Day Eight- Venice redub

Today's post is the last one before I get back to where I started doing this during the trip. I have been posting these (some with a few different photos) on my blog page, in case you need to refill, or direct someone who isn't on facebook to them. I'll continue to repost the old ones there so that they are in sequential order until I have the whole trip up. Then god only knows what I'll do with myself (like maybe get some work done?!) 

I guess living in Venice your whole life will do this to you

Becoming very apparent that two days is nowhere near enough time to take in Venice; a week seems more like a necessary minimum. We don't have a week, so we'll just try to absorb as much as possible and vow to return for a longer visit. Got up and had a nice breakfast with our own espresso maker and some wheat free bread I bought at a German bakery across the street from our pad. Little did I know it would be the last time I saw that in Italy, or I would have packed a bag full of it for later. It was good! 

Nice window on the way to the piazza. Starting to know my way around....not!

After hanging our freshly laundered clothes on the line in the courtyard, we headed back to the Piazza, the path already becoming clearer in my head as I began to recognize landmarks. Stopped again to lick the windows of the shoe store and wonder why I wasn't born in that category of human- I'm certainly one who would appreciate $1,000 shoes! The handmade suits also have been calling to me through the store windows. "Steve, come and wear me!" 

Everything at the Palazzo Ducale is X-Large

But I digress. Our first destination on this fine and sultry day was the Palazzo Ducale (or Doge's Palace,) a large agglomeration of building that goes back to the 9th century, though most of it was built around the 15th and 16th centuries, while maintaining a Gothic style that originated in the 14th century. Ducal does indeed describe this place (or perhaps this place describes ducal) with extra large rooms that are somewhat dark and foreboding, but also regal in their gold and ornamented ceilings and walls. They have good descriptions in each room of the function; here is where one entered to be seen by the court, here is where the accused sat before sentencing, etc. Definitely put the fear of god in you! Then you descend to the prison via the so-called "Bridge of Sighs". Ugh! I think I decided on this trip that I really don't enjoy visiting dungeons- it is much too sad to imagine those who spent time in these cold dark places.

 After recovering from that area you enter the Chamber of the Great Council, a gigantic room made to seat up to 2,000 of the local nobility. It faces the lagoon with large open windows to keep it moderate, but it is easy to imagine the good nobles snoozing in their chairs as some discussion of trivia droned on from the raised platform where the Doges would hold forth, backed up by Tintoretto's "Paradiso", the longest oil painting in the world. All around the room, twinned portraits of the Doges glare down from history, including poor Marin Faliero, who in 1355 attempted a coup, and was punished by becoming an "unperson", his name wiped off the record books and his portrait nothing but a black cloth. Oh yeah, he was also beheaded.

Council of the Great Council at the Doge's Palace

After the Palazzo we decided to go for the trifecta, entering into the Basilica di San Marco, which is just next door. Originally the Doges' church, this crazy quilt Byzantine style building has bits of materials from all over, a fitting tribute to Venice's position as gateway to the Eastern provinces and trade center. Colored marbles adorn the entry, and the interior is bathed in golden light from the multiple mosaics that cover the vaults. Some of the mosaics go back to before the church was built, while others were designed by famous painters such as Veronese, Tintoretto, and Titian. The overall effect is dazzling- like being inside a kind of jewel box. There are all kinds of exotic marbles in columns and book matched panels, many of them brought from foreign lands or prized off of antique sites. 

Columns in the Basilica of San Marco were brought from all over .

We then revisited the cafe in the Museo Correr (ok- it was partly due to my desire to take more photos of it- I had the camera set wrong when I was there the day before.) Then we stayed in the arcades and found the Caffe Florian, where I could have spent three times as much for a coffee, but been surrounded by a painted mirror space that is unequaled anywhere. They politely ignored me as I snapped away, but I kind of felt like we should have popped for it, even though it would have been ridiculously expensive! 

Mural in Caffe Florian, a Venetian institution.

We then decided it was nap time and headed back to our little cabana, where the laundry was all dry and toasty. We emerged again at dusk for one more look at the Piazza and a gelato, vowing that we will come back to explore more of it another time. We didn't even get to see the Biennale, which is mostly down in the southern part of town, although what parts we did see in installations around town were less than impressive, if not downright blocking the view! Don't get me wrong, I am not categorically against contemporary art, it's just that I look for art that is a balance of thought and craft, and most of what I see today has (way) too much of the former and not enough of the latter. 

I guess this wraps up my monologue on the trip we took this summer- hope I'll be able to do it again soon! 

Day Three- Mantova

The small town of Mantova (Mantua) has long been on my list of things to see in Italy, mostly for the Palazzo del Te, Giulio Romano's masterwork. I was very excited to be able to include it in our itinerary. Mantova is a unique town surrounded by 3 lakes that are actually dammed parts of its river. Now it is a peninsula in the river; previously it was an island, with the lakes forming a good sized moat to keep it safe from invaders, a necessity in the dead flat plain where it lies. 

Original entry to the Palazzo Te was over this moat

We started our day at the main train station in Milan, a beautiful barrel vaulted Art Deco space clad in white marble with large tile murals. Our first encounter with the automated ticket machines was positive- they show you all the trains that are available, what they cost, and then take either your credit card or your cash and dispense your ticket. Easy as pie! On the train we discovered the one other thing you need to know, which is to get your ticket validated at one of the little timestamp machines in the station, or they charge you 5 Euros! Won't make that mistake again!

Art Deco train station in Milan

We arrived in Mantova before lunch time and I realized I hadn't saved the screen that showed where our hotel was exactly. I remembered it was pretty near the train station, so we decided to walk across the street and ask at the first hotel we saw. Despite having a completely different name on the sign, turned out this was our place! Convenient! Plopped our stuff into the room, noting the good AC it had, then walked out to find some food and go to the Palazzo Ducale, another site I knew about. On the way to the Palazzo we found a good sized supermarket and picked up picnic supplies- arugula, tomatoes, some fresh mozzarella for me, some beans for Marianne, some marinated veggies, delicious apricots and some dark chocolate! Then we headed out to find the Palazzo. In my defense, Italian towns and cities have no semblance of grid pattern to them, and the maps they hand out most places conveniently skip over a lot of the smaller streets and alleys, so of course we were off track and lost within about 20 (hot and getting hotter) minutes. We paused by the river dike to get our bearings and realized we'd have to backtrack to get around the little inlet that blocked the way, decided the park there was a bit seedy, then hoofed it another 20 minutes until we found the Palazzo, and a delightful little park next to it for our repast. 

Lunching under the linden trees next to the Palazzo Ducale

The park was shady and had a nice fountain in the center, with topiaries and benches set all around. The linden (or lime) trees were in full bloom, giving off a heavenly scent somewhat like jasmine, as we munched our lunch contentedly. After we packed up our leftovers, we entered the immense palazzo and found ourselves in a series of large shady rooms with windows wide open to the park, so that the fragrance permeated the space, lending a feeling of timelessness to the halls. 

Pisanello made a sinopia for a mural of the crusades,  but it was not painted and was subsequently whitewashed over, only to reemerge in the 20th century.

The Palazzo Ducale could be a museum of decorative wall painting, with frescoes that range from late medieval up to the 19th century. Some of the earliest displays were removed from other spaces, churches mostly, and placed on the walls here for protection. It always astounds me that it's even possible to remove a fresco mural, seeing as how they are essentially a very friable layer of plaster with delicate pigments adhered to the surface. Yet somehow they do it without losing too much, and they were placed in these spaces close to their original configurations. There was a fascinating room that displays the sinopia made by Pisanello for a battle mural that was never finished. A sinopia is an underlying drawing for a fresco, usually done in an earth red paint or chalk, though in this case he also used black. 

The Hall of Mirrors at the Palazzo Ducale, from the early 17th century

Further on are rooms that display high Renaissance murals, including Mantegna's famous "Camera degli Sposi" with its trompe l'oeil oculus and peering figures looking down from the ceiling. Unfortunately this room was closed because of earthquake damage from the year before, but it was hardly missed considering the wealth of other rooms to look at. The photo police were in effect here, so that I had to be cautious about where and when to click, but I did manage to snap quite a few anyways. There are courtyards and gardens, staircases and grottoes, all looking to be in relatively good shape with water and air quality issues seemingly under control. There was a beautiful set of very early rooms down deep in the castle where you could imagine the mistress retiring to stay cool during the hot summer months. There are murals by Rubens, Romano, and many others, and a whole wing of neo-classical rooms that contain a set of tapestries too. There was also a large dining room in a Rococo style with figures of the six nearby rivers and grottoes at both ends of the room. I could easily go back for another round in this museum, and hopefully I can get permission some day to photograph it unmolested.

Also in the Palazzo Ducale is this 18th century dining room with personifications of six rivers of the area, and grottoes at each end of the room.

Across the piazza from the palazzo is the Basilica di Sant'Andrea, which also was damaged by the earthquake but is in full swing to repair and restore its interior, with a gigantic scaffold I would have paid plenty to climb (they even had an elevator on it!) We went in just as they were closing though, so we left quickly with a vow to return the next day. We continued our tour of the parks with another one not far away where we watched the river for a while (though there was a busy street between us and the water), then we had a second picnic on a quiet bench behind a graffiti scrawled monument. Graffiti is immensely popular in Italy now, as it has been since Pompeiian times. It ranges from stupid tagging of ancient marbles to some colorful and witty pieces around the train stations. I'm not categorically against it, but the taggers should have more respect for the artists that came before. We walked back slowly as the swallows came out and circled the steeples. It seems like we always find the crappiest streets on our first forays, then gradually find the better routes until we can stay shady and romantic the whole way back. 

Who could not love a window with an elephant!

Our hotel was called the "Antica Dimora" and it was directly across the street from the train station, which was very convenient. We had a plain, clean little room on a lightfilled courtyard, with spotty Wi-Fi, good AC, good shower, and a double bed. It cost €65/nite for two with a nice breakfast. I'd return to it for the price, though there's more romantic places in town to be sure.