'Untamed Stare': Window Shopping (Day 25)

I spent the whole morning trying to get the internet to work so I could post yesterday’s blog. Rubbish. But this afternoon and evening has more than made up for it.

As I’ve mastered getting from Rialto to certain key location, I decided to spend the day wandering in places I was less familiar with, with a vague aim of finding two sights on my list of things to see. I navigated to one straight away, the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni. Photographs were banned so my description will have to do. The Scuola, the Venetian version of a working men’s club, is beautiful, a definite improvement on the ones I’ve visited in Wales. The carved wood and frescoed ceilings are impressive enough but the decoration spills down the walls and into lots of gold lavish ornamentation and a series of paintings by Vitorre Carpaccio depicting a naughty dragon who tried to eat a princess. Well worth €4.

I then tried to get lost in the quieter back streets of Castello but didn’t manage it for once. There was some graffiti that I’m sure is meant to mean something but my grasp of general history is so poor I couldn’t work it out. It’s definitely religious, I’d be willing to bet on that. It reminded me of Christiania in Copenhagen.

I quite liked the poster stuck to it.

All this meandering took me to a deserted square and through little back streets which were much quieter and local than the Venice I’ve been to over the last few weeks.

It is in these streets that my two triumphs for the day took place. I managed to have a conversation completely in Italian with the owner of a second hand shop who was selling a really old TV studio camera. Admittedly we didn’t get into the finer details of life, but it’s a start. High off my new found talent I walked straight into another shop and completed the purchase of some gifts, again in Italian. I felt this made up for the bumbling idiot I had been in the wifi shop earlier, when the internet dongle stopped working, and I had to put all my faith in my ability to mime out the technical problems I was having.

I bought a bouquet of chillies for dinner and popped home, but the intrepid explorer in me was itching get back out and walk around some more.

I headed to the San Marco area as I was trying to seek out the Ca’ Dario, a cursed Palace on the Grand Canal that is up for sale but no one wants to buy as lots of owners have died in unfavourable circumstances or committed suicide. The manager of The Who died there in 1981, and Woody Allen was going to buy it until he learnt of its ill-fated history. I was aiming for a picture from across the canal but by the time I found it it was too dark. So here is a rubbish picture of the dark, and I will endeavour to take a better one tomorrow.

I passed lots of designer shops and posh hotels in the area, and also Harry’s Bar. Preferring to hold onto my €20 I decided not to pop in for a Bellini. One drink in Harry’s Bar or five visits to see the naughty dragon, it’s a tough one.

This posh shop just off St Marks should sack their window dresser. The mannequin looks like he’s fashioned his pet ferret into some sort of man-bag or willy-warmer.

In complete contrast opposite Beryl the cat was chillin’,

And I met this impeccably dressed artist just stepping out of the studio in the Fiori window display, another inspired presentation. I love the paint finger prints on the back of the canvas. How good would it be to dress windows in Venice? You can get away with anything.

Round the corner some more unfortunate pets had managed to find themselves attached to rich people’s accessories, or their tails at least.

And now onto more serious sightseeing stuff. It’s easy to get complacent wandering round Venice seeing site after site, all completely amazing, old, beautiful and historic. If even the plainest building was anywhere else there would be a queue to get in. But even so, sometimes you walk round a corner and into the path of something completely stunning that you just have to stop and gawp at. This is the Santa Maria del Giglio.

Sorry, serious stuff didn’t last long, I’m back to window displays again. This one at the bottom of Campo Santa Margherita is quite something. There is a plastic yellow wheel, for a wheelbarrow I think, some brass door knockers, a small piece of doormat, an espresso maker, pen knives, some non-slip rubber tiles and just out of shot an electric screwdriver. What an array of goods, there’s something for everyone. If I didn’t have such a heavy bag already I’d have popped in to do my Christmas shopping.

Then I found this shop called Popcorner which had dedicated a whole window to the Beatles and another to more Beatles, Bowie, The Who, Pink Floyd, ACDC, Kiss, Guns and Roses, Led Zeppelin, Che Guevara, Star Wars, 1930’s German dolls and John Lennon glasses. Most of the stock is ‘authenticated’ too!