Venice, Italy - Day 5

I loved watching this elderly man using his personal crane system to bring
his boat out from his boat garage into the canal. I imagine it must
be very expensive to park your boat permanently on a canal so having this
crane system and a garage would be less expensive. He saw me watching in fascination and waved a cheerful hello.

Beautiful walkway near my first hotel

Interesting gate leading to a private park

Another gorgeous Venetian spring day and after a lovely breakfast in the hotels charming cafe style room amazingly just down the hall from my room which over looked the Grand Canal although those tables were taken as you can imagine. There are so many families staying her this week. Several from the American and lots of British couples and families as well. The place was packed although my room was so quiet last night. I slept with the windows open and could hear the lapping of the canal two floors beneath me and thankfully no pigeons decided to grace me with their precense. I just couldn't resist having all that great fresh air, although I'm sure many would say the smell of canal water is hardly fresh and appealing, it is to me.

I walked around again going through some of the remaining churches in the Chorus pass as well as others I passed along the way. There is so much incredible art in these churches not to mention the buildings themselves and I know if you walk through some of NYC's greatest churches you'd find some incredible art as well. So much money through the ages was given by patrons to build churches, Synagogues, temples, mosques, etc. that some of the greatest art in the world can be found in them or certainly were found there until they were moved for safety and preservation to more suitable accommodations in the great museums of the world.

And as I write this I am sitting on the veranda of the hotel and with the rather quiet for a Thursday night boat traffic passing by. The city is still not in full swing with tourists at least at night but I know in the coming weeks it will be mobbed. And just as I was looking at my map to see which church I visited first I just took in a good amount of canal essence or as some would put it stench. It smells like fresh, uncooked clams or muscles to me which I don't really see as a bad odor.

Two couples from the hotel just joined me on the veranda and a gentlemen is now sitting at the table near me enjoying a night cap. All very relaxed and Although it's a tiny bit cool this evening it's perfect for for watching the world go by Venetian style.

St. Stae Church

St. Stae Church

Okay so the first church if I remember correctly was St. Stae which I'd mentioned in a previous blog entry and is right near my hotel. Beautiful, vast interior with large semi-circle windows at the top that let in so much light it gives the church a cheerful, almost glowing sense.

Santa Marie di Nazareth Church

Then I walked across the Ferrovia Bridge near the train station and stopped in briefly to the Santa Marie di Nazareth Church which from the outside is interesting but on the inside the alter is truly a wow, event with massive carved marble columns an gold sculptures. I didn't tour the church because sadly there was a funeral going on but out of respect I did wait to hear the priests beautiful homely on the life of the women who passed and he mentioned so many lovely details, at least from what I could understand, about her loving opera and her family. The church was full which was very nice and I'm sure she will be truly missed by her family and loved ones.

I came to San Giobbe Church (there are so many saints I never heard of before) and it represents one of the first examples of Renaissance architecture in Venice, with clear Tuscan influences that find their maximum expression in the Martini Chapel (which was closed right now for reconstruction) and in the domed vault in glazed terracotta attributed to Luca Della Robbia depicting Eternal Father in the center with the Four Evangelists at the corners. The terracotta works is just so beautiful although the picture I took could never do it justice.

From a beautiful church I came upon but didn't get the name

San Giobbe Church - Terracotta Ceiling

From there I walked to the St. Alvise Church which hosts three famous canvases by Giambattista Tiepolo who you'll remember from yesterday works in the Church of San Polo whose son did the beautiful 15 Stations of the Cross and Giambattista's joyous angels hung over head. "The Road to Calvary", "The Crowning with Thorns" and "The Flagellation." Each with haunting images of Jesus' suffering. The church is unique partly because of the well preserved "barco," the nun's hanging choir gallery connected with the adjoining convent.

St. Alvise Church - Nun's Choir Loft "Barco"

One of the truly striking details is the "vertiginous trompe l'oeil ceiling frescos by Antonio Torri and Pietro Ricchi. Ruskin (the respected English art critic of the Victorian era) hated these works, blaming Veronese for inspiring such later and lesser artists with his superior ceilings." They are pretty spectacular and the perspective going up to heaven is mesmerizing.

vertiginous trompe l'oeil ceiling frescos by Antonio Torri and Pietro Ricchi.

vertiginous trompe l'oeil ceiling frescos by Antonio Torri and Pietro Ricchi.

I fortunately found a great web site that I recommend if someone is coming to Venice and wants to familiarize themselves with all the great art available to the public for viewing in the cities extensive choice of churches. http://www.churchesofvenice.co.uk

I had lunch in the Jewish Quarter which is one of my favorite places to visit because it's an intimate area with great little shops and some wonderfully restaurants particularly Gam Gam which is right on a canal and has incredible Middle Eastern food. They have a great lunch special for under 10 Euros with great fresh baked pita type bread and then all these wonderfully little tapas style dishes all delicious especially the carrot cooked with olive oil, sesame seeds and a dash of soy sauce I was told by the friendly waitress.







After a little break back at my hotel I headed out for dinner and then to the famous theatre, La Fenice for a concert. What I didn't realize until I was just doing a little research online was that the theatre which I thought was original was actually only completed around 2003. "On 29 January 1996, it was completely destroyed by fire. Arson was immediately suspected. In March 2001, a court in Venice found two electricians guilty of setting the fire. Enrico Carella and his cousin, Massimiliano Marchetti, appeared to have set the building ablaze because their company was facing heavy fines over delays in repair work. Carella, the company's owner, disappeared after a final appeal was turned down. He had been sentenced to seven years in prison. Marchetti surrendered to serve a six-year sentence. Carella was ultimately arrested in February 2007 at the Mexico-Belize border, was extradited to Italy, and released on day parole after serving 16 months. After various delays, reconstruction began in earnest in 2001. In 650 days, a team of two hundred plasterers, artists, woodworkers, and other craftsman succeeded in recreating the ambience of the old theatre at a cost of some €90 million. The seating capacity was increased from 840 to 1000." But you must admit the jail time for their destructive behavior seems pretty minimal. I mean they did cost the city or at least the insurance company 90 million Euro, not a sum to sneeze at.

La Fenice Theatre

vertiginous trompe l'oeil ceiling frescos by Antonio Torri and Pietro Ricchi.

View from my seat to the orchestra and first three tiers

View of the ceiling over the thrust stage but what interested me most more than the ornate artistic details was the clock that is right in the middle and something I've never seen before because the audience in the orchestra will look
up at it the whole timee.

Orchestra which interestingly has individual chairs not the typical attached rows

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Although it wasn't the original 1792 theatre or even the second incarnation which opened in 1837 after a devastating fire in 1836 it was still very exciting to be there. My seat for the "SVC - Season chamber 2012-2013 ’Aere perennius’ - with a program of music by Beethoven and Brahms performed by the Quartetto di Cremona with accompaniment Alessandro Carbonare clarinet"  was on the 2nd balcony from the top with an obstructed view but for 15 Euros it was well worth it and since it was a symphonic concert not a full opera there was no need to really see the full stage as the 5 musicians sat downstage center.

A courtyard for a marble company

A courtyard for a marble company

A courtyard for a marble company

View toward the fish market on the Grand Canal

Reflection in my hotel window of curtain and balcony across the canal

The performance was pretty packed and the theatre is magnificent with outstanding acoustics and it was interesting because the musicians after each piece, especially in the first section before intermission seemed perplexed that people didn't applaud. I was surprised as well and followed their lead but the cellist especially actually made a point of looking around several times to all parts of the theater as if to see if we were still breathing or if the theater was in fact empty. But in the end the applause was thunderous and they even had to do an encore.

Chandelier over my bed

My room overlooking the small canal (see window shutter circled in yellow in the distance