We were obliged to get up before 6 so as to leave the house just after 7 to catch the 7.30 Alilaguna boat to the airport. As usual, I got us there too early, but the boat was on time and we had an interesting 40 minute trip to Murano and across the lagoon to the airport. When we arrived it was dark so we saw nothing, and this was much better.
The trip home was uneventful - we took off on time, we landed a few minute early, and though we had dreadful difficulty in finding the stop for local buses, we were home in time for a late lunch. Paul has unfortunately started the same cold as me, but is soldering on. I went to bed for the afternoon, snivelling a great deal.
We were sad to leave Venice, where we have had a feast of art, as well as appreciating the beauty all around us. So here are a few photos I didn’t have time to post before.
This is a view over the Grand Canal from the Ca’ D’Oro.
And this is the view in the other direction.
This is a view of the very popular number one boat which goes very slowly up and down the Grand Canal. It’s very popular because it goes slowly and stops at all the stops so there are plenty of photographic opportunities.
It’s the boat we usually caught mostly because the number 2, which doesn’t stop at all the stops, always seemed to miss the stops we needed.
It’s the boat we usually caught mostly because the number 2, which doesn’t stop at all the stops, always seemed to miss the stops we needed.
And below is a cluster of gondolas, just to the north of Salute. Sometimes there were traffic jams, there were so many of them. There are only 4 or 5 in this photo, but we once counted a cluster of 9
And just to give a flavour of the back streets of Venice, here is a photo of the Calle where we stayed.
And just to give a flavour of the back streets of Venice, here is a photo of the Calle where we stayed.
It’s taken from quite close to the outside of the flat’s main door. You can see how narrow it is. On our second day in Venice, two men were trying to transport a new sofa on a trolley along it, and it only just fitted under the sottoportego part and was about the same width as the Calle. It was wrapped in plastic, and the owner went ahead of the men to stop it scraping too much on the walls either side. That patch of light you can see half way down the Calle is the courtyard garden (slightly smaller than my sitting room) belonging to a house adjacent to the block of flats where we stayed - we could look down onto it from the loo of our flat. Anyway, when we saw the sofa coming along, we jumped into the courtyard (fortunately, the gate was open) because there wasn’t room for us. Otherwise, we would have had to walk back to a wider part of of the Calle.
The back streets are pretty much like this. You are always meeting men with various things on trolleys and having to get out of their way - it’s how things get delivered. There are no lorries of course, only big barges for deliveries, then it’s a man with a trolley along the streets and alleyways.You meet them on the vaporetto all the time. They need to be really strong, because they need to manhandle the trolley up and down the many bridges over the canals.
I can’t resist this one. It’s the big painting by Tintoretto in the sacristy of Salute which I failed to photograph to my satisfaction. This is a photograph of the postcard I bought.
While browsing about the web and various travel books, I found a story attached to it, which I love. The story goes that it was originally painted as The Last Supper, but it was felt to be far too raucous and unsuitable and Tintoretto was accused of blasphemy. He solved the problem by renaming it The Wedding at Cana. It’s probably an apocryphal story but I couldn’t resist repeating it!
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