Day Seven- Venezia!

Welcome to crazy town! After the peaceful vibe of VIcenza, Venice is like Toon Town, wall to wall tourists wandering with map in hand (looking desperately for the WC), souvenir shops hawking Chinese-made "Venetian" commedia dell'arte masks, and canals full of boats and swooning couples. That said, it's still amazing, and the historical aspects, while somewhat shrouded by the commercial frenzy of summer, still manages to peek through and impress. 

Gondola rides at midday are a bad idea- wait until night, or at least twilight.

Arrived at the train station around one, and instead of using the directions to our place that they had given us, which started instead from the bus station (I'm not going to backtrack 500 yds to start where they tell me to!) I used Google maps to locate our place and headed out confidently. The heat had begun to settle in, so we hugged the shadows as we made our way along the canals and bridges. At some point, I realized we were off track and not finding the apartment, so I got out the directions from the owners as Marianne glowered at me. As I later found out, even Google Maps can't navigate Venice- the address of the place was totally misplaced on their database. In any case, we did find it after a bit of renavigation, and were met there by a very friendly woman who took us up to see the place. It was a lovely little apartment on the third floor, way more space than we actually needed, with a kitchen, and most importantly, a washing machine! We packed really lightly for this trip; one carry-on bag each, and not even a big carry-on, so our clothes needed a refresher about once a week.

This kind of street sign was of no use in finding our place, but it was  a nice distraction.

After putting a load in and settling in for a while, we headed down to find the Piazza San Marco. On the way to the Ponte Rialto (the absolute tourist nexus of the entire island) we passed by some more authentic shops, including a shoe store that made me drool. Hand made shoes for men and women, classic styles that looked beautifully crafted and so comfortable. After briefly taking in the sight of the Grand Canal from the bridge, we navigated the crazy streets until we found ourselves, quite by accident, at the entry to the Piazza and the site I had in mind to begin with, the Museo Correr. 

Coffee shop at the Museo Correr has neo-Pompeiian murals by Francesco Hayez. You can sit here and have a snack overlooking the piazza, even if you're not going into the museum. 

The museum was started in 1836 by Teodoro Correr, a wealthy Venetian who collected all kinds of art during a low point in Venice's history, when many families were selling off parts of their collections. While the collection does have quite a few seminal pieces in it, I was much more interested in the building, a Neo-Classical extravaganza from the period when Napoleon was the nominal ruler of the area. The decoration of the rooms is rich and dense, with the French influence quite evident. As usual, the damned photo ban was in effect, but it was not too hard to avoid detection by the mostly bored looking guards who looked out the windows and semi-snoozed in chairs. The windows were open to the lagoon, and the breeze in the rooms made it a pleasant place to stay out of the heat. Room after room of spectacular ornament (that gets hardly a mention in the tour guides!) culminating in the library, a spectacular room that was marred only by some piece of art from the Biennale that would have served better as easels for something deserving. 

The cartographic library in the Correr Museum has amazing wall decoration and gorgeous maps- unfortunately impeded by someone's idea of "art". I'm sorry, but these pieces were just so simplistic- they belonged at a local art fair, not part of the Venice Biennale! Just my opinion.

We stayed until it was closing time (Marianne seemed a bit relieved- I could have stayed there all night!) and then we went out into the piazza to take in the scene. By now it was starting to get cooler, and the crowds were building all around the shady areas. We looked at the exterior of the basilica, with its crazy quilt collection of colored marbles, then went down by the water to look at Palladio's church across the water (with a ridiculous contemporary sculpture sitting next to it). The criss crossing water traffic looks so chaotic and Italian- I'd be amazed if they don't have regular smash ups out there. All across the piazza, the itinerant immigrant sellers of cheap toys were desperately trying to gain our attention by waving some item and entreating us to buy. "Sorry!" It's strange; we noticed that from one end of Italy to the other, they all seem to have the same items: a little silicone blob that gets thrown down to make a big splat (and then regather itself) and by night, a little glowing projectile that they launch with a rubber band, whence it deploys some kind of rotor to descend to the unsuspecting heads of passers by. Have to watch out for those! And of course whenever it begins to rain, they seem to have a hidden supply of cheap umbrellas nearby that suddenly materialize. We were thankful for that in Florence, when we had a sudden downpour after a museum visit. 

Palladio's Il Redentore church on the lagoon of Venice, also beset by contemporary "art". WTF,

 people?

We meandered back at twilight, noting how much better it looks under half light, when shadows are long and cover a multitude of sins. Even the tsotchkes look better at night!