Great Performances

Another big highlight of my time abroad was the great performances I got to head to. Mostly opera. The list, here:

• Miranda and I saw Sharon Gless in "A Round-Heeled Woman" at the Aldwych in the West End.


• Ross and I saw "Cosi fan Tutte" at La Fenice in Venice.




• I made it to Aida at the Arena di Verona. I was on my own for that one, but it was completely worth it to go, and sitting in the cheap seats worked out just fine.




• Linda and I took her friends Phillis and Roger to Musica a Palazzo to see an evening of love duets.


• I hit up Musica a Palazzo a second time to take Ross, Mark, and Mary to see "Il Barbiere di Siviglia," it was another big hit!


• I hit up a cafe to see my friends Pete Ross and the Sapphire do their live show.


• I made it to La Scala on my last night in Milan to see "Lohengrin", a classic Wagner opera. And it's a beautiful opera house.

I am going to skip talking about all the art and gallery and museum shows I saw, since if I listed it down it would be a distressingly long list!

Venice Souvenirs...

Masks! Every time I go to Venice, I get a mask as a souvenir.



I went to Venice four times this year... I bought the pair of golden masks together on one trip. Let's see, the red one is from when Ross and I went to Carnival, the blue-green glitter metal one is from when I visited with Linda, the green one with the fabric trim is when I went with Ross and Mark and Mary, and then the golden pair is from when I took my sister!

I'm adding those to the one I from my first visit to Venice. I do think it's my favorite place to visit in Italy.

Thursday Evening

After the museum, we went to lunch at Ae Oche, a pretty cheap and decent pizzeria.



We went to Scuola di San Rocco after lunch, one of my favorite weird sights in Venezia. The whole thing is decked out in Tintoretto paintings. The ground level is pretty sober looking, but up on the first floor it's pretty bonkers, with really weird allegorical carvings by Pianta. After we took the boat out to see the inside of Santa Maria della Salute.



We decided to take a boat around the "bottom" of Venice, between the main part of the city and Giudecca, just to see a little new territory. Man, it got dark quite quickly on our boat trip! By the time we were at the west end of Giudecca it was pretty much completely night-time. We were on the 2 vaporetto, and we rode all the way around to Rialto just so we could walk over and see the bridge.



We had dinner at a little place not so far from our hotel. I am not sure I ever saw the sign for the place. We were pretty close to the only customers, it was a cold slow night.



We had pasta dishes and grilled veggies, and some red wine of course. The guy who was running the place gave us a little dessert and aperitif liqueur so we were there for quite a while relaxing and enjoying.



It was a good night!

Museo di Storia Naturale di Venezia

Thursday morning we made it to Vio's top Venice attraction choice, the Natural History Museum of Venice. We were the only two tourists there in a sea of school children. Still, it was a pretty good museum. One of the main sections of the museum is about fossils and evolution. It starts off with a dinosaur section. They have a pretty whole dinosaur skeleton dug up by an Italian. It's an Ouranosaurus nigeriensis...



The exhibit area for fossils of evolving life has a cool design.



There are several sections dedicated to Venetian explorers. Like 19th and 20th centuries, not Marco Polo.



And they had a Fiji mermaid! Really creepy.



Overall, it was a pretty cool museum. Not large, but nice exhibit design...

The Second Part of Wednesday

After the Basilica, we headed back to our hotel on the Vaporetto to warm up for a bit before dinner. A kind gentleman took our photo while we were leaving from St. Mark's.



I have a bunch of photos of Santa Maria della Salute in the sunset from different angles.





We passed the DHL boat making its rounds.



For dinner we just started wandering south of our hotel and went the first place that had an appealing menu. Since the tourists were so thin on the ground, the proprietors were out in force dragging in us strays. Vio had gnocchi, I had eggplant parmesan. For dessert we made it down to the Grom by Frari. I had Zabaione... Vio had... I don't know but she's clearly into it!



I took a bacio hot chocolate for the road home!

Wednesday In Venezia Part 1

Well, I put Vio on the plane back to Boston today... I'm all alone in Italy! Sad. At least it was a nice vacation for us. I still have a lot to share from our vacation, so expect bits of it for the rest of the week.

Wednesday was our first whole day in Venezia. We got up and had our breakfast at the hotel, complete with coffee drinks. We headed into Saint Mark's on the vaporetto. Vio was a little doubtful about the boats at first, but she ended up going for it.



We did the Secret Itineraries tour at the Doge Palace that morning. It was great the last time, and was great this time. It deserves its spot on my Venice "must do" list for guests. We puttered about the palace after the tour, the place was pretty deserted. I liked this Doge's head in the sculptural elements section.



We grabbed a quick pizza lunch just off the square, then headed to Saint Mark's Basilica next. We got the Pala D'Oro to ourselves for a few minutes. (That is a true sign of how deserted it was.) It was the best.



Vio talked me into seeing the treasury. She likes reliquaries too much.



There were some pretty cool normal treasures in there too. They have a free audio guide to the treasury, but it's a little off, there are several things in the guide that aren't in there anymore. The treasury was cool to see, but there wasn't any one thing that stuck out.

And of course we went up to the balcony and the museum.



Even at the early hour we were up there, around 3:15pm, the sun was already starting its journey to the horizon...

Venezia Hotel

Tuesday night was our first night in Venezia. We stayed at Hotel al Ponte Mocenigo. Ross and I stayed there on one of our visits to Venice, and I have to give it high marks. These are the chandeliers from our room!





I'll post more in the next few days... today is Vio's last day!

Monday in Venice

Monday was our last day in Venice. We took it easy in the morning. I took this picture of our hotel room. We were staying at Residenza Art Deco, in the San Marco area. We were in a large unit on two levels. Ross and I were staying on the top level. The bedroom was actually pretty big. I always like when you can see the beams of the floors in these places. Dark wood is the norm in Venice.



We took the boat to the bus station, so this is our last group photo in Venice!



I made sure that Ross, Mark, and Mary got on the right bus to the airport. (They told me later that their trip to the airport was no problem.) I walked myself over to the train station, and headed home to Milan...

Sunday in Venice

On Sunday morning we headed to Accademia, then headed over to Santa Maria della Salute just to see it. Then we were off to Saint Mark's to see the museums and the loggia. It's great to be up there.



It finally sunk in that the original horses from the balcony are Roman and not original to the church. No one is quite sure where they came from. After Saint Mark's, we had our gondola ride!



We went through the small back canals in San Polo, so it was calm and quiet!



We saw this guy on his water bike, it counts as a human powered vehicle so he can pretty much go down any canal. And it's a good way to use that bike, since they are prohibited otherwise.



It was a lot of fun, I'm glad we got to do it!



As we pulled out along the grand canal, the sun was setting. It was a perfect moment. After our ride, we relaxed a bit before heading to Da Fiore for dinner. Another lovely meal. Ross and Mark shared a monkfish!

Last Saturday in Venice

On Saturday, we went to Saint Mark's in the morning. We went for the Golden Screen. It's pretty impressive, of course. Mary had the Rick Steves guide, and he mentioned this scene on the altar by the screen. The pillars tell the story of the four evangelists, and they have some odd images. This does look like a genie coming out of a lamp, yeah?



We decided to pass on the balcony for another day, it was just so misty out that we weren't going to really enjoy the view. You couldn't even see Giudecca and San Giorgio, totally fogged out. We headed over to Frari and San Rocco instead! There was a little flea market going on by Frari.



We had lunch then went in for visits in the churches, finishing at the Scuola di San Rocco. I bought the book that Linda had when we were there, the one on the carvings of Pianta on the upper level. Those carvings are just so cool!

On our way back to the hotel, I noticed these cute signs about acqua alta. I just like the cartoon lion they use in all these civic signs.



This building by our hotel has cool windows...



Anyway, that evening we ate quick groceries and sandwiches on the early side, as we were heading out for Il Barbiere di Siviglia at Musica a Palazzo. I don't have any pictures, as it's a "no photo" event, but we did pose for a few pictures after the show. Mary, I am looking at you! I will definitely want to see those later!

Murano

No trip to Venice would be complete without a trip to Murano. Unless you're a guy. I kid! Really, the main reason to go there is to do the glass shopping. But it has its charms beyond that. The ferry ride over is not too long, and you get to get out of the canals and into the more open water of the bay. The island itself is pretty and has more of a wharf feel than Venice.

That said, we mostly shopped!



The island also has some impressive glass sculptures. I think some of them are new since I was last there, like this one of the sea birds.



On the way back to the main part of Venice, we we lucky enough to get outside seats on the 1 back to our hotel.



We made it to Acqua Pazza for dinner, it was as delicious as last time, though it was cold enough we decided to sit inside!



Artichoke pasta for me, lemony risotto for Mary. Both yummy!

The Doge Palace

Friday morning we headed to the Doge Palace for the Secret Itineraries tour. Before the tour started we got to see an exhibit of old architectural elements. (Ross and I saw this when we were here last.)



Our tour group turned out to be pretty big, around 20 people, but at this point that's the standard size for these groups. I was a little worried, but it turned out that our guide, Cinzia, was really great. Knowledgeable, and able to project her voice so hearing her wasn't a problem.



On the tour, you head up to the areas behind and above the public rooms of the palace. The Grand Chancellor's office, the Council of Ten's private meeting rooms, the state secrets archive, the Inquisitors' Chamber, the block of cells where Casanova was held after his arrest, and the attic of the palace, above the Grand Council Hall! Oh, and the secret passages and stairs that connected everything behind the scenes.

Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed, but it was a great tour, and not much more than the cost of admission. You should book ahead, with the best way probably through the official site. It depends a lot on the season, of course.



After the tour, we wandered the standard path in the palace, seeing all the public rooms, and the prison, which you reach by crossing the Bridge of Sighs. On our way out we stopped to take some pictures in the Golden Stairway.



And around the courtyard.



And then it was time to head out lunch and Murano!

Venezia on Thursday

On Thursday afternoon, Ross and I met up with Mark and Mary in Venezia. They were taking the train from Firenze, and we were taking it from Milan. Luckily, our train arrived first, so meeting up wasn't too hard! We dropped our stuff off at the hotel in the San Marco area, and set out to wander a bit. We strolled past an exhibit on Vivaldi and decided to stop in. Did you know that Vivaldi was a priest and wrote a lot of operetta? I guess I really only know his Four Seasons...



And we did make it all the way to Saint Mark's Square.



Beautiful in the twilight. We walked past the palace to find dinner, and got a view of the Bridge of Sighs.



It was a relaxing first evening.

Last Day in Venice

Saturday morning I noticed this garbage boat. It has a compactor, just like a garbage truck would!



I helped Linda get her luggage to the car area where she was meeting with her friend Andrea. I noticed this sign, the tide level sign! High tide was coming, bringing more acqua alta!



I took a little spin around the city before heading to my train. I stopped at the Rialto market, where the acqua alta was already coming up into the market.



There's a few different areas of the market, including knickknacks and fruits and vegetables, but the most famous is probably the fish market. I've never been when the market was in full swing before, so it was cool to see all that out.



The canals were pretty busy. I assume that more of these rowing crews were out because it was Saturday. It seems to be a popular sporting activity for Venetians. I could see myself doing this!



I noticed that the garbage and recycling boats often had mascots on their front tie posts. Probably pulled out of the garbage... Besides this cows I saw a few teddy bears!



And of course, there were gondolas everywhere. It was an especially busy day for them. Gondola tip: we got offered a low priced gondola ride around 6pm. They gondolier offered us a good price since it was going to be his last ride of the day and he just wanted to find someone... He offered us a ride for 30 Euros, and that is actually a really good price. So take that tip on your next trip to Venice!