Venice
We stayed in the Euganean Hills for 8 days and then spent a couple of nights in Venice before flying to the UK - well, we had to really, it would have been a crime to have flown out of Venice without reacquainting ourselves with La Serenissima.
Michael had a migraine at one point so I took Ella up the Campanile and we looked down over St Mark's
The clock tower restoration has finished! This was the first time I'd seen it out of scaffolding...
As usual we stayed in a little hotel just off St Mark's Square called Antica Casa Coppo, which we found a few years ago when we missed a flight and had to ask at the airport desk if they could find us a hotel... We're obviously creatures of habit because we ate at our favourite restaurants too, Ai Mercanti and Al Conte Pescaor, both of which we've obviously patronised a lot because we were greeted like long-lost family in each place despite the minimum 18-month gap since our last visit!
Ella feeding the pigeons
I can't say that we did anything unusual in Venice; we soaked up the atmosphere and wandered around. This time we went to Burano as well as Murano (where we visited our favourite glass shop, Salviati's, and replaced some of the beautiful cut-glass tumblers that we've broken over the last few years).
The painted houses on Burano
We also took Ella to the Venice Biennale. I was a little anxious about doing this because it isn't always the case that art and 5-year olds mix well, but in fact it was a very successful afternoon. We all enjoyed wandering between the different pavilions, and Ella was entranced by some of the video installations - an art form that usually leaves me cold, so it was interesting to see it through her eyes. I was fascinated to see how she made sense of the images, particularly in installations that didn't include any explanatory sound-track that might give clues to meaning. She sat first with Michael and then with me through a video-loop in the Swiss pavilion, giving a very lucid commentary throughout... I was impressed! You can see what I thought of the art in my other blog, http://doubleelephant.blogspot.com/.
Ella's marble present - a big one - was this mask. I managed to persuade her NOT to go for the pink one!
Michael had a migraine at one point so I took Ella up the Campanile and we looked down over St Mark's
The clock tower restoration has finished! This was the first time I'd seen it out of scaffolding...
As usual we stayed in a little hotel just off St Mark's Square called Antica Casa Coppo, which we found a few years ago when we missed a flight and had to ask at the airport desk if they could find us a hotel... We're obviously creatures of habit because we ate at our favourite restaurants too, Ai Mercanti and Al Conte Pescaor, both of which we've obviously patronised a lot because we were greeted like long-lost family in each place despite the minimum 18-month gap since our last visit!
Ella feeding the pigeons
I can't say that we did anything unusual in Venice; we soaked up the atmosphere and wandered around. This time we went to Burano as well as Murano (where we visited our favourite glass shop, Salviati's, and replaced some of the beautiful cut-glass tumblers that we've broken over the last few years).
The painted houses on Burano
We also took Ella to the Venice Biennale. I was a little anxious about doing this because it isn't always the case that art and 5-year olds mix well, but in fact it was a very successful afternoon. We all enjoyed wandering between the different pavilions, and Ella was entranced by some of the video installations - an art form that usually leaves me cold, so it was interesting to see it through her eyes. I was fascinated to see how she made sense of the images, particularly in installations that didn't include any explanatory sound-track that might give clues to meaning. She sat first with Michael and then with me through a video-loop in the Swiss pavilion, giving a very lucid commentary throughout... I was impressed! You can see what I thought of the art in my other blog, http://doubleelephant.blogspot.com/.
Ella's marble present - a big one - was this mask. I managed to persuade her NOT to go for the pink one!
posted by Sara Bowen at 6:19 am
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