In my last post I didn’t mention our rather interesting accommodation in Venice.
We decided to stay in this monastery (of all things!) called Instituto Canossiano. The internal courtyard was pretty.
The entry was was pretty nice too!
We have a funny story about staying here though. Whenever you went out you had to leave your room keys with the nuns at the front door. When you came back in you picked the keys up again.
When we arrived back the previous night, we stood politely at the window to get the keys. The nun was standing on the other side of the window busy reading a religious text, following the words with one finger. With her other hand, she would do unusual, sudden gestures, sometimes using both hands, but not looking up. I thought to myself that they must be part of her religious tradition, and we didn’t want to interrupt her, so we just watched and waited. Eventually both her hands came together, and we realised what she was doing: trying to catch a mosquito. HA!!! At that point she also looked up and noticed us and let us in! Yay for mosquitos!!! 😀
The room itself was very spacious, but sparse, as you’d expect, and “decorated” with just one small picture of Mary! It was the opposite to everywhere else in this city where the decoration and detail is just beautiful and abundant! The bed was pretty hard, not as bad as a Dayak floor though! 🙂
Once outside we saw that it had rained overnight, but the colours here were stunning:
We wandered through the streets enjoying the scenery.
We saw another tower with a distinct lean on it:
We went over the Grand Canale and decided to get a vaporetto out to the Lido island.
But not before we tried a super cannoli:
We got on the vaporetto and this time, perhaps since it was early in the morning and a Sunday, they weren’t busy and we easily got a seat.
As we were going along I saw this and thought I must be seeing things:
Yes that WAS the New Zealand flag and the only one we’ve seen while we’ve been away. I must admit I never expected to see one in Venice. 🙂
Passing our stop, we determined to return later in the day to go through the Ca’ Rezzonico.
This building was unusual with pictures on the outside:
Lido had roads instead of canals, and cars instead of gondolas! Venice is so nice without any vehicles and only boats!
After lunch we headed back to Venice, back to lots of tourists, and back to another leaning tower:
So many people… I have decided that THIS is why Venice is sinking. Too many tourists.
Then it was time to visit Ca’ Rezzonico Palace at last! Built in 1649, this palace was originally owned by two families, but is now a museum/art gallery. “Ca’ Rezzonico opened as a public museum on 25 April 1936. Today, it is one of the finest museums in Venice; this is largely because of its unique character, where objects designed for a great palazzi are displayed in a palazzo, thus, the contents and the container harmonise in a way not possible in a purpose built museum. Thus, today the palazzo is more sumptuously furnished than ever before.” (thanks Wikipedia 😉 ).
On display was so much exquisite porcelain:
Several rooms of it, displayed beautifully:
There were also several unusual chandeliers:
And Rococo furniture
And tapestries:
And silk wall coverings:
And beautiful old mirrors:
And a picture of a Kiwi 😉
There was even an old taxi. 😉
This table was inlaid with different colours of marble:
This beautiful cradle was in one of the bedrooms:
And up in the attic was room after room of amazing paintings!
We thoroughly enjoyed our visit there, but then it was time for something a bit different. Time to get dressed up and go to the opera at La Fenice!
The foyer area was sumptuously decorated.
But the auditorium was even better!!!
Every box was uniquely decorated with no two the same:
Quite an experience!
After this we wandered back after quite a full day!
It amazes me how the builders and decorators of these buildings in Venice and in Rome created such beautiful buildings when they didn’t have the tools or machinery of today. It must have taken years to complete a building. What a wonderful time you are both having.
I can’t help it but whenever I think of Venice my thoughts often drift back to when I worked as a nurse in a hospital psychiatric unit. The therapists (way back in that day) when they first did the initial complete assessment ( bio-psych-social ) on a patient they would dictate it into a tape recorder. Part of this assessment was to list the patient’s religion of choice. I will never forget that on one of the particular charts I happen to have been reading the stated religion was listed as “Seven Days in Venice.” I shared this with a few other nurses as I had never heard of such a religion. Upon further investigation it was discovered that what was originally stated into the tape recorder by that particular therapist had been “Seventh Day Adventist.” Apparently, the “coder” listening and typing from the dictated tape had decided to create a new religion. So, I’ve decided if I’m going to have religion I want to be a member of the “Seven Days in Venice” church!
Oh that’s so funny!!! People will make a religion out of anything. Ha! 😉
Wow – okay, now I need to add Venice to our travels! It’s amazing that people live in a place that is so beautiful ALL of the time! I like the captioning for the opera; that makes it much easier to follow along. I like the meditative practice of the mosquito 🙂
Yeah, pretty funny, we had a good chuckle about the mosquito meditation manoeuvres! 😉 And as someone commented on Facebook, being in Venice is like being in a painting; it is THAT beautiful!!!