Sunday in Venice

Posted on 2012/06/20 23:01:52 (June 2012).

[Sunday 17th June 2012]
Our last day. Having had a pretty detailed itinerary planned up until yesterday, we'd sort of intentionally left today fairly open to just do whatever we felt like. Somehow we ended up deciding to go and see some art - at least in part this decision was motivated by just not wanting to be outdoors in the middle of the day.

To begin with we headed to the Gallerie dell' Academia. It's a rather large gallery, and many parts of the building are impressive in their own right. Much of the art to begin with was religious in nature, which eventually started to get a bit much, if I'm honest. Unfortunately one of the paintings I wanted to see - Veronese's Feast in the House of Levi - was partly covered up for restoration. However, towards the end the styles and themes were more varied, and I particularly enjoyed the Miracles of Venice series.

After that we walked to the Santa Maria della Salute, planning on going inside, but on arrival found we were there outside of opening hours - it was a Sunday after all. So we got on a vaporetto from there, to head in the direction of the Palazzo Grimani (the ticket for the Gallerie dell' Academia also gave us free admission there). On the way there we stopped off in a slightly touristy cafe for lunch, where in a lapse of judgement I ordered what turned out to be effectively a pizza with chips on top. I regretted this decision somewhat, and ate less than half of it.

The Palazzo Grimani had a small exhibition of Canaletto's paintings. I've been a fan of Canaletto since first visiting the John Soane Museum in London, where they have a few of his works in the picture room. The palazzo itself was also quite interesting and the marble interiors were pleasingly cool.

We also decided to fit in a flying visit to the island of Murano, which turned out not to be particularly interesting. There were probably a hundred shops selling Murano glass, but it all seemed to be either tacky tourist souvenirs or weird abstract ornamental pieces that were expensive and seemed to just serve no purpose. We both wondered why they didn't just make things people could actually use, like drinking glasses and little bowls to put nuts in. Maybe they did sell that kind of thing as well, but none of it was on display in any of the shop windows. So we returned to the main island having spent only about half an hour or so on Murano.

Once back on the main island, we were thirsty so went and bought a bottle of Gingerino (non alcoholic Campari, effectively) and found a shady spot to sit and drink it. There was a nice little square across the Grand Canal from the Fondaco dei Turchi where we'd also sat for a while yesterday, so we decided to go back there and watch the boats going past.

The last thing we did in Venice was to visit the Jewish quarter - the original ghetto from where the name used all over the world originates. We started with a light dinner at Gam Gam - a Kosher restaurant, as we were unsure whether the food on the train would be any good. This was rather nice, we had a sort of mixture of little Israeli vegetable dishes with some falafel and some bread. After dinner we went for a quick wander around the ghetto before heading to the hotel to pick up our bags, and from there to the station.

Our sleeper train left around 8pm. After our previous experience on the way back from Florence (sharing a 4 berth couchette with two snoring Brazilians) I was determined we were going to get a private compartment this time. This made a world of difference, and we both grew rather attached to our little room over the 15 hours or so we were on board the train.

After settling in we ventured out to the bar for a quick drink, and then sat in the restaurant car for a light second dinner. Actually Chie wasn't hungry, so it was just me eating. They had a sort of vegetable lasagne on the menu - it wasn't great (and to start with was still half frozen) but I really enjoyed the experience of sitting in the dining car. It was obviously a long way removed from the Orient Express in terms of the decor and service, but still there was something rather fun about it. We got chatting to a couple from California who were sitting across the aisle from us and it was all very pleasant.

To my surprise, I actually slept reasonably well on the train. Perhaps it was the fact that every hotel we'd stayed in for the last four nights had had some sort of noise problem, and I'd either just got used to it by now, or I was just very tired. Or maybe it was the half bottle of wine I'd had in the dining car. Anyway, I'd very happily use this sleeper train again.

Post a comment