How I found Canaletto, visited 5 museums in 2 ½ days, and learned to stop worrying about using every minute to see as many things as I possibly could.

Washington DC Memorial Day Weekend
Eureka! I found him!

How I found Canaletto, visited 5 museums in 2 ½ days, and learned to stop worrying about using every minute productively to see as many things as I possibly could.

We are here in Washington DC, first time in at least 10 years.The last times we were here, as far as I can remember, were on my bday when C was about 3 yrs old, when Loring planned to shave his beard off for a bday present, sent me off to a museum, and when I came back no shaved beard, C hysterical saying you wont be my daddy any more, hence no surprise present. The other time I was with the kids, L must have gone home after, I think, Sidra’s wedding in Balltimore. I remember staying at a hotel in Dupont Circle, and going to a restaurant where they served samores as a dessert, on a platter with all the ingredients, and a little sterno stove on which to toast the marshmallows with skewers. The place is still there, it’s called Cosi, in fact Loring and I had breakfast there yesterday.I didn't find it nearly as appealing as I remembered it, though.

So here we are, once again at Dupont Circle, waiting in the lobby of the Churchill Hotel, which I picked because it’s on the historical register, was originally an elegant apartment building, and because it was one of the cheapest hotels I found online. It was $109 plus tax per night, granted that was with $10 for AARP, which they didn’t check anyway. I suppose if my hair wasn’t gray they might have!

It’s my kind of place, has a certain amount of character and ‘charming ambience.” I would probably like it more if it was a little more rundown,, but certainly prefer it to the Marriot or Hilton , which are next door and across the street. Ok, no hair dryer in the room, not that I have ever really needed a hotel hair dryer. Except this am, because I somehow didn’t bring enough underwear, washed some last night, which wasn’t dry this morning. But there was an iron, which actually probably made better sense than the hairdryer method anyway, and gave me a chance to use the desk for something, so I didn’t have to haul out the ironing board.

Okay that’s probably more than you wanted to hear about my underwear, onto other things…(didn't I write about my underwear in Venice, too?)

It was Canaletto that brought us here. In case you didn’t see the last post, I could not find any of the famed panoramic Canalettos in Venice, because there arent’ any there. Then discovered there had been a major exhibit at the Natitional Gallery in London, until January, then discovered said exhibit was now at the National Gallery here in Washington, but only through this weekend. Therefore the rather impulsive visit here, only a week after our return from Italy.

The exhibit, actually of Canaletto and his “rivals” was wonderful, panorama after panorama, some of places quite recognizable to us, where we’d been so recently, until I was quite satiated. Some of the so called rivals’ paintings were equally as wonderful, and I don’t think I could have discerned, in many cases, which were his and which weren’t. But, no worry, some of them had been attributed to Canaletto, even until fairly recently, so I shouldn’t and didn’t feel bad. Some were by his nephew/ student and were quite obviously done after Canaletto. Interestingly, the nephew had signed them with his famous uncle’s name (with his knowledge? It didn’t say) and so many contemporary collectors, and maybe some modern ones, were duped.
Here’s the funny thing, though. In the end, I think the Venetian painters I discovered at the Accademia in Venice while seeking Canaletto, Mansueti, Carpaccio, and, I think Guardi (also featured as one of the rivals I the exhibit here) actually appeal to me and intrique me more.

The National Art Gallery, where we saw the Canaletto, is impressive, architecturally and in terms of its collection. We saw very little of the permanent collection, but what we did see included two Vermeers and many other masters. There was a Gaugin exhibit there too, but we skipped it. I was trying to pace myself a bit, and keep Loring from a total museum overdose. So much more to see here, anyway, than one possibly could in one trip, even a longer one. I was beginning to get a bit museum fatigued myself.

Next on the international museum tour, the sculpture garden of the National, lovely and also appreciated especially for the shallow pool/ fountain where many folks, myself included, soaked our feet after long hours (at least in my case) of walking the streets of Washington and length of the mall.

Sunday morning we started out,with breakfast at Cosi. This is the same place where the kids and I had indoor samores many years ago, which seems to be the only thing I can recollect about that trip. Cosi, by the way, does not mean cosy in Italian. It means "like that" or something like that.

After breakfast we went to the Rennick Museum of American Crafts. I didn’t have a clue what was on exhibit there. But, crazily coincidental, the poster outside the museum, advertising its permanent collection, was a vase by, guess who! – Lino Tagliapietra, the Venetian glass maestro whose wonderful exhibit had been the first thing we went to in Venice.( This is where I make soft Twilight Zone theme song sounds.)

How, you might wonder, is he even included, much less featured, in a museum of American Crafts? Answer: his residence is listed as Venice and Seattle. (Where Dale Chihuly’s glass works is located.) Does he really live there part of the year? I know he has taught there in the past. But who am I to question or complain?! Oh, one of Chihuly’s pieces is there, as well. We'd just seen the impressive Chihuly exhibit in Boston, before we left for Venice. I loved it, even if the Globe critic, Sebastian Smee, didn't. Even if he just won the Pulitzer Prize! I like his writing, and usually his opinions. But not this time. I think he said it lacked meaning. Meaning, schmeaning. Who says art has to have meaning? Anything that gets my son to enjoy going to an art museum has enough meaning for me. As does anything that gets a lot of adult MFA goers to lie on the floor looking up at one of his works!

One non museum, and unexpected event we stumbled upon was the Rolling Thunder Motorcycle parade, a Memorial Day event since sometime in the 80’s, although we’d never heard of it. As we exited the metro the first day at Judiary Square, we noticed tons of motorcycles parked on the street. Turning around, we saw an equal number, and then some, of motorcyclists, mostly around our age, some with long grey or white hair, almost all with tattoos, your typical motorcycle bunch, several hundred strong. They were participating in a wreath laying ceremony, as we later heard on the news, the beginning of a weekend of activities highlighted by an hours long motorcycle parade around the city, starting at the Pentagon, ending at Arlington National Cemetery, where Obama was scheduled to appear.

The Rolling Thunder Motorcyclists number about 7500, began in the 1980’s to highlight and protest the fact that the government was not paying enough attention to the many MIAs and POWs. I don’t know if they are still focusing on bringing home all of those people or not. But the event has gotten huge, is participated in by many other bikers from all over the country as well as the many who’d come to watch the parade. Nearly all the people on bikes were about our vintage, the crowds of course were very mixed, but I didn’t notice anyone that seemed to be currently military, unless they were with family and didn’t stand out as such.
Our timing was perfect. We hadn’t even known the route or planned to attend, but again, came out of the metro on the mall just before it began. The procession began was a guard of police on bikes, and then thousands of bikers, mostly it did seem of Vietnam vintage. Many of them waved at the observers, I did wave back, repeatedly. Although I am not a big fan of biker types, I do respect that they were Vietnam vets, and I must say that I feel we did them wrong in our protests of the war. So I guess I was waving to assuage my guilt for having denigrated, even denounced, Vietnam fighters at the time.. And whoever these vets are, whatever their politics, (at least a few had shirts saying Vietnam vets against the war) this kind of tribute is far preferable to me to a show of arms, military uniforms, etc. I think we’ve gotten it better this time around in being able to separate the fighters from the war.

The Rolling Thunder name, by the way, comes from the name of one of the bombing campaings during the Vietnam War, which was called Operation Rolling Thunder, for the sound of the jet engines doing the bombing, I guess. So, where I wonder, did the name of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Review come from?

Guess who was there, but whom we only heard about later on the news?. Sarah Palin, husband Todd, and at least one daughter. On bikes! Jeez, maybe I waved at her. No, don’t think so, we would have known, right, if she had ridden by us? We seem to have had a knack, lately, for running into celebrities on our travels. Not the Brad and Angie type, but Benedetto, and now Sarah. From the news, it sounded like Palin was kicking off a presidential campaign. I have mixed feelings, on one hand, it would be great entertainment, and divert some of the Republican vote. On the other hand, could she possibly win? It couldn’t be, could it? If it does, I am moving out of the country. (When I talked to my mother, just after writing this, she said the same thing, virtually verbatim, about leaving the country.)

After the parade (it was still going on when we left, you, or I anyway, can only watch so many thousand people on motorcycles) next on the list was the National Museum of the American Indian. I had followed the establishment of this museum, which I was pleased to see was going to feature native Americans from Central and South America as well as North, and made a contribution when they were building,g it in honor of Max and Carolina. The architecture and gardens of the museum were impressive, plantings indicative of the various terrains of different groups and areas, building aligned so the sunlight aligned with something or other at the summer solstice, etc.

But, both of us were sadly disappointed with the exhibits themselves. In an effort to group native peoples by certain themes, like religious beliefs, etc. it seems that they neglected to identify information about individual groups and parts of their cultures. We were both confused by the displays, sometimes not having any clue which groups were being represented. There was a short film introduction in a high tech round theatre with projections all around, on the ceiling too, and on some magic glowing rock in the center (pardon my cynicism).

There were some neat displays, especially one of beadwork from many cultures, all kinds of wonderful items, which you could identify and learn more about on touchscreens. There was a similar one of animals depicted in pottery. And there were stations in several places where museum staff did demonstrations . A woman was doing beadwork, although from a culture other than her own Cherokee heritage, and a man who looked clearly South American (he was Aymara, from Bolivia on Lake Titicaca) was demonstrating native boatmaking, but northern birchbark canoes, not the reed boats from where he’s from.)

I think perhaps what left me uneasy about the museum approach was that they seemed to lump all native people together, although that can’t have been their intention. Isnt that what non native people have always done, from Columbus onward? I would like to have seen more exhibits that compared and contrasted, things like religious beliefs, boatmaking, or beadwork, and focussed on the differences as well as similarities, my usual spiel when introducing kids to different cultures. I would have thought this was just my own impression, but Loring felt just the same as I did about the museum.

The best part of the museum, seriously, was the café. It had different stations representing different geographical areas, and foods native to the area. There were lots of wonderful possibilities, Loring had ceviche, I had a sampler plate(any four side dishes) including quinoa pudding and wild rice salad with watercress and pine nuts. I am on somewhat of a quinoa binge, although must say I wasn’t too wild about the pudding. For those who aren’t familiar with it, it’s a grain native to Peru, supposedly very high in protein, pretty, delicious, with a kind of crunchy texture. It comes in different colors, red, black, white. I have been putting it in lots of things, soups, pilafs, etc. If you haven’t tried it, you should!

The museum shop was also appealing, although not as nice as the one at the Building Museum, (see below.) Best thing about the shop at the Indian Museum is that it had Peruvian gourds, of which I have at least a dozen, ranging from intricately crafted to the more primitive but also very wonderful ones done by kids. The sophisticated, highly detailed ones at the museum shop ranged in price from $100 to over $800. I have several that were in the several hundred dollar range at the shop. Guess I’d better document them for insurance purposes! I had long wanted to bring some of those to a U.S. audience, especially the ones made by my Peruvian friends, the Garcia family. I just hope whoever they are getting them from in Peru is getting adequately compensated.

Best of all, though, was that they had arpilleras, the embroidered, appliqued and crocheted three dimensional wall hangings that I have collected and also had a number of special designed ones made for relatives, friends, and others who ordered them from me in the 90s. The dimensions of the ones I have is the traditional 18x18 inches, and many of them have political and social themes, although the market and harvest ones I bought in the crafts market are also quite nice, though more naïve in style.

The ones in the shop were all much smaller. Tiny ones, perhaps 6 inches square, were $45. Larger ones, still perhaps half the size of mine, were $110. Guess I’d better upgrade that insurance policy! Seriously, it makes me want to find places to exhibit them again! If I could bear to sell a few I could finance my next trip to wherever it might be.

To digress slightly for a minute:

Loring is reading a book about a Chinese American man’s travels through China in the 90s and beyond. He is reading to me, an excerpt about a visit the author makes to an artist’s colony, an area the government has set aside for artists to live, rent free. The woman he visits is an entrepreneur who went to, but hated art school, and seems to hate painting as well. She makes a good living, however, painting scenes of places like Venice(!) over and over again, to be sold as original art abroad. She also makes paintings from photos as special requests (one was of Park City Utah, to be sold to Sundance attendees?) , but apparently misinterprets things like signage on a street scene because she can’t read the English letters.

This somehow reminds me of the arpillera made for Ken and Jill’s wedding, which came out beautifully, except for the church with the cross which it never dawned on me would be an essential part of a Peruvian wedding scene. Monica, my Peruvian artisan friend, ripped out the stitches of the cross with a safety pin ( I probably offended her religion terribly, not sure she understood my explanation of being Jewish) and in any case, the cross was still there in ball point pen underneath. Makes a great story though!

Well, back to Washington, although I am already enroute to Boston.

IN addition to the Renwick and the Indian Museums yesterday, we also went back to the National Gallery for a second visit. A nice thing about Washington is that so many of the museums are free. (In my ideal world, museums, also public transportation, would be free.) It makes for a different attitude. You can pop into one for just a brief visit if you like. Not that we did. But we saw entirely different things in another part of the museum second time around. Including an entire room of Calder mobiles. A couple were different from what one usually thinks of as Calder. One was a large metal frame in the shape of a fish, with many pieces of glass and pottery wrapped with wire and suspended within the frame. And there was a wire sculpture, also a mobile, of Josephine Baker, which was wonderful. I later read that there was another exhibit, elsewhere, all of figural mobiles by Calder. Oh well, for another time. Did you know, by the way, that Calder invented the mobile? I thought he’d created the word, but he apparently created the idea itself. And it was Marcel Duchamp who came up with the word. Think of a world without mobiles above cribs. Without Calder, where would we be?

We also saw a portrait of a woman by Da Vinci, apparently the only Da Vinci in the U.S. And I remember reading, a while back, that he only painted three portraits of women. Two, Mona Lisa, and the other one whose name I forget but which I much prefer to ML, are at the Louvre, and now I guess I’ve seen the third. (Update, just checked, Wikipedia, my source for all authoritative information, says the second one in the Louvre is disputed, the third female portrait is in Krakov, which I remember now, wanted to see it but the museum was closed, the DC one is generally attributed to him, the Krakov one also generally accepted. In all, I just read, there are only 15 definitely or generallly attributed to da Vinci, and another half dozen in dispute. Who knew!?)

Last museum, the Building Museum, on Monday morning. I had not known anything about this museum, except that my brother had mentioned it recently, not in conversation but on facebook. And wouldn’t have thought of visiting, except that we emerged from metro at Judiaciary Square the first day, and there it was right in front of us, away from the mall. It is an impressive building, although the outside gives little idea of the beauty within. Built in the 1880’s and used by the Pension agency until the 1920s. There was a lego building exhibit there, although we didn’t see it , other than peering in through the window (Boy does lego seem to have a good pr agency!) But in the lobby was a replica of the actual building we were in. Very cool! Although I have to say I preferred the Windsor Legoland Royal Wedding scene, complete with Queen, Elton John(both wearing the same hat!), and all the rest. Don’t think they had Pippa, though. I should go back and look. And also the Escher pictures reproduced in lego that my brother posted on fb today.

We saw two small exhibits. One focussed on World's Fairs of the 1930's, their architecture but also the message they tried to convey of a rosy future in the midst of the Depression. The other was the work of American artist Hildreth Meire, early 20th century muralist and mosaicist who did spectacular works in the domes and walls of many buildings in this country, including figures on the outside of Radio City Music Hall, which were familiar but which I had never really focussed on. She was inspired, she said, by her early trips to Italy. The exhibit was mostly of photos and sketches of her works, and was enjoyable, but now I want to see some of her actual work.

We ate out more meals here, and as many dinners, in three days as in nine days in Venice. First dinner was at a place called Zorba’s, Greek obviously, and yes they did play music from the movie. It was self service, the typical stuff, moussaka (although with beef, I didn’t think that was authentic) grape leaves, souflaki, etc I ordered one of the few things I was not familiar with, just for that reason. It was ground beef in a flat bread, with yogurt. But I forget what it was called.. The food was good, the outdoor seating wonderful on a very warm night. Next to me ordering was a man who said he needed some good food for three Armenian men, that the man at the counter, who could have been the owner, should decide for them what they should eat. He gave the restaurant guy a credit card and said he should hold it until he decided what to make for them. I guess it’s not uncommon to ask the cook to just make whatever he recommends, but it seemed a bit odd in this type of place. Then again, he was from Armenia. I was curious to know what they got, but even though they were sitting next to us I didn’t ask. They were also heavy smokers, and I wasn’t sure if smoking was allowed outdoors. I considered asking the staff, but just then their food came, luckily, and they stopped smoking.

Our second dinner was at a French bistro called Bistro au Coin, although it wasn’t on a corner. It felt very authentic, and reasonably priced for Dupont Circle. I had duckling, Loring a white bean cassoulet. Both were good, although the pepper sauce on my duck was too heavy and salty. I can’t eat heavy sauces anymore, which basically is a good thing, except when you get served something way too heavy.
Lunches we didn’t really do, more snacks like a pastry or ice cream, not so different from in Italy! One place had some of the most unusual flavors I have ever come across. I sampled the halvah ice cream, but decided to go with some intense chocolate flavor. Much as I love halvah, it didn’t work for me as an ice cream flavor.

Second breakfast: Loring would have been happy with Cosi again, but I wasn’t. There was not one greasy spoon type place we could find. So we wound up going to Starbucks. Is there an anti Starbucks group? I should be in it. I don’t think I’ve been in one more than a half dozen times. I will confess they have excellent chocolate, I have stopped in before a show a couple of times for a bar to bring to an event. Movie chocolate, we call it. But I resent the contrived cosy atmosphere and that so many people seem to go for it. And damned if I’m going to order a vente or a molte or whatever. But there wasn’t much choice. So I got a mocha coffee and a pastry, which was excellent. The coffee was way too intense, too much coffee, too much chocolate, I like the ones I make myself better.

Sitting next to us was an obviously homeless man. He had a bottle with a bit of soda in it, an empty plastic bag, and terrible blisters on his feet. We began to talk. He didn’t ask me for anything. I offered him a band aid, but he declined. It wouldnt have helped much, anyway. I wss just searchng for something to say. He seemed sober and was pleasant, although I had trouble understanding some of what he said. He had no top teeth, so that was probably part of it.

He got up and came back with a glass of ice water. I was interested that the Starbucks staff seemed to tolerate his presence. After a while, I asked him if he would like something to eat. He said yes, of course. But he didn’t want anything at Starbucks, saying he wanted some real food, not sweets. There was a place across the street , he said, that served burgers and fries, and that he thought it was open at 10am. When we got there, though, it was closed.

So we wound up at Cosi, where I hadn’t wanted to go for breakfast. Of course, if we’d gone there, I wouldn’t have met him. At Cosi, he wanted meat. They had the breakfast menu, so the choices were bacon and ham. He wanted veggies, like lettuce,which he could see, but weren’t available until lunch. He was quiet in manner, but he knew what he wanted. The staff was patient, but I wondered if they would have been if I hadn’t been there. He wound up with a basil cheese bagel, I think because of the flecks of green in it, although he was worried he might not be able to chew it. I told him my mother had lost most of her teeth, but could, to her surprise, still chew bagels! I guess I convinced him, I hope I was right. He also wanted a smoothie (so much for the no sweets, but that was okay.) A banana smoothie. They had bananas there, for sale, but didn’t make banana smoothies. So we ordered a strawberry smoothie from the woman. And then, without saying a thing, she threw in a banana.

While they were making the food, he went up to the counter where the condiments and utensils were. He came back with about six slices of lemon and some sugar packets. In just a few seconds, he had opened the packets and licked the sugar out, and eaten the lemons. Even with a meal coming, he needed to do that, whether out of habit or hunger or both, I don’t know.


That was about it. We left him there, at a table outside, to enjoy his meal. I do hope he was able to chew the bagel.

I know I didn’t make any major changes in this man’s life. He will still be hungry and homeless tomorrow. On the other hand, he was certainly appreciative of the gesture, and I think, the half hour of company, and shook my hand in gratitude. I know the encounter affected me at least as much as it affected him.

Well, home to Massachusetts, and maybe a week or two of relaxing, sans travelling or museums. Oh well, , no I just remembered that I am going to New York next week! Museum row, here I come...!

Arriverderci Venezia

There was at least one more museum, that we stumbled upon our first day. It was a collection of old musical instruments, displayed in an old decommissioned (if that is the proper word) church. And that is all the museums I can recall at this moment, although I feel like I may have neglected to recall one or a couple.

This doesn’t count the Doge’s Palace, or the Basicila of San Marco, or any of the other churches we went into. There are an enormous number of churches, every couple of blocks I would say. I don’t know how many of them are still used, regularly or at all, for either services or other events, like concerts. WE did stop into several when we noticed the doors were open as we were walking by. One was the second church the Pope had visited, beside St. Mark’s, and where we had seen them making preparations before his visit, and then dismantling them afterwards. That was Santa Maria della Salute. Apparently, this church had been built as thanks for surviving the plague. There were Titians and Tintorettos there, but unfortunately I didn’t read the guidebook until afterwards! We were too busy looking at the beautiful marble mosaic floors and also watching them haul back into the church all the benches they had taken out for the Pope’s visit.

Our last night, we decided to take a boat ride around much of the city, and up the Grand Canal, courtesy of our boat passes. We certainly weren’t the only folks doing that. There were tourists of all ages and speaking quite a few different languages, but also as many locals who I assume were just on their way home or visiting. I can’t decide if the canal is more beautiful by day or by night. One interesting thing to observe at night, in our own neighborhood as well as on the Grand Canal, is how many buildings are unlit at night. We know that many places are owned by foreigners who are there sporadically and/or rent them out at times. We also heard that many buildings are abandoned because it is too expensive to renovate them or restore them. But who owns all of these places? Or do they revert to the city at some point?

There are so many things I still want to know about Venice. And despite the nine days and saturation of museums, monuments, etc. places we didn’t have a chance to see and/or would love to visit again.

Well, it is definitely time to wrap up this Venetian chronicle. I have lingered over it, knowing there is more I want to say. But we have been home over a week now. I am still reading the next to last of my Venice related reading, a book called Venetian Stories. I know I have mentioned it here before. Then, there is still one more Brunetti detective novel on the Kindle. I will certainly read it, not sure if directly after the current book or not. I think I may actually enjoyed the Brunetti as much as any of the other Venice novels. A funny anecdote: when we were waiting in St. Mark’s Square for the Pope, Loring was reading the Brunetti book, the only paper book either of us had with us on the trip. A photographer happened by, and took a pic of Loring reading the book, chuckling and saying he noticed the title: Murder at the Fenice( the famous Venice Opera House) So maybe there’s a photo out there of Loring reading and awaiting the Pope.

A few last impressions:

Gondola shape pasta in a food store. Now we just have to find the right occasion to cook it. It’s multicolored, red colored by tomatoes, green by spinach, and black, from squid ink.

The Pope riding around St. Marco’s in a golf cart after his speech , or something that looked like one. I keep meaning to look up whether whatever vehicle the Pope is in is the Popemobile, like Air Force One. If it is, then would the gondola he rode in also be the Popemobile? The Popedola?

The variety of boats – gondolas, of course. Water taxis. The vaporetti, or water busses. Ambulance boats, police boats, fire boats, supermarket delivery boats, private motorboats tied up in front of houses, including our own little canal. Boaters navigating past each other amazingly through narrow canals.

Streets so narrow that people passing each other have to turn sideways. Workers wheeling all kinds of materials down those passageways in two wheel carts.

Venetian blinds: I had wondered at various times in the past where the name derived from. (Well, obviously from Venice, but why?) While we were there, I looked online and found surprisingly little info. A Wikepedia entry, of course, with lots of info but nothing about the name. And a site by a “Venetian blind specialist” ie a blind company, which indicated that the origin wasn’t known. Then, in one of our last days there, we went to a Museum that had a beautiful 19th century gondola in its lobby (actually, piano nobile, the immense front to back first floor of palaces, which this had been). I had read in one of my novels references to how in past centuries the gondolas had a small enclosed area in the center, called a felze, for privacy and/or protection from the weather The gondola in the museum had, sure enough, a felze, with Venetian blinds around the sides. The Wike entry for gondolas, which I later looked up, does indicate that the name comes from the gondola’s felze.. Once I started looking, I did see blinds in numerous windows, in Venice and also in Murano.

And lastly, a continuation of my quest for Canaletto:
While in Venice, I read online that there had been a Canaletto exhibit in London, which closed in January. What I didn’t realize until we got home is that the exhibit is now in Washington DC, the only other place it is going. But only through this weekend! So, guess what we are now considering? Yes, a weekend trip to DC. Weather permitting, Loring will fly us down there on Saturday. And weather not permitting, we may go by commercial flight. A bit crazy. All the way to Italy, to come back home and then find Canaletto in the US.

I’ll sign off now. Not sure when I will write again. This blog began as a way to share my experience volunteering in Ukraine at the cemetery where my greatgrandparents are buried, a few years ago, with friends and family, rather than the emails I used to write. Then I backtracked to document some of my other volunteer experiences.
I would have written about our family + 2 trip to Jamaica last year, but we had no internet access. Perhaps I’ll go back and write about that. If we do go to Washington next week, I’ll take my handy dandy little netbook and write from there. (about Canaletto!!) Or maybe I’ll expand beyond travels, who knows. Stay tuned.

May 2011
Venice, Italy
It was a dark and stormy night. We arrived after midnight and had to swim to our apartment. Global warming had flooded all of Venice and destroyed all of the artwork. Why did we not know about this?
To be continued………………

I did not write the above; Loring did. But now I will begin my chronicle of our Venitian sojourn. Those who have read this blog before will know that I write when I travel. I began the blog in 2008, when I went to Ukraine to work on clearing the Jewish cemetery where my great grandparents are buried, in the city now known as Chernitzvi, during my great grandparents and grandparents time as Czernowitz. I subsequently went back and chronicled my adventures on several other of my previous volunteer trips, and then forward to document subsequent trips.

This is the first time I will be writing about a trip that doesn’t have a volunteer component.(except for an overnight trip to Vermont last summer.)

I have only been to Venice once before, when I was 17, on part of “the grand tour”, my first trip to Europe. It was the summer between my junior and senior years of highs school. It was also my first time on an airplane. At the time, my mother had never been on a plane. She tells me now that it was her idea for me to go to Europe, because she was concerned that I was shy and withdrawn and she wanted to do something to encourage me to come out of my shell. I guess it worked.
My major memories of that early trip here include arriving by overnight train, early in the a.m. to the sound of our tour leader (myself and 7 other girls) frantically urging us to wake up, and tossing our suitcases out the train windows before we exited and before the train left the station. Then I remember standing in the middle of some plaza, perhaps St. Mark’s, and trying to find out where a bank was, so that we could change money, so that we could take one of the waterbuses wherever we were going. I have a vague memory of riding along the Grand Canal, and that’s about it.
I have resisted, or not considered, anyway, coming back since, although I have been to quite a few other parts of Italy, Rome and Florence, Siena, the Amalfi coast, Pompeii. I think it’s because I have regarded Venice as such a tourist mecca, that I thought I wouldn’t enjoy it, that it wasn’t a real place as much as a Disney-esque recreation of itself. But a couple of things changed my mind in the last several years. One, I read a remarkable book, by John Berendt. the same person who wrote Midnight in the Garden of Evil, called the City of Falling Angels. It is a true story that reads like fiction, beautifully written, that describes the city so hauntingly that it has stayed with me since. The second reason is that I have used Murano glass beads in some of my jewelry, both modern beads, and vintage ones from necklaces I bought in antiques stores and online, and disassembled. I have wanted to visit Murano, the glass makers island just a few minutes boat ride from Venice. I am, though, prepared to be underwhelmed by what I fear will be a place overrun by tourists. So far, I have looked in the windows of many a store here selling bona fide Murano beads, and many selling knock offs as well. I have only found one place thus far, though, that sells individual beads and not just already made necklaces. We will see if I can find any on Murano, or if I will have to go back to buying my Venetian beads online from US importers!

We are staying in an apartment here, in a quiet corner of the city (yes there are some, although much of the tourist route is teeming with people. ) Can’t be totally snide, as we number among them. But, I have to highly endorse the concept of staying in apartments, for numerous reasons. One, you really do get a better sense of the city. We are cooking many of our own meals, going to the local markets and supermarket, which are just a block and two blocks away. Second, the amount of space. We have a kitchen, dining room, living room, bedroom, and a second bedroom we are not using. We also have balconies in most every room, overlooking a small canal and several small passageways. It is a wonderful place, I congratulate myself for choosing well, after perusing online listings for probably hundreds of apartments Last reason is cost. The apartment is less expensive than most any hotel room, and add to that the fact that we don’t have to eat any more meals at restaurants than we want to.

This is one of many places we have rented apartments or houses, including a Polish resort town, Krakow, Prague, the Amalfi coast, Paris, rural France, southern Spain. They have all been good experiences, with the one exception of our Krakow apartment owner, who refused to return our deposit because the refrigerator handle fell off when we opened it. The apartment itself was wonderful. I did blacklist him on the website, for whatever difference it might have made.
Well, back to Venice. Yes, it is swarming with tourists, and it isn’t yet summer. But it is worth it. The city is incredibly beautiful. Like other overtouristed places I have been, such as Prague and Machu Picchu, its beauty surpasses its overabundance of visitors. I am glad I have finally come back.

This is our third day here, of nine. We have spent most of our time walking so far, have only visited one museum, a special exhibit on one of the famous Murano glassmakers, who we learned about recently while watching a movie about Dale Chihuly, the famed American glassmaker currently featured in a remarkable exhibit at Boston’s MFA. More about Lino, and probably Chihuly, later. I am delighted to have seen a poster advertising the exhibit as we arrived at the airport.

And, speaking of posters, there is a momentous occasion occurring here tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday. The Pope is coming! I saw another sign, in front of a church in our neighborhood, the day of our arrival. Loring and I were astounded, and I had to read the poster a acouple of times to make sure I understood it. Then, when I thought about it more, I wondered how momentous an occasion it really was. This is, after all, Italy. Perhaps he comes here often. But reading online, it seems that the last time a Pope was here, the last one, was in 1986! Can this really be? I will have to check further.


It is interesting to watch the preparations. In St. Mark’s Square, they are erecting scaffolding and sound systems . He will be holding an outdoor mass there. In another plaza, this morning, they were grouting in between stones that, as Loring said, had probably not been grouted in centuries. And setting up cameras from Vatican TV, building a new little bridge from the canal onto the plaza, etc. There was a barge full of potted yellow flowers that we are sure will be set up around the plaza when the other work is done.




I stumbled upon an English language blog about Venice written by a journalist who has written about Venice, and many other places, for publications like National Geographic. She met an Italian man on one of her tripsto Venice, and now lives here. She wrote a very entertaining blog entry about how the gondoliers had been competing for who would have the honor of transporting the Pope the short distance between his stops. They had their various reasons for suggesting themselves, such as one who said it came to him in a dream that it should be him.

Funny thing is, if I had not stopped to read the poster, I don’t know if we would even know if the Pope was going to be here. We will probably head towards St. Mark’s tomorrow, but I can’t imagine we will get anywhere near. Will they have jumbotrons? Will people be camping there overnight for a spot? They don’t even allow people to sit in St. Mark’s Square. (Not that people seem to pay attention to the signs, we didn’t.) I am guessing that is to prevent large groups of people picnicking. On the other hand, several enormous advertising panels for things like coffee and fashion apparel drape various walls of the buildings surrounding the plaza, very jarring and, to me, much more inappropriate than people sitting down.



Well, I will end here for now. Check back in a day or two to read about our further adventures and audience with the Pope!