We met Laura and her students at the Florence train station at 8 am. Which meant being up and out of the house by 7:30 which to some seems like no big deal but we have a 5 year old teenager who likes to sleep in - however we made it with time to spare. After a 3 hr train ride we arrived in Venice and I quickly slipped away to see the new Calatrava bridge.
Top and bottom.
I have to say the bridge looked great but it was kind of hard to walk over with the irregular setup spacing. This is kind of a problem for a walking bridge I think but maybe I am too picky.
We hopped on a vaparetto and on to our hotel. Gulliver was very impressed that the buses were boats. After getting turned around a couple of times we dropped our bags at the hotel and set off for the Biennale. For those of you that have not been to the Venice Biennale, it is a contemporary art show that happens every other year. There are two main exhibition spaces the Giardini and the Arsenale but there is stuff going on all over the city. The Giardini for my money is the most humane place to see a massive exhibition like the the Biennale because each country has a pavilion in which to exhibit the artist from that country. The pavilions are set in a beautiful garden so when you are walking around looking at art you are forced outside which serves as a breather or palate cleanser before the next course. This really helps to prevent “art stupid” which is brought on by seeing too much art at one time. I think it is the brain trying to protect itself from all the deep thoughts floating around by turning itself off.
This is a Dale Chihuly installation outside of the Croatian pavilion. Think what you will about Chihuly, but Eisen loved it. If you took your eye off him for a second he would be climbing through the fence trying to get in to the installation.
This was Gulliver’s favorite installation in the Italian pavilion I do not remember the artist but Gulliver delighted in running through the maze of strings and then instructing us on how to do it. Of course I had to do it pushing a sleeping Eisen in the stroller - yikes!
It’s closing time at the Biennale: you do not have to go home but you cannot stay here.
On the way back to the hotel we had the worst meal we have had in Italy - maybe my life.
But Gulliver got to stop in the Piazza San Marco and feed the pigeons. And yes, Addison, he touched one and I gave him 5 euros - are you jealous? It just goes to show that you catch more flies with sugar than .
We also got to pass Holly’s favorite store in Venice.
Day two at the Biennale and we are at the Arsenale: a very large curated show in the old arsenal of Venice.
Where we saw Holly’s favorite piece in the show or one of them at least.
And Gulliver really liked the cut paper “city”
1/2 way through and we were ready for...
I quite liked this installation.
We finally made it through the Arsenale and headed back to the Giardini to catch the pavilions we missed. On the way we were on the lookout for a place for lunch but we ended up on the street that the restaurant from last night was on so we took a pass on any of the other ones - guilt by association, you know.
But Holly with a zig here and a zag there, a couple of up and downs lead us right to the restaurant we had had a wonderful meal in 8 years ago: Da Franz. Here we had one of the best meals if not the best of my life. It started with the waiter coming out and asking what we were in the mood for - no menus or anything, we give him a vague idea “primi and pasta” then he proceeded to describe what they have that would fit our desires. I had a primi of fried sardines fresh of the boat with raisins, pine nuts and onions all served at room temperature, which I was surprised at but quickly got over it. and a secondi of anchovies, tomatoes on a whole wheat pasta - a simple but classic Venetian dish, then a chocolate mousse thing for dessert. Holly had a primi of shrimp sauteed in white wine on a wonderful chocolate pasta with mixed green salad for secondi then a panna cotta for dessert. On top of the food we were treated to a floor show of eavesdropping on Andrea Rosen and her party of collectors sitting at the next table , most entertaining. After coffee we set off for the Giardini.
I am glad we made the effort to go back and see what we missed because there was some quite good stuff.
This piece from the German pavilion was not that great but it made for a nice photo.
Then there was the Czech pavilion that was one of my favorites. What the artist did was to recreate the Gardini inside the pavilion so that the only difference between the inside and outside was that there were walls around one bit of the outside. It is funny that two of my favorite pieces of the show were kind of negating the whole show or maybe more accurately about the site sans art. Steve McQueen had a piece in a similar vain that I missed but maybe I would have liked it. After finishing the show we hopped a Vaparetto to our hotel picked up the bags and headed off to the train station and back to Florence, still basking in the glow of a fabulous meal and some stimulating art.
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