Hello

I am getting much stick about buying Hello.  Mike is terrified of being seen with me with it.  Jeremy said he had never met anyone who admitted to buying it, they just read it in the hairdressers.  Phuvio said I should buy something intellectual and hide it inside!

Phuvio’s sister took the photo, I hadn’t met her before and she told me she lives on the Giudecca near the Coop.  I said we would probably see each other again.  When I got on the 23.22 traghetto on my way home from the Jazz Club that night she was on it too......

Here is Phuvio and I doing this.

Full moon

On my way home (finally) on Monday evening I took these great photos of the full moon over a commune building on the Grand Canal near the Rialto.

A lovely morning

The Zattere bathed in sunshine.

Masks at a stall in front of San Marco.

Pigeons taking a morning bath!

San Giorgio Campanile

More photographs from the tower.

Looking right out over the lagoon to Torcello and Burano.

San Marco

Below the Greci Church ( Greek Orthodox).

Can you spot the aeroplane taking off from Marco Polo airport

Looking towards Murano with the Faro (lighthouse) in the centre.

Here are the photographs from the top of the campanile at San Giorgio.

These are all of Giudecca and my apartment is behind the red roofs of the white building to the left of the picture.

The Food and Art mensa is where the cranes are seen.

This is the Ponte Longo where if any of you watched the TV programmes Venice 24/7 about the emergency services the lady got stuck in the lift.  I actually saw her last week on the bridge!

Dippy or what?

Tonight I went to the Circolo.  The speaker was from the University of San Francisco speaking about restoring the ecology to the bay area in  relation to the Venice Lagoon.  He was very interesting and his powerpoint was good.  Afterwards Caroline & I, (an new friend from church) had two small glasses of prosecco then walked to the vap stop.  Still talking we got on the vap & just as it set off realised we were going in the wrong direction!  We alighted at San Stae & got on the vap going towards San Marco when I realised I had left two carriers with gifts for neighbours at the Palazzo. so I got off where we had started from.
Luckily I walked into Christine who had my bags so I was able to retrieve them & go back to the vaporetto. While on the vap at another stop an English couple got on & said are we going in the right direction? to each other.  I did have a giggle at that.

So I have made it home!  Today was beautiful and I took some great photos from the tower at San Giorgio but I need to make something to eat. It was to be steak & veg but now I think it will be scrambled egg on toast.

Tomorrow out agin with the Venice Ladies so more tomorrow evening.

Il Successo Italiano A Parigi

Saturday I went to Rovigo to see an exhibition called Il Successo Italiano A Parigi.  I was supposed to go with the Circolo to Udine to a Tiepolo exhibition but it was postponed and I didn’t find out until 07.45 when I was at the vaporetto stop.  So I decided since I was up, running and out to go to Rovigo instead of during the week as I had planned.  Luckily I had previously checked out the train times!

It isn’t the prettiest of towns on the Veneto and the exhibition was really the only reason to go.  I got the bus into the town and the lovely driver put me off right outside the palazzo.  I had a walk around, had a coffee and found a chocolate market.  Oh to be eating chocolate!  I bought some chocolate covered glacè fruits for Neda for her birthday and a chocolate salami to take to Jeremy’s today.

                                                        

Then I went to the palazzo.  First you went to the 2nd floor to deposit coats and bags then up to the 4th floor to buy a ticket and enter the exhibition.  Inside I realised there was a commentary but i hadn’t collected earphones so returned to the ticket counter.  There was a problem with them today and they’re not working.  Funny people were wearing them!  The guy came after me and said he had made a mistake, they were on the 2nd floor.  I wasn’t told when I checked my bag & coat, so back downstairs.  Then there is the next problem.  You have to pay €5 and deposit photo ID.  Please can I have your identity card or driving licence.  First we Brits do not have and will not carry identity cards and no I don’t have a driving licence with me.  Not a necessary requirement living in Venice.  Wouldn’t have been any good anyway as I don’t have a photo driving licence.  Finally offered up my imob card for the vaporetto and that was acceptable.  At all these exhibitions it is not made easy to have the commentary, they never ask you when you buy your ticket.

Anyway............  The exhibition was about Goupil a Parisian art dealer who bought paintings, kept artists on a retainer so they had regular income and he kept the rights to the paintings and made copies and sold engravings and prints of them.  Last week at the de Nittis Goupill was prominent as the Italian was one of his star clients so the two exhibitions tied in well together.  many of the paintings on show were from private collections and hadn’t been seen in public before.  Goupil opened an office in New York and many of the paintings on show were made for the US market.  They liked the pretty ladies in grecian settings.  

Over the last couple of weeks I have learnt a lot about a period of paintings that I wasn’t familiar with.

The two towers of Rovigo

Chocolate tools!

Porridge

I do love porridge for breakfast and brought a tubful with me which lasted less than two weeks.  Since then I have found and bought two different types but neither was quick cook.  It takes about 40 minutes and still isn’t really cooked.  I have a routine, I get it in the pan with some milk to soak whilst I shower & wash my hair.  Then I put it onto a low light and begin to blow dry my hair.  In between i go and give it a stir.

Now this is one of the upsides of living in a tine apartment.  At home I couldn’t be running up & downstairs doing this.  Annie showed me a tin of quick cook porridge which was sometimes available in Panorama.  I found some when I went there and bought two tins.

Joyce comes out on Thursday and I gave her a tub to bring out so I think I shall just about manage the rest of my stay with sufficient to not have  to bother with the long cook variety.

Wind, rain and snow....and that's just this afternoon!

I haven’t left La Giudecca today, the first time this trip.  This morning it was very cold and snow was forecast so I decided to have a cooking day.  At the Coop & green grocers I bought ingredients to cook fafioli piccanti - lamon beans with pancetta and tomatoes, La Peperonata  and nine portions of Kathryn’s special vegetable soup

This morning the sweater I had washed - otherwise it would have walked out - dried outside but this afternoon the wind got up and it began snowing.  I have a scarf down in front of the patio wdoors to try to keep out the draught.  Tonight is Bible study, I ‘m just waiting and not sure if anyone will come.  I spend seven euros on a small tray of biscuits and I can’t eat them. I didn’t ask how much they were, but I can take them to Jeremy’s on Sunday.

Amazingly Victoria and Gaspare turned up and we have had a lovely two hours of fellowship and discussion about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and overturning the tables in the temple.

Chioggia - A Venetian outpost

Tuesday I was out and about again, this time to Chioggia at the the south western extreme of the Venetian Empire.  To get there it is a vaporetto, bus, bus goes on a ferry then another vaporetto.  Chioggia is a fishing port famous for having the oldest clock tower in the world. (Forgot to photograph it)!  There is a fish market and not much else.  Even the bars closed at lunchtime and the restaurants all served fish so I made the return journey home.

The vongole nets at Pellestrina

Pellestrina, the last village on the Lido de Venezia.  Once the vaporettos were built here.

The Venetian Lion is still to be found here.  Above on a private house & below on the gate into town.

The fish market and filleted sardines.

Francesco Spina

In the early evening I went to a guitar recital.  The young man was wonderful but there were only seven us plus his mum & dad in the audience.  Such a shame.

Breaking News

Just heard list night I am to be the Fairy again in Jack and the Beanstalk next January.
This Fairy will not be one in a tutu, a more streamlined one..... will go with my new streamlined figure!
Tried to put this on last night but the line was too busy & the internet was too slow.

Padova Part 2

I absolutely love the fruit and vegetable market in Padova.  Stalls are beautifully presented, often just selling a few different types of goods.  The fondi, carciofi, artichoke hearts were being prepared and displayed in a different way to those in Venice.  I asked permission of a trader to take photographs of them preparing the heart.  I took numerous photos of the different types.  I need to find out how to prepare the baby ones, the colour is amazing.  

The town was very busy as it was a Saturday but it felt wonderful to be surrounded by local s and not tourists.  There is a different feeling.  Because it was so busy it was difficult to get the photos but I am pleased with these.  I shall definitely return next month during the week when it is quieter.

Padova

 

I had seen there was an exhibition of paintings by the Italian artist De Nittis in Padova.  I was going to go on Tuesday but when I woke Saturday it was a lovely morning.  I checked trenitaila for the times of the trains to Padova I decided to get up and go.  I left my apartment at 08.45 and just caught the 09.34 train.  I walked around the market taking photos, sat outside and had a hot chocolate that was divine, so thick I had to eat it with a spoon!  The clock tower is at one side of Piazza del Erbe the market square and you will
see just like the tower at Castelfrance Veneto the Venetian Lion is there, both towns being part of the Venetian Empire.

My first set of photographs are inside the permanent market, a mixture of butchers, cheese stalls and salumerias.  The chickens are just like the one I bought at my local butcher, complete with head and feet!

The stalls were amazing, bursting with hams, cheeses, salamis meats.

Photos of the outdoor fruit and vegetable market to follow.

Worship at San Giorgio

This morning I went to worship at the Chiesa San Giorgio, just across the basin from San Marco or three stops on the vaporetto.  Liz & Geoff go there every Sunday and I joined them to see my work on display.  Liz said my poster must have worked there was ore people there than usual.  This week I was lucky because there was a visiting accapello choir who were wonderful.  I met francesco, my friend from the internet shop on my way in and was introduced to Dom Andrew MacNeill from Edinburgh who is a monk there.  I had heard various people speak of him but hadn’t met him before.  He found me his service book in english and it also had the Bible readings for the day marked.  Liz kept me in the right place and I enjoyed the service.  Of course I couldn’t go for communion as I had told Dom Andrew I was a Methodist.  After the service Francesco introduced me to another of the Monks & told him it was me who had helped him with the poster and he thanked me profusely.  Francesco said he had had to alter to poster so that italian and English versions were on the same one, the monks didn’t want separate ones.  

Liz, Geoff, and American and myself were invited to join Don Andrew for a cup of coffee and we had a lovely chat.  His sister lives in Headingley and he knew my part of West Yorkshire.

Dom Andrew and myself

A day out.

For the second day in a row I crossed the bridge onto terra firma.  Yesterday is was to the supermarket Panorama & today a one hour train journey to Castelfranco Veneto.  This is the birthplace of Giorgionne.  I visited his house and saw the frescos he painted there and his altarpiece in the duomo of the Madonna and saints.  

I walked around town, it felt good to get away from the sometimes claustrophobic atmosphere of Venice.  Lunch was at a wonderful small trattoria next to the town walls.  The young man who was the waiter served eleven tables promptly and efficiently, he was a joy to watch.

The clock tower in the city walls.  There is also a moat around the outside .

The Giorgionne Madonna with closeups below.

Two Veronese frescoes in the sacristy of the Duomo