua Alta (the once yearly spring tide that floods Venice) and who declared proudly that he was born there and so he’d die there.

Thank goodness I had brought a packet of NZ-made homeopathic hangover remedy Drink Ease, as we each knocked one back before going to bed at 2am. After waking with a reasonable clear head, I continue to swear by these.  (anyone else visiting from the Antipodes please bring additional supplies)

Our Saturday contained much wandering and crossing of bridges, and excessive photo-taking myself.

At the Rialto Market we rummaged happily though trash and treasures, alongside the fish & produce market that has been operating since the tenth century and is in danger of closing down due to ‘progress’. (danger thankfully now averted)

The Peggy Guggenheim Museum via the Accademia Bridge. I had never made it during my last visit to Venice n 1997, so it was delightful to experience it at last. It’s a small yet wonderful gallery, displaying not only Peggy’s collection, but photos of this radical lady in these rooms when they were her residence. I was moved to see her final resting place in the sculpture courtyard, where w also wrote a wish and impaled it on Yoko Ono’s ‘Wishing Tree.’

I wanted to take to the water in some form, and having already experienced a gondolier ride back in ’97 (albeit packed with a roudy Contiki group), we took an evening vaporetto ride. This is essentially a “bus” that travels the Grand Canal with numerous stops enroute. A ride after dark enabled us to view the mansions’(palazzi) piano nobile. No not a noble piano, but a floor or room of displayed grandeur. The lights are left on and the curtains drawn back to display a room’s gorgeous chandelier, paintings etc. My tour guide informed me that money is (was) poured into the presentation of these rooms, while the rest of the residence might be quite shabby.

Sunday morning coffee - Camera did a strange thing with
perspective here, I'm not THAT small

Sunday started with much-needed coffee in the sun, people-watching at the Rialto market. Then we just had to browse the stalls again, this time taking in the antiques in the fish market area. We followed this with a journey on foot to the Castello district. If you look at a map of Venice, you’ll see a green area out at the eastern tip. This was once home to the military and is now the site of the Venice Biennale (which is due to start soon) It is also home to many Venetians, being the quieter and more residential, not  so frequented by tourists. One aspect that was present was laundry drying on lines strung high across the narrow streets. From table-cloths to jumpers to undies, silhouetted against the sky or reflected in the canals. Naturally the residents’ smalls became content for our photo albums.

On our walk through the Castello, we were also stopped by some striking photos in a window—including the ‘Muppet orchestra’ that was noted recently in this very blog.(they've not yet made it to these pages) Inside we went, where we chatted to a Ukraine-born Jew who now had his workshop based here, where he skillfully added pop culture icons to historical uniformed portraits. We also loved an image of Yoda in Japanese army uniform. The photographer’s studio floor was covered in photos of the last ‘baby’ born in Chernobyl—now a young woman, standing in a decrepit room looking at the rusting cot she was born in. The photographer told us he is taking part in a project to artistically document the decomposing Chernobyl, and showed us a clip of his photos set to music – a vivid depiction of how a place decays once devoid of humans. Books had fallen to floors and become a strange curling carpet. Dust and soil had become so thick on exterior window sills that trees had taken root there. It was very moving .Here's a link to those haunting images

A peaceful Castello

I was also moved when we reached the furtherest point in the Castello that we could go. A quiet space in front of a church, with grass, a bridge, the gentle creak of many moorings, the open sea just beyond, and very few people.  A woman threw crumbs to a gull from a jetty that lead straight from her back door. It was very peaceful, and I understood Raji’s love for this city and its incredible history. During the weekend she imparted a whole lot of this to me and made my stay about 100% more interesting than visiting on my own.   Thanks Raji!

It was time to say goodbye to the gondoliers in their stripey jumpers, boater hats and leathery faces, the magnificent San Marco square with its population of tourists and pigeons, and the several thousand shops devoted to selling carnival masks. I feel so lucky to have had a glimpse beneath that touristy surface, thanks to yours truly who has all this just under an hour away. Our stay ended with a final stop at MiTi (we’d probably popped in here about 4 or 5 times over the weekend) and a vaporetto ride to the railway station.  Did I mention we also had bee-yootiful blue skies the whole time?  The icing on the cake.

It was a joy to share such a wonderful place with a good friend.  K left Italy yesterday and I already have the post visit blues.  I often wish Australia was geographically closer. It’s hard having the things you love most so far apart.  Thank you K for your visit and for a lovely weekend in Venice.