Ghetto (Day 33)

It’s been really nice living in a little bubble for the past five weeks, not really knowing what is going on in the world outside Venice. I could have read the news but I haven’t. However, one thing that can’t be escaped from is Italian politics. Berlusconi, not content with being on trial for underage prostitute allegations, has added to his unbelievable repertoire by commenting that he has commissioned a survey to rename his political party, and that he might call it Forza Gnocca, which translates as Go Pussy. Nice one Silvio, are you taking leadership advice from George Bush?

I took a photo of the Arsenale lions today. I walk past them every day but have never stopped to look before. The largest one has some strange carvings on its side, commonly thought to be runes.  

I also pass this gargoyle every day at the base of the Campanile of Santa Maria Formosa, made famous in Ruskin’s ‘Stones of Venice’, about which he said this face showed a man in such a state of depravity he could barely look upon it. They were sensitive back then, or we’ve become numb to this sort of thing as there’s so much worse on TV, or Ruskin was just a bit wet.  

This evening I set out to see the Ghetto area. I’ve been meaning to do it for a while but today is the festival of Yom Kippur, so I thought it was a good time to go. On Yom Kippur Jewish people are expected to fast, pray, not work, not wear leather shoes and not anoint themselves with perfumes.

In the 16^th century, the North West area of Venice that was once the foundry (Geto in Venetian dialect) became the area where the city’s Jewish population were moved. It is the original ghetto. They had to obey strict rules and pay higher taxes, higher rents and wear hats so that they could be identified. They were locked in between sunset and sunrise and had to pay the Christian guards who patrolled the perimeter out of their own pockets. Despite all of this it is believed that Jews were treated with much more respect in Venice than in most other places and were generally physically safe. The Venetians accommodated them as they were good business men.

Before WW2 there were 1500 Jews living in the Ghetto in Venice, but in 1943 and 1944 they were moved to extermination camps. Only eight survived. In 2009 there were 33 Jewish residents registered as living in Venice.

The houses in the Ghetto are taller and more tightly packed than in the rest of Venice as there was a limited area for residents, so anyone arriving would have to be accommodated by building upwards. As you come into the main square there is a perfect example of this, a building 7 storeys high, which is unusual for Venice.

I arrived in the main square where there was a service being held in a small shop.

On this square there is also the holocaust memorial.

Going over a bridge from the main square you can see onto a roof, where there is a custom for throwing disposable razors. I don’t know why this is, but am guessing it has something to do with the history of the Jewish religion and rules about shaving.

Everywhere away from the main square was eerily quiet. I wandered around for a bit but would like to go back in the daytime when I can see where I’m going. It was cheaper in the Ghetto too, and there were some really lovely looking cafes and bars that I’d like to sample.

I got home and finally had a chance to satisfy my pie craving.

Superstition, coffee and rain (Day 32)

I finally got a picture of Palazzo Dario, the cursed palace on the Grand Canal that is up for sale but no one wants to buy because lots of previous owners have come to rather unfortunate ends, (see blog from Day 25). It is the subject of a painting by Monet, which now belongs to the Art Institute of Chicago. The Peggy Guggenheim exhibitions sometimes spill over into it, but they refuse to buy it, in favour of renting and staying alive.

It’s not that impressive in the daylight as it’s currently having building work done, probably in the hope that someone will buy it. What I’ve heard is that they are trying to turn it into apartments so that no one person owns it, expecting that this will break the curse. It could just mean that Death has a busy period and has to orchestrate a long sequence of strange accidents for all the owners, a bit like Final Destination.

There are quite a few nice stories about superstition in Venice, I suppose because it is so old. For example, residents will not walk between the two columns of San Marco and San Thodoro in St Marks square as they believe it is bad luck to walk over the area where the public hangings used to take place.  

It rained today. The second time since I’ve been here. It got cold and we put on scarves and jackets for the first time. Yesterday was shorts and T-shirt weather, and today it’s like autumn or winter. It was a welcome change, but to warm up I went to get coffee from the next door café. It’s funny that in a country famous for coffee they look at you with a puzzled expression when you ask for it to take away. I thought ‘take away’ and ‘coffee’ went together, but not here. The pace of life is slower, no-one rushing around, and there’s ALWAYS time to stand at the bar in a café and have a quick espresso. I’m pretty sure it would be a completely legitimate excuse for being late for work, late to pick the kids up from school, even late to your own wedding “Sorry I’m late, I decided to stop for a coffee”, “Oh, I see! No worries”.

So every time I go into this little café and ask for it ‘per portare via’ they think for a minute, and then rummage around to find a suitable receptacle for me to carry the coffee away in, hold it up, do a gesture that means, “Is it ok if I put it in this?” and then make my order for me, while the locals standing at the bar watch the whole scene unfolding with great interest as if it’s a novelty. Today we were given it in Coca Cola cups.

It did the trick, we drank it while eating chocolate and debating the meaning of life, in particular how pandas are making themselves extinct because they can’t be bothered to reproduce. We should really have been talking about art.

After work I spent the evening celebrating with a friend in the Rialto market, which is a great place to hang out in the evening, better than the more obvious choice of Campo Santa Margherita. There is a petition online you can sign to save the fish market, as there are plans to close down the main distribution depot and move it to the outskirts of Venice in order to make the main port bigger, to accommodate larger cruise ships. A demonstration stopped this happening, for now but you can sign it here

The square in Rialto market is also home to the Gobbo. A little hunchback sculpture, which is currently being restored, so my image is courtesy of Google.

In older Venetian times the Gobbo is where you had to run to from St Mark’s square if you’d been naughty, and to make it more humiliating the act was performed naked. It is also where the announcements were read when any bill had been passed or laws had changed.

We went on to Bacaro Jazz (the bra place from Day 7) A local taught me how to say ‘Can I have a pen please?’ as I needed to borrow a pen from the bar man, although I now realise what he actually taught me was probably ‘Can I have a penis please?’ A useful phrase, but not when you need a pen. The two words are very similar, Penna and Pene. There is also the pasta shape Penne, so I’ll be careful how I pronounce that it future too.

Cimitero (Day 31)

This morning I set off to the cemetery island of San Michele, more commonly known as Cimitero.  The weather had changed overnight and it was a bit hazy, which I thought suited the mood. I have it on not so good authority that it’s probably on an island because everyone knows zombies can’t swim. There is a red brick wall running around the whole island and a big gate looking back over Venice. Here it is in the distance.

I got on the Vaporetto at Fte. Nova where there is a handy abundance of flower shops and tombstone carvers.

Cimitero is the only cemetery in Venice. Everyone who has died in Venice since 1797 is buried here, but only the rich and famous can rest in peace. The vast majority of mere mortals get a bit of a lye down, and are then dug up and stacked in filing cabinet style tombs to make way for the newly dead. Space is at a bit of a premium.

The thing that strikes you most as you enter, apart from all the lizards, is the colour. It’s not actually a miserable or spooky place at all. Almost all the graves are covered in colourful flowers. They also all have photos of their occupants so it’s a strange experience wandering around and getting to know the ‘islanders’. It’s a funny feeling to be in a place where the dead outnumber the living, but it’s very peaceful and tranquil, I even sat and read my book for a bit. The saddest part was the amount of children and baby’s graves. They keep them all together so it’s easy to see how many people never used to make it to adulthood.

There are a few smaller walled sections off the main cemetery, reserved for foreigners, for instance when someone died on a ship docked at Venice, and also for non-catholics. In this area the writer Ezra Pound is buried and also the composer Stravinsky. This part is much more neglected.

Taking photos of any part of the cemetery was banned but I did break the rules a little bit. I had to take this photo of one of the larger mausoleums on the right as you enter. These are big shrine-style huts owned by families that have gates on them and are like little chapels. You can see through the glass of most and some are smashed or only have railings on them. Lots are well kept and have fresh flowers in them but some are completely ruined. This one almost looks like a stage set of what a smashed shrine should look like, complete with fake dust and trinkets.

Here's another nice one in a bit of a better state. You can see the small photographs of the back wall of all the family members burried in it.

I left and headed back on a packed Vaporetto to the main island. I wandered home to get some lunch and on my way had a chat with a nice cat. He was very lethargic so didn’t show much gratitude, but I think he appreciated the stroke.

I also passed this small printing house.

My pictures are awful as they were just opening up after lunch and not all the lights were on for me to get a good shot but you can just about make out an old press, that they still use. Venice was at the forefront of printing technology and the earliest form of italic type was developed here (probably not in this actual shop). Apparently donkeys used to carry books back over the Alps to Germany. The first musical manuscripts were also printed here. In fact Venice is still an important city in terms of musical production. The string manufacturer Aquila Strings is based just outside Venice and is a pioneering manufacturer of ‘nylgut’ lute strings, as good as the original cat gut but without the missing pet posters. Vivaldi also hung out here and used children from the orphanages in his choirs.

Enough of my rambling facts. Check out this dog’s chilled out style. He hangs around with his owner, part of a team of delivery men, on their round. They told me they thought he was very photogenic.

The next photo is a bit of self-indulgence as it’s about the only tourist snap I think I’ve managed to take that is any good. It does show a bit of a change in the weather though. I put a long sleeve top on for the first time today and we’re forecast heavy rain for tomorrow.

After lunch I decided to head to the Iceland Pavillion to see Olafur Olafsson, not to be confused with the other Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, as I did.

I spotted Ronald Mc Donald a little worse for wear...

Then found an eager host who would have been grateful of a head donation.

The evening ended with cicchetti (spelt right this time!) at Gia Schiavi and a few vinos. It is the perfect stop off on the way home and fuel for blog writing. As we had a younger, more boisterous member of our group this evening who’s attention span didn’t accommodate standing around slowly sipping wine and eating, we also set up an impromptu paper gondola making workshop on the canal side. I say we, it was Sherrell and her bag of magic Kinder Surprise toys, but I joined in and we floated the gondolas off down the canal. Not very environmentally friendly I know, but fun if you’re a young kid and your mum just wants to stand around talking to adults, it was the least we could do.

Random pictures (Day 30)

I have done absolutely nothing worth blogging about today, except work, more work, then I ate a strange vegetable for dinner, then more work. Tomorrow is going to be packed with interesting(ish) information as I'm off to Cimitero and other places, but today has been spent in front of a computer. See...

Tom, on the other hand, has been much more productive and finally finished his Venice Biennale Wall Chart. So I thought I would give him the opportunity to advertise it, while simultaneously making my blog look better. We both win. So here it is, I'm not going to pretend I know anything about football, or art for that matter, but for those of you who do this is the perfect evaluation tool for your visit to the Biennale. You can download it here.

So I have finally got to a day when I have nothing new to say. It was time to look back over my time here and how much I've seen and done. Going around I have taken so many photos, written loads of notes, not all of which have made it into a blog. So today provides the perfect opportunity to show some of the things that have escaped.

I'll start with a lovely picture of Austria I took through the train window on my way here.

Some religious iconography...there are loads of shrines in the walls.

A new building. I've only seen three here. It's not very nice.

The famous Spritz. (This one is taken in a more sought after setting than where I normally consume them, reflected in the price).

Walkways out ready for aqua alta.

It's a bit of a blurred picture but everyone on this gondola, including the gondolier are on their phones.

More cat themed and other graffiti...

Another Cardiff reference.

Hello!

Bread Sculpture.

An unfortunate lion, with a picture of his former self.

Nice veg boat on Via Garibaldi.

Padlocks attached to bridges by lovers. Some are pretty impressive, engraved versions, others are marker pen quick fixes. I've even seen a bike Dlock one.

A fairground ride graveyard on Lido.

The Arsenale sun dial.

There is a political divide opening up in Italy at the moment. Red represents the North (including Venice) and green the South. Venetians are so passionate about it that they are phasing out green merchandise. No more green masks, fans or snow globes for us!

And finally... Art fatigue. A common ailment here.