Architecture

 Trust me, I'll be moving on to GIALLO soon, but there are so many beautiful examples of ROSSO architecture...

These lovely rose-colored streetlamps are found throughout Venice.  The church is Santa Maria della Salute (salvation), and was promised as a dedication to Mary if the Venetians could be saved from the plague of 1630 when 1/3 of the population died of the plague.  It sits on a platform of 100,000 wooden piles and took fifty years to construct. 

The tower of a palazzo.

This is my apartment building in Campo San Maurizio.  My room has the two windows with closed shutters on the third floor left.  A lovely, tiny antique store sits on the first floor.  The building is full of artists who spend a month or two at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica.   

Architecture and transport - the combination kept Venice alive as a shipping empire for centuries.  The ground floors of the buildings were typically warehouses that had cargo doors directly accessible from the canals.  Above the ground floor were the grand living spaces, as can be seen reflected in the window detailing above.

As I walked through this quiet neighborhood on a Sunday, the patriotism was clear - first from the flag, and then from the cheers and blaring voices of the TV sportscasters.

More patriotism.

The beautiful flag of Venice. 

An exquisite chimney pot.

Venetian shutters are not just decorative.  They are constantly opened and closed, depending on the residents's wishes for sun, cross-ventilation, shade, and privacy.  Yesterday, the sky turned a deep purple and there was a sudden deluge of sleet, rain and wind.  The crashes of shutters that hadn't been secured echoed around the campo and rain poured over the window sills, into the rooms.  In spite of this, the drenched pedestrians ran laughing through the streets, happy, at last, to be cool.

One of the biggest surprises I've encountered in Venice is the extent of grafitti throughout the city.  It spares no building, including the famous Rialto bridge and other ancient landmarks. 

Just a hint of what may lie on the other side of the garden wall.

The scarlet numbers, above a doorway.  All addresses in Venice use this color and style of numbering.

This is a hand-wrought gate commissioned by Peggy Guggenheim, with colorful embedded chunks of Murano glass.

The hellishly hot, humid summers make shade a valuable commodity.

Shuttered tightly against the heat, the interiors of Venetian homes give nothing away to curious pedestrians, making the city mysterious and suggesting how important privacy is where the housing is packed so tightly.

A rare, red bench.  Although there are many outdoor cafes (where, if you must rest, you must purchase food or drink), public seating areas are hard to find, and sitting on bridges or window sills is discouraged.  Sore feet: a good excuse for a spritz or cappucino!

This is Strada Nova, a main artery that I walk each morning to the Scuola.  It is about 10:00am, and already so hot that, as you can see, the crowd hugs the shade, save for a brave soul in a red shirt.

Is this sign saying what I think it is?

I'll end this post with a detail from a mosaic, simply inset in a stone wall. 

I have many more ROSSO pictures, but I think the next post must be GIALLO (pronounced "jallo")! 

La Dolce Vita in Venice

We remain with ROSSO, but this post highlights some of the "dolce", or sweet, surprises that reveal themselves around every corner of Venice.  Oh, if we could only learn from Venetians not to fear joy!

As I was walking down a narrow calle I heard the beautiful song of a bird, and looked way, way up.  What a story of domestic joy this picture tells.  

Before my mother died, while deep in dementia, her greatest joy was watching flocks of flying pigeons.  I asked this pigeon to show me its red toes, and she demurely lifted her left foot.  I knew then, that my mother had joined me in Venice.

Poodle street style.  Venetians love their dogs!  This dog's proud owners utterly beamed at the attention their poodle was drawing from the throngs at the train station.

Just one of zillions of touristy carnival masks.  Carnival, or Carnevale, is a party that takes place for the 10 days before the abstentions of Lent.  In 1646, John Evelyn wrote, "All the world was in Venice to see the folly and madness... the women, men and persons of all conditions disguising themselves in antique dresses & extravagant musique & a thousand gambols."  And so the tradition continues.

In Campo Maurizio, where I'm living, is a lovely store called "Il Papiro".  It has handmade papers and woven linens, and these beautifully crafted puppets.  Behind the puppet, the card reads, "A wish for a good birthday".   

More puppets in the form of pencils.

Who wouldn't want to sit at this cafe?  One evening, my roommates and I were sipping a sweet spritz (the local choice for an after-work cocktail), and we had to rearrange our chairs because we were sitting outside the confines of the cafe's "seating zone".  Apparently, cafes pay dearly for the rent of their outdoor seating spaces on the campos, and their boundaries are strictly enforced!

A Murano glass pendant.

Here are two antique Murano glass vessels.  Shops here are full of Murano glass souvenirs and trinkets, some made in Murano, some fakes from abroad.  However, these are the real thing.  In the 11th century, all glassworks were removed from Venice (because of fire risk) to a small island north of the city named Murano.  The Muranese glassmakers have been renowned for centuries as masters of every aspect of making glassware.  Dale Chihuly, the famous American glass artist, has collaborated on projects with Muranese masters. 

Velvet slippers.

Today it is 40 degrees celsius and so humid that your clothes are drenched the moment you put them on.  Many Venetians take to the Dolomites for most of August.  Those remaining in the city do nothing but drink cold beverages and eat fresh fruit from the open markets (ripe figs are a favorite among the Scuola's printshop artists). 

Coin (pronounced "ko-een) is Venice's equivalent of Macy's.  It's the only department store I've seen here (most shops are very small), laid out in a vertical fashion with lots of steps.  Not exactly a "big box" store...

Canned cannoli in chocolate and hazelnut.

There are outdoor fruit and vegetable stands throughout the city.  Look at the tomatoes on the right.  Yes, they're real tomatoes - not the hard, clone tomatoes in many American markets.

Many of the calle (alleys) are this size or even narrower.  This is a quiet one, but imagine the busy ones, with shops on both sides, in the center of the city.  The Venetians are very tolerant of the throngs of visitors who stop, in mid-stride, to look at something in a store window, or constantly ask for directions through the maze that is Venice. 

I'll finish this post with a frenzy of "light red ", or PINK pictures.  "Confection" is the only word I could think of to describe this.

Pink boots and pizza!

I was taking a rest in the shade of the Peggy Guggenheim museum (more on that later) when, poof!, a puff of wind lifted the skirt of this woman's steel gray dress.  Who would have guessed that, hidden underneath, was this ruffly peach meringue?

Street style on Fondamenta Zattere allo Spirito Santo (Holy Spirit).

Men in pink (with satchels).  The white and peach outfit is pure linen, beautifully crafted and cool.  Linen is worn by men and women everywhere, colorful, crisply starched and elegantly styled. 

Even pink boats!  Behind the pink boat is the new vaporetto (water bus) specifically for stops at art and cultural venues.  I hear it's very over-priced and that it's just as easy to take the regular vaporetto, or on some days, faster to walk.  (The whole city of Venice is roughly the size of Central Park in New York.) 

My next post will focus on architecture.  See you then!

A structure is needed to focus on the overwhelming details and beauty of Venice. I'm using "colors" as the structure because, when focusing on a certain color, you notice things you might never have otherwise seen.  Let's start the treasure hunt!

I'm beginning with the color ROSSO  
which in English, is red.

This first post's selection of photos all have to do with the water... 

Red palazzo canopies on the Canal Grande.  Whenever possible, everyone eats outside under umbrellas - in the campo (square), along the canal and on the many private rooftop terraces.

The posh interior of a gondola that is waiting for passengers.  Gondola design hasn't changed much since the 17th century.  They are built from nearly 300 pieces of mahogany, elm, oak, lime, walnut, fir, cherry and larch.  A squero, or gondola builder turns out only about four new gondolas a year.  There is a shop in Venice that specializes in hand-crafting the forcola, or oarlock, that is seen in the upper left of the boat's bow.  It is an intricate shape, made specifically of walnut or cherry, and crafted so that the oar can be used in eight different positions.

It is the end of the day, and this wistful gondolier looks like he's ready for home.  As touristy as it is to take an evening ride in a gondola (it costs about 100 Euros), I was literally stopped in my tracks while crossing a quiet, backwater canal.  A gondola, with 2 passengers and a tenor and guitar player passed beneath me.  So clear and exquisite was the music, playing acoustically off the high walls of the buildings, that I was completely spellbound.

This boat would be the equivalent of my red, all-wheel drive Subaru Outback.  Parked outside the door of its owner, it is the family's transportation and "workhorse".  During the evening commute, we hear such boats whizzing by just outside the wall of our art studio, passengers shouting to one another, singing at the top of their lungs, or blasting out music that one young artist from Sweden claims is the genre called "European Grunge".

For those familiar with Donna Leon's wonderful Venice mystery series, this is Detective Guido Brunetti's favorite cafe along the Fondamenta Zattere in the artsy district of Dorsoduro.  Across the water you can see the string of islands called La Giudecca, once the main industrial section of Venice.  Now, like many other places in the world, industry has moved abroad, and La Giudecca is primarily residential, with some areas being gentrified.  The colossal Mulino Stucky, an historic flour mill, is now the home of a 5-star Hilton, complete with a rooftop pool! 

Well, pink is in the red family...  Here, along the Zattere, in the Dorsoduro district, are moored the cruise ships that literally dwarf the city's human-scale structures.  One local says, "They vomit out 7,000 tourists who walk around for a few hours, use the toilets, and get back on the ship."  Turbulence caused by the ships is said to further erode foundations along the edges of the canals.  Controversial?  Yes, but apparently the city charges enormous docking fees...

A fire boat - Vigile del Fuoco.  Fire safety is always on the minds of Venetians because their buildings' interior structures are made of wood.  The famous La Fenice opera house, Venice's oldest theater, was originally built in 1792, but burned twice - once in 1836 and again in 1996.  It was rebuilt as a replica of the 1792 structure because of the design's superb acoustics.

Men's street style in red.  He sits upon the "fondamenta" which literally means foundation.  These are the stone walkways that are located along the edges of some of the canals.  A few are very wide, and offer rare, open spaces where people can enjoy the vistas, take a morning run, or bring their children to ride their scooters.  There are no bicycles allowed in Venice - the walkways are too narrow, and there are too many bridges to cross.

Ah, gelato!  This, from the renowned Nico's (which also plays prominently in Donna Leon's mysteries), is Cioccolata & Croccante (crunchy) con Rum.  It was everything they say about gelato, and more!  One scoop, in a cup or cone, is 1 Euro and 30 cents.

Coiffed in red.  What more can I say?

Here is a couple (did they coordinate that morning?) on the famous Accademia Bridge, overlooking the Canal Grande.  The Canal Grande is Venice's main artery, and cuts the city in half.  This bridge is one of only four bridges that cross the Canal Grande.  If you want to cross where there are not bridges, you must either take a traghetto (a "commuter" gondola), or hop on a Vaporetto (water bus).  The #1 "local" Vaporetto zig-zags along the canal, bringing people from one side to the other.

Women's street style in red.

A "red" photo having to do with water?  This is from a shop that sells pipes, cigars and......beautiful water pipes!

This red wall is in the garden of the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica where I am doing my art fellowship.  The markings on the wall are a reminder of an annual occurence in Venice called "Acqua Alta" or high water.  It is caused by a combination of winter tides, atmospheric pressure and wind.  It has always been a part of Venetian life, but has been getting worse due to global warming.  When the squares flood, temporary walkways are installed, people put on their gumboots, and panels are attached to the lower portions of doors to keep as much water out of the ground floors as possible.  Italy is currently constructing a series of steel "flaps" out in the lagoon that will rise during flood season to reduce the effects of Acqua Alta.

Venice is a densely packed city, built upon a series of islands in a lagoon.  Like on the island of Manhattan, green space is a valuable commodity.  Those lucky enough to have a patch guard and cherish it.  Most gardens are secret, tucked away behind stone walls or intricate iron work, made all the more enticing by being glimpsed through tracery such as this.