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! 

Day two- Brera Gallery

Had the typical little free breakfast at the hotel- cafe Americano, juice, yogurt, some pastries (or in my case, rye crackers with nutella and jam) and then took off for the day's adventures. Our first stop was a little church I had read about called Santa Maria presso San Satiro, a typical Italian church in the sense that it incorporated bits of architecture from various periods, including the 9th, 12th, and 15th centuries. It is known for the altar area designed by Donato Bramante, in which he used a forced perspective to give the illusion that the apse extends back much further than the five feet that actually enclose it. It also had some very tasty grisaille ornamental painting on the walls, and an exquisite octagonal baptistery that was shown to us by a very friendly volunteer docent who was chatty and pleasant. It was a nice intro to the day. We then headed past the Piazza again on our way up the the Pinacoteca Brera, an art gallery housed in a former Jesuit monastery. It also houses an art academy founded in 1776, and the milling students in the courtyard made me feel quite at home. 

Altar of Santa Maria presso San Satiro, showing the compressed perspective that Bramante used to give the illusion of a deeper space

We went first upstairs to the libary, which had a very nice neo-classical ceiling and shelves holding all kinds of books including an original copy of Stuart and Revett's "Antiquities of Athens" (1762), a highly influential book in the revaluing of Greek architecture and ornament. I would have loved to open it, but that was not an option. So we headed into the galleries, which immediately started out with a bang with a whole row of panels of frescoes removed from some churches (including the one we visited earlier in the day). Photos were not allowed in here, but they were not really into enforcing the ban, so I got some good ones of various details and the mind blowing work of Carlo Crivelli, which somehow looked as fresh as the day it was made. They had a cool restoration lab that was behind plexiglas walls so you could check it out- unfortunately nothing was being worked on while we visited, but it looked very high tech. They had a lot of paintings i knew from art history; always interesting to see the difference in scale and texture of paintings that you only know from photographs. They hold Mantegna's Dead Christ, beautiful paintings by Bronzino and Bellini, and Piero della Francesca's mysterious "Holy Conversation", among other highlights.

Courtyard of the Palazzo di Brera. The ground floor is an art academy started in 1776

After we were done with looking, we went in to hear a band that had set up in one of the galleries. It was a big band made up of young musicians, and they were doing some kind of tribute to American blues and dixieland music. It was pretty funny hearing them playing and singing "When the Saints go Marching In"! We felt a bit trapped after song number 6, followed by a fairly long speech by the director, which we hoped was the end but turned out to be the intro to two more songs. Still, it was funny and fun, especially with the backdrop of two spectacular mural paintings by Bellini. We walked out humming "Saints" and perused the studios of the Academy in the hallways downstairs.

We headed back to our room again, emerging late afternoon after the heat to get some food at a nice serve yourself cafeteria that was in the giant galleria, which we cruised through once more before heading back slowly to our room and a welcome rest.

 

Spires of the Duomo of Milan

A little magical reflected sunlight- two minutes later this was gone!

Diary of our Italy trip starting with Day Zero- (June 11th, 2013)

I've added a link to all of my photos of the Castello Sforzesco here.

Well, I'm going back through all my photos and trying to remember the details of our first days, before I began writing my diary entries. Since you enjoyed them before, I figured I might as well share them, even if it's not current. Enjoy!

Day zero- Milano

Arrived in the afternoon after two very long flights and a lot of micro movies. Those back of the seat airline video screens are great for giving you a lot of variety in what you can watch, but they're hell on the eyes! Between that and the general dryness of planes I always feel like my eyeballs have been drycleaned.

Anyways, got in ok and found the train into the center of town. It wasn't more than 3 blocks before I got out my camera to take some pics of some really cool sgraffito I spotted in the entry of an otherwise nondescript building. I had saved some map screens on my computer to try to get us to the hotel, and it was going sort of ok...all right, I was lost already!

We needed a break anyways, so we sat and had a coffee (our first delicious coffee of the trip!) and got on their wifi to re-search the location of our hotel. We hadn't gotten too far off track yet, so after we finished up we tootled back by a cool memorial shaped like the Tower of the Winds in Athens, up a few blind alleys, down a few narrow streets, and finally emerged onto our street and checked into our utilitarian little hotel. Not much charm, but quiet and clean.

Tempio della Vittoria is a Memorial to Milan's casualties from WWI. 

Unpacked some stuff and took a little rest, which turned into all night.

Day one- Castello Sforzesco

Got up on our first real day in Italy with a plan to visit some sights recommended by our friend Christopher, who had just been here a few months before.
The Sforza family was a driving force (that's what the name means in fact) in Milan from about 1450-1550, and spawned such famous progeny as Lucrezia Borgia and Cosimo di Medici. Ludovico Sforza was the patron of a young Leonardo da Vinci, and commissioned him to paint several rooms in the family castle, the Castello Sforzesco, which was our first destination of the day. Got a bit off track on the way to the main Piazza and walked into a very cool medieval area with an ancient market place that really recalled that era. Spotted the Duomo for the first time- it's huge! Fortunately, everything in the old city is very walkable, so we entered the grounds in good time, before the heat really started. The castle has been rebuilt several times since it's inception, but it's pretty darn impressive nonetheless. You first come through a typical gated entry into a large field of grass and wildflowers enclosed by high walls and a crenellated tower. Some of the walls have beautiful red sgraffito on them. Found the entry to the museum after a few false starts and found ourselves in a hall full of historic (ie-Roman era) artifacts, surrounded by walls painted in the 15th century. Oh yeah- this is what I came for!

Castello Sforzesco in Milano

Several amazing rooms led us to one that had been painted by Leonardo for the family, with an incredibly complex ceiling of intertwined tree branches that sprout from trunks on the walls. This room had been completely whitewashed somewhere along the line, and was restored during the 19th century. Unfortunately they lost quite a bit of the trees on the walls, but the ceiling was still fascinatingly dense. There were a number of other very nice painted ceilings in the ground floor, then we went upstairs to another part of the museum that had a show of furniture, including some great pieces by Carlo Bugatti, one of my favorite quirky designers from the late 19th century. There were also really great fresco fragments and icon paintings, but by this time we were getting a bit of burnout, so we headed out to see the park that is in back of the castle. 

Sala delle Asse was painted by Leonardo da Vinci around 1500

Chair by Carlo Bugatti

The park seemed a bit too hot and we wanted something to eat, so we headed back toward the center of town. We were just too late for the restaurants in the guides, so we kept on walking, eventually finding ourselves at the entry to the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II, the world's first covered shopping mall. The interior of this space is truly magnificent, with classical ornament climbing four stories up to the glass covered barrel vault. The floors are time worn marble, with a famous mosaic bull that is supposed to give good luck to those who place their foot on his genitals and spin around three times, a practice which has ground a large divot where the poor bulls nuts used to be! The mall mostly houses fancy clothing retailers, but it also had a good bookstore that I would have spent several hours in had not Marianne been tapping her toes by the door. We didn't really spot any good food so we ended up back at our room for some snacks, deciding that we would eat at the place next door when it reopened at 7. It was a delightful little courtyard with good service and mediocre food, but we were hungry by then so it went down eagerly. After a short reconnoiter, we headed over to the main piazza, where it was dusk, and caught the Duomo's spires by the dying light of day. 

In the Piazza del Duomo, with the original Galleria behind the triumphal arch

As we walked up the alley next to the Duomo we heard some live music coming out, and we paused to watch a really grooving little progressive jazz combo (with a kinetic keyboard player who could also play trumpet at the same time!) banging out some smoking tunes on the sidewalk in front of a little bar. They were playing to an appreciative audience of tourists and locals, with an emphasis on the latter. Walked about a block up to a gelateria that had very artisinal chocolate offerings- like single variety cocoa beans and liquid ganache chocolate that was poured into the cone under the ice cream. YUM! Walked back to the music to munch our cones and I spotted a woman and her kids who had been waiting for standby with us in Newark. We had a great chat with them- she's a flight attendant- and she clued us into the happy hour policy that a lot of people use to dine cheaply in Italy. If you buy your drinks in the early evening, a lot of places have free tapas that can easily make a meal. Unfortunately for us, being both non-drinkers with limited diets (Marianne's vegan and I can't eat wheat), that practice didn't really help, but it seemed like a great idea for others on a budget. 

We wandered back slowly now, starting to get a sense of where things were in the center of town, and went to bed.