Impressions of Venice

I've been sitting on this post for months now - time to get it out there before it becomes totally irrelevant.


This city, as a city, makes no sense at all. Perhaps (probably) once upon a time it did make sense, but now it really does serve purely (excuse the cliche, and all thosethat no doubt will follow) as some kind of grown-up Disneyland. I.e. it is a fun park.

I suppose most cities have some kind of picturesque area which can exist only in equilibrium with the more ugly, more utilitarian, areas around it. But Venice is like a whole city of this. (Mestre, Marghera, etc, being the essential, extremely ugly, peripheral areas.)

The best thing about Mestre was the mosaic on the side of a building
we passed on our way to a police station.

Of course Venice itself is not all magical and beautiful either (although it is a lot of both of those things). It is also very smelly, and not, it seems for now at least, from the canals. The dogs of Venice have a lot to answer for. Which really means the ageing (aged) population of Venice has a lot to answer for. That at least is one area where the blame can't be transferred to the tourists. (Well, some of the local tourists maybe, but not really the foreigners.)

Can't they employ some street cleaners?! Or at least increase (or create) penalties for leaving dog shit on the street? Maybe it's too hard to chase down offenders through the maze of alleyways, but then surely most of the offenders are elderly women and their horrible little snappy creatures*... So, back to the first idea of hiring a team of street cleaners. Surely the pong of ammonia is not included in the preservation of the 'elegant decay'.

* The other morning on our way to the giardini we passed the chaotic scene of a recent dog attack in the lane alongside the fruttivendolo (under that saint). One elderly woman was sitting in the ground clutching her leg, which looked like the calf had been completely ripped open, a fresh red comic book blood splatter on the road beside her. Then around the corner another old biddy was clutching her grinning (if dogs can grin), fluffy little pooch protectively. No medics had arrived yet, although we were pretty close to the osepdale, but there were a lot of people around to fuss over both parties, everyone having exited their shops to partake in the commotion.

Of course I'm a sucker for the elegant decay. I'm certainly not one for getting all Futurist on Venice.** Like some people pop bubble wrap, there's nothing like peeling giant strips of paint off walls (or in Venice's case, crumbling a bit of plaster) to satisfy an urge (and drive F mad).

** (The Futurist manifesto Against Traditionalist Venice is worth a read.)

A typical Venice apartment wall -
crumbling plasterwork over crumbling bricks, old window frames filled in and newer ones cut out,
peeling paint on the shutters, and rusting iron bars across the windows. Note also the steel 'staples' holding the structure of the wall together. 

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My impression so far is that it is the cruise ships that make the Venetian world turn. There is a constant flotilla of cruise ships into the lagoon. Everyday on our commute between the farm and work we would see the line of cruise ships waiting to be guided through the city, sometimes 9 or 10 gigantic ships just waiting there. These ships bring hundreds of thousands of visitors into Venice, every day, which in terms of the infrastructure here, including the narrow ally system, really doesn't make sense. (Of course they are their own floating hotels and restaurants.)

They range in size from little adriatic explorers to massive high rise tankers. Yesterday afternoon there was a most deep and incredible rumbling through the pavilion when one of the biggies was passing by the giardini. Such massive vibrations and water displacement - it's no wonder this place is sinking.

My favourite cruise ship, the Michelangelo.
So long but only one story high, it looks like it has lost it's top 6 levels.

Finn found out somewhere along the way that the lagoon here is naturally only about 8ft deep at its deepest, but that they dredge channels in it up to 50 (or 100?) feet deep in order to get the cruise liners in. That means there's a hell of a lot more water moving around.

Two large-ish liners being guided through the Giudecca canal.

I wonder how much of the capital raised through letting them all in (from the entry/docking fees they have to pay) goes into repairing the foundations of Venice. And then there are all the tourists, spending their days shopping for souvenirs, ensuring that the city is overrun with masks and glass trinkets. 

A tug guiding the backside of a cruise ship past Zattere.

Must be a good view from up there, especially from the ball court.
(Our view was from the second or third story apartment window where Jim & Ness stayed.)

Coming straight for us on Rio tera Giuseppe Garibaldi.

Perhaps it was high tide, but the other evening when we were sitting in the piazza enjoying a spritz on the way home, Finn became completely distracted by the manoeuvrings of a gondolier passing down the canal across from us. He was trickily angling the boat right onto its side (without tipping out either of the passengers) in order to fit under the narrow archway of a bridge. Impressive stuff, although possibly a less romantic and more startling part of the ride for the couple onboard.

A canal (not ours, thank goodness), overflowing at high tide (not acqua alta, yet).

So with tides pushing the limits of city streets, gigantic ships pushing up the tides, and acqua alta pushing up everything, global sea level rise or not, Venice is heading under.

Finn sitting on the footpath holding his feet above the water line
- the water which is covering the old footpath level .

And a measuring stick across the canal for when the water level gets really high.

 - - - - - - -

So, smelly and sinking, what else...
Hopefully in my other posts I have conveyed how much fun we're having, so I won't go over that too much again now, even if this is feeling a bit down on the place. Really I am not down on the place at all, it is just all so different and quite strange, it does make an impression.

I am quite a convert to the non-existance of cars. I mean, of course while we're living in Venice we have no need for a car, so what I mean is - I really love living in a pedestrian city. Yes, the canals are like roads and the boats and barges are like cars and trucks, but it's also very different. For one, the bridges ensure that walking is continuous here - no stopping and waiting for traffic. Unless something went terribly wrong, there's no way a boat could knock down a pedestrian. And no bikes either of course, although I wouldn't say it's entirely uninterrupted. Venice is all about walking in zig zags. Zig zagging through the myriad of alleyways and bridges, and, within the alleyways and bridges, zig zagging around the masses of slow slow slow tourists (especially around mask shop windows and on picturesque bridges), and slow slow slow old women with their shopping trolleys and ankle biting dogs. Not to mention all the pushchairs in this place. What happened to the practical backpack?! There are endless bridges here - that's what Venice is about - which means endless steps, it's quite simple. Anyway, one gets used to it, and one also learns alternative (especially to Rialto and San Marco) routes. Getting from our place to the giardini is a dream, we are peripheral enough not to be too too tourist busy, and around the Arsenale (where it does get busier) it's all nice and wide and easy.

A gang of trolley-wielding women.

We succeeded in overtaking them as they rounded the Arsenale.

But, back to the boats. Mostly there is surprisingly little variation in the boats here (I'm talking about local boats now, not cruise liners or visiting super yachts). Yes, they have boats for every purpose, but I don't feel like I can say there are boats of all shapes and sizes, there is a lot of uniformity. There are gondolas (for tourists to take canal tours in), rowed by one man standing at the back. Water taxis driven by one guy at the front with a cab in the back for the passengers. Barges that carry everything being delivered into the city, and barges that take everything else out of the city. Ambulances, police, the fire brigade, and hearses are all the same kind of boat, kitted out with their own special features (see Recovery for the coffin manoeuvring apparatus). Vaporetto are the water buses and they come in two sizes. And then there are the private boats, and they are almost all exactly the same - open top wooden or fibreglass dinghies with outboard motors (the boy racers have neon lights, giant sound systems, and, if not flames, some kind of speedy design along the sides). The most startling observation we've made about the boats really though is that they are only driven by men. In the more than three months we've been here I have seen only one female vaporetto driver and one girl racer. That's it. No housewife popping around in the boat to get her shopping done, she takes her trolley and walks. Women, it seems, do not drive the boats in Venice, it is a very gender specific role, instead they lie around sunning themselves in bikinis on the bow (well, some of them). (Sorry I haven't taken any photos of this kind of spectacle. I guess I should've done a boat series while it was still hot hot summer.)

I think impressions of this place will be quite different come November, come the rain and the fog and the cold. So far we have only been here for summer, for the busiest tourist period. I'm not sure that there is every really an off-season now, I think tourism is fairly continuous the year round (I have heard that in February it's almost deserted, but we'll be gone too by then). It's not just that I want to see Venice without tourists though - in some ways that would be terribly depressing I think. It's just there are really so so so so many tourists that they cause their own kind of distracting slow-moving hyped-up spectacle, and experiencing a calmer, quieter Venice could be nice. I guess I will let you know.

29 September 2011

Autumn means mushrooms

The arrival of autumn has heralded the arrival of many mushroom varieties in the markets. This is an exciting prospect for us, always intrigued by the possibilities of new earthy flavours and hopefully palatable textures to discover. With the excuse of company to cook for, we were particularly excited to try fresh porcini mushrooms, a favourite variety of ours for pastas and risottos but until now only ever encountered dried.

The stalls at Rialto with fresh porcini sold them (it appeared to us amateur market mushroom foragers) in price brackets based on their size. So the biggest mushrooms were a mere 20euro per kilo, while the smallest (from Tuscany) were 45euro. On our meagre arts budget we had little choice but to opt for a couple of fairly grand specimens. But hey, who said big couldn't be delicious?! Getting caught up in the fungal moment we also got a big handful of finferli.

But markets day also means fish day, as it's impossible to resist the fishy sections when we make it there early enough to catch them. So on the night of the markets shop we cooked a giant pot of little black mussels according to my ongoing favourite recipe.

3 cloves garlic

1 long hot dried red chilli

olive oil

1 can tomatoes, rinsed with a generous amount of water back into the pot

1 glass white wine

1 bunch herbs - oregano/coriander/parsley/thyme depending on taste/availability

2kg mussels

Delicious. A bowl of mussels in a bowl of yummy yummy sweat-inducing soup.

I think Michael got some photos of this feast, maybe he'll post about it too.

The next night was definitely mushroom night though, so it was risotto for four with the return of our friend Elizabeth (ex-NZ pavilion) to Venice. With our Venice-guru Francesco for guidance, we embarked on our first ever fresh porcini experience. 

Fresh procini and chanterelle risotto.

Pre-frying the mushrooms in a very generous portion of butter and setting them aside for later, it was really just a matter of making a very basic risotto. The mushrooms were just stirred through at the end, along with a pile each of parsley and parmesan. I should really also have stirred through one more slosh of stock to make it more deliciously creamy, but I got that nervous don't-want-to-overcook-the-rice-and-end-up-with-squidge risotto panic. It was a shame really as, while the mushroom were yummy in an earthy mushroomy kind of way, they were not amazingly porcinily delicious and so the dish could've used a creamy kick. 

So our porcini conclusions are (unless someone comes along and convinces us otherwise with some 45euro/kg specimens) that you may as well stick to dried. Even when you buy cheaper packets of dried porcini pieces you still get that heady kick. I don't know if there's something about the drying process that intensifies the flavour, somehow that seems crazy, but having a bowl of porcini soaking in hot water fills a kitchen with such intoxicating pungency, and one is left with both a concentrated stock and a bowl of the most exquisite fungi. Mmmmmmmm.

---------

Another markets visit means another mushroom haul and another fish night.

The incredible towering mushrooms that we couldn't resist.

Amongst a well stocked collection herbs.

And tentacled radicchio.

A column of fishy heads watching us make our pesce selection.

Finn dealing to the flounder.

Which became another flounder with green olives delight.

Followed then next night by this mushroom, pancetta, cream dream.

And, just for fun, a suspiciously horsey butcher we weren't quite brave enough to go into. 

24 September 2011

A quick update of goings on

I did my best to have a good time while Finn was in Croatia, but really I was just very lonely without him and so so so so relieved and happy when he came home. And it seems like it was worth it, for him, nice photos of a nice holiday, nice for some... 

But anyway, the film festival was on here for the week that he was away, so (once Svetislava and I figured out the cheaper options) we saw a few flicks. (At first glance, the useless schedule of screenings they publish in place of a catalogue had prices ranging between 25 and 45 euro, a wee bit steep for our budget.) Steve McQueen's Shame screened at one of the local, cheaper cinemas here on Venice proper and Svetislava and I went one evening after I made us a quick dinner of spaghetti and peas with a ricotta, anchovy, and egg carbonara-type mix. It was good, the film I mean (although the pasta was nice), not as harrowing as Hunger, but cringe-making all the same, for different reasons. The best day though was when we found out about the coupon system. On Friday we met out at Lido at 8am and headed straight to the cinema village, where we joined the que of fellow coupon retrievers. Coupons were handed out each morning to selected screenings that day. In the end we saw a documentary (about an Italian musician hanging out on a Navajo reservation in Arizona), went for a swim, and ate gelato all before work started at midday. Then we were straight back out that night for some more films, a few drinks, and a bit of action on the red carpet. The next evening Finn came home (thank goodness!). And the evening after that we had pencilled in to go to go to the open air cinema at San Polo which was going to be screening whichever film won the golden lion award, but that turned out to be Faust which they were only showing with Italian subtitles, so it was no use to us. Rabbit instead.

Rounding the corner of the Arsenale on our way home that Sunday evening, the canal to the entrance was full of lovely wooden sail boats with fantastic brightly painted sails. There was a prize giving ceremony going on for what had obviously been some kind of regatta. A pity to have missed seeing them sailing around the lagoon, it would've been a lovely sight. Who knows where they came from, I've never seen boats like this here before, we were lucky to catch the tail end of it.

(Although Finn was back, we were without our camera so Svetislava kindly loaned her phone for the purpose.)

That night, it being both Sunday and a celebratory homecoming evening, we decided it'd be nice to cook a bit of meat for a change. Meat has seemed entirely unappealing these past hot hot months, but on finding fresh rabbit, we were ready to make the shift into autumn cooking. Ever since a particularly delicious rabbit meal in Barcelona, I have (whenever in the possession of a nice bunny) always wanted to achieve a satisfying recreation. The Spanish rabbit was cooked in a spicy ratatouille-type sauce and served with oily potatoes. We came pretty close. 

4 rabbit legs

1 small white onion

the green part of a leek (saving the white part for potatoes another night)

2 cloves of garlic

1 large dried chilli

a glass of red wine to de-glaze

1 red and 1 yellow capsicum

1 aubergine

a couple of bay leaves

a few tomatoes

You know how it goes. In the end the rabbit was meltingly delicious, served with soft polenta and a refreshing crisp salad. But we had to eat it with all the windows closed and the aircon on full blow, it really isn't quite autumn just yet.

(Again, no camera.)

That all seems like ages ago though. We have Michael here now. A friend! He's staying for 3 weeks in the apartment right next door to us (we share a landlord and an entranceway) - our luxury suite option. Autumn has arrived with him though, which is a bit stink. The Monday before he arrived  Finn and I were out at Lido, lying on the rocks in the sun reading our books after a lovely swim, commenting to each other about how the summer felt like it would last forever. Or at least well long enough for Michael to get a good piece of it. But now it's less hot. The night he arrived we had hoped to have a welcoming barbecue out at Lido, but a wind came though and blew all the leaves off the trees and made us feel anxious, and luckily so as that night there was a bit of a storm. The next morning, a Monday, for the first time in months, it was cold. Aaaaarrrrrrr. So alarming! It was the first time in about three months that I've felt the need to wear leg coverings. Later in the day, out at the beach on the other side of the lagoon entrance from Lido, we still got hot enough to have a lovely Adriatic swim. It was ominous though - we even saw a waterspout out to sea - and the storm clouds rolled in from the east. Thunder boomed and lightening struck to our left (east) while the sun shone brightly above us and over to our right (west). Pretty dramatic. I have been so anxious about the summer ending. I simply loved the heat, all day and all night. Finn thinks I'm completely mad, but I just can't get enough of it. Thankfully the sun came back out fairly quickly and I feel much less bad about the drop in temperature.

Arriving at the two-weather beach.
But oh my, what's that out to sea?!

Waterspout - WOW!

Whatever the weather, we are really excited about having Michael here keeping us company, and looking forward to some more good adventures. It'd be nice to get him to do a guest posting while he's here, I hope he agrees. And I hope he has photos of the discovery we made on our way to the beach - stay tuned for fruity revelations.

24 September 2011

Lego movie

Here is my  sitting, glazed out target series. To make up for my lack of success with the photo snappers.

This series depicts the dedicated audience to one of the displays in the installation. 

The display.

A short loop (one chapter) of a film that has been running since the opening week - there is no alternative working film with text to display instead, and a giant (and therefore permanent) monitor to display something on. And so this is it - a movie made by Lego, based on their Bionicle series. A series of toys, computer games, and movies which a group of Maori (yep, this is the one and only NZ connection in the boxes), represented by Maui Solomon tried to get Lego to stop producing. Their issue was with some of the terms, names, and stories used in Bionicles, that were either the same as or very similar to Maori language and mythology. They argued the series constituted inappropriate usage of spiritual and religious terms. Well anyway, and unfortunately perhaps, I don't think it's most dedicated audience is there for the dispute - they're here to escape from their parents who've been dragging them around art exhibitions all day, they're here to watch cartoons. And they love it, just look at their faces!

The audience.

They start them small.

The separation of the child from the TV often causes a real temper tantrum and sometimes I feel bad having a part in such a tantrum-causing piece. The funniest ones are the ones who keep returning throughout the day - establishing where their parents are and then running back here for more movie. It doesn't seem to matter at all that they are watching the same sequence over and over again, and that it's only playing in English, when I would say the vast majority of them are not English speakers. They all sit there with the same dumb bug-eyed stare of the TV viewer. Adults do it too, but they are less cute.

21 September 2011

Adventures at sea

Seadog Finn at the helm of A Pound of Flesh

Leaving Esther to the biennale dogs, I took off for a week of nautical adventuring. My second such escape from Venice since we've been here (the first being a trip Florence with my folks), I took an early train south to Ancona, from there an overnight ferry to Split in Croatia, and then a bus to Murter where our chartered yacht awaited. My crew for a week of sailing around the Croatian coast was cousin Joe, his partner Jill, and their flatmates Ben and Zoe. They were all travelling across from Portugal where they'd been participating in the world underwater hockey champs. With Zoe and Jill playing, Ben coaching, and Joe providing essential moral support, the NZ women's team won third place.

Beginning at the beginning and taking you through the obligatory first-blog photo essay, here goes.

I got into Ancona at about midday and, like always when I'm in a new place, I walked, walked, walked, and walked. They even had hills for me to climb, and then descend.

A church façade held up by lions on top of the hill.

Looking back at the church from another hilltop.

A lovely curving tunnel I walked through on the way up a differnt hill.

Where I eventually got to this Roman-period Jewish cemetery.

Then down the hill to these weekend holiday bunkers -- ex-fishing sheds originally constructed as military infrastructure.

Fitted out with fully equipped kitchens, essential beach furniture, and obligatory old turtels.

Day 2

Disembarking from the ferry in Split, I was greeted with a harbour full of party boats. My guess is that groups of about 20 young people sign up for a week of 'free living' by the droves. Amongst all this kerfuffle I met the others, who had flown in that morning, and we all piled onto a bus that was to take us... somewhere close to where we wanted to go... I thought. 

Did I say that I landed in Split or Spit?

After a couple of hours on the bus the driver tells us that this is our stop and we get off in the middle of nowhere. A crossroads with a couple of drive-in resturants with these spit roasting animals facing the road. Anyway, the staff there were very friendly and they called us a cab which took us the 20km or so further to our marina. 

When we first arrived to the office of the company that we were chartering the boat from (at about 2pm) they said come back at 5. So we walked around the township.

Figs drying in a backyard.

There was also what looked like a wooden boat graveyard but on closer inspection there were about 12 people fixing them up. Pulling apart some boats for parts and fixing up others. There was an engine and enginering shop on the other side of the road. It felt good to see people fixing up things that would just be dumped in richer places. 

At last we got our boat.

But it turns out that there is a lot of paper work one must complete before setting sail...

Anchor... tick

Main sail... tick

Rope 1,2,3,4   tick,tick,tick,tick...  and so on.

Then you wait around and someone from the charter company comes to do it all with you again. So Joe, Jill, and I left Zoe and Ben to it went to the supermarket to stock up. Who knew how much food and drink for 5 people for a week looked like?! Whooo eee. 

By this time it was about 8 o'clock and there was no way we were leaving that night so we went back into town and got stuck into a family size pizza sitting on the waters edge.

Day 3

Quick shop for fresh fruit and vegies at the morning market, and then after a brief briefing from Skipper Ben we throw off the ropes and we we're away sailing! 

What are all those piles of rocks?

A monastery, no a lighthouse, oh I don't know, but it is on an island.

Dry stone walls right next to the sea edge.

A shrine at the edge of the water. 

So we sailed around some of the local islands and then almost returned but anchored in a bay of Ziminjak, a small boomerang shaped island. That evening Joe and I went ashore for a bit of an explore.

View back to the bay. Our boat is the one on the far left.

Joe found a hobbit hole.

Looking up from inside.

The walls were made of flatish rocks and had pebbles on the inside so that they all sloped down at the front,
directing the water to run off the outside.

Then it was back to sea.

Day 4

We had lunch in a sheltered bay and I walked by myself to the top of Jancar, an island nearby. It had about half a dozen rock piles (one meter tall) and the remains of a 3 room dry stone wall structure. 

We ancored in the bay of another island, Otocic Ravni Zakan. In the morning, just after having breakfast, the ancor came loose and we came about 1 meter from crashing into the rocks before a very quick motor start and off to safety.

Day 5

We sailed up the outside of an island group with the Adriatic on one side and cliffs on the other.

Cliff.

Cliff.

Lots of cliffs.

Stone walls dividing up the hill.

In the afternoon we moored next to a small village on the island of Otok Kornat and again Joe and I went ashore.

"So Joe, do you think that she lives in that house?"

"Eeyore."

Up the shoulder of the hill looking back at the village.

Along a lovely path.

Past a feral sheep.

To a little church built on top of some very old ruins.

And then up another hill to some more ruins.

Some 3000 year old ruins

With great views out to the other islands.

What a good spot.

Weathered hill, mmmmm.

Day 6

Moored off from the small town of Kaprije, I walked over the hill on the island of Otok Kaprije.

Kaprije, a fishing town with heaps of these tiny little moorings.

A prickly pear which was delicious, but they have a lot of prickles that are very difficult to remove from your hands...

At LAST! An answer.
A stone wall protecting an olive tree from the wind, and giving it a fantastic crew cut.
(The question being - why why why so many rock walls?!)

Locals playing a round or two of petanque in the cool of the evening.

Day 7

A week in and it's Seadog Finn and the helm.

Past the watchful eyes of the guards at the fort.

Past Sibenic.

Up a valley.

And finally, our destination, but who put an onion on top of that church?

Anchoring off from the town of Scradin, about 20 killometers from the headland that fort was on, up the Krka river. Here the whole crew went ashore and hired bikes to ride a little further up-river to a national park.

Lots of little waterfalls slowly depositing calcium carbonate and forming travertine terraces.

The propellers of an old hydroelectric turbine.

Looking back down to some of the waterfalls.

The valley we had just ridden up.

Another long day and as the moon comes up I need some dinner.

Day 8

Joe and I are up early to get us back to Murter in time for our shuttle to Split and the ferry that evening. It was our first early morning but I should've done it more often, it's a magic time to be on the water.

Back down the river.

A little bit of racing on the way...

Sibenic emerges out of the mist

Castle on top of the hill.

Over the last week I had been swimming most days and saw little fish, long fish, red fish, blue fish, sand eating fish and fish hoping to eat what ever the sand eating fish missed. Then on our last leg back to the marina, with a fairly good wind and travelling at about 4 knots, we threw a long rope off the back (with one end still tied on of course). Keen to cool off I jumped in after it and got dragged along after the boat; before long there were 3 of us being pulled through the water, slowing the boat considerably but still at as fast as I can swim speed. You could let go of the rope and swim beside it until the novelty wore off and you could garb hold of the rope again. This may have been the most fun bit of the whole trip and if you ever find that you have the opportunity to be dragged behind a boat.... TAKE IT.

And that was that. We got to Murter before we knew it and Joe, Jill, and I had to disembark for the last time and were rushed off to Split in a taxi (the speed limit was 130km/h and I'm sure that we were at it the whole time). Onto the ferry and back in Ancona before even a single moment had passed, then I got to check on the progress of a little project I had started a week earlier.

And it was finished, tip top job.

A short train ride and I'm back to Venice and Esther. It was a lovely trip and it is also lovely to be back so... 

Perfetto, perfetto!

16 September 2011