Elegant Decay
Last weekend I met up with Jesse and Zach again (my friends from seattle, not saved by the bell), this time up in Venice. I had been debating weather or not to spend my last weekend here in Florence, but had been told that Venice was a must-see and most of all, I really wanted to see the Biennale. I am sooo glad I went… Along the way I met a bubbly girl from San Fran who had also gone to NYU and randomly, spent a year living in Kirkland. So we chatted and laughed throughout the 3 hour train ride. J&Z’s best friend Rick Steve (the super nerdy travel guru) describes Venice as "A puddle of elegant decay." I laughed at the absurdity of this description, until I arrived in the fog and had to take a water taxi to the Rialto Bridge, zooming along the Grand Canal past stacked 18th century houses and ornate villas, as if it were the main arterial. I soon learned that in fact, it was. In Venice, streets are replaced with salty green water, cars with water taxis and kitschy gondolas and sidewalks with narrow alleys between old buildings and over 400 bridges that connect over 100 islands that make up the city. I was at first dissapointed to see the city was covered with damp fog, but realized that it only contributed to the overall magical effect and mystery of an ancient city that seems to float on water. I found our quaint hotel down an alley behind the fish market and we all set off to explore. Venice is infamous for getting lost in and apparently even its lifetime inhabitants often lose their own way. We made our way to beautiful St Marks Square, along the busy narrow streets filled with street vendors selling Murano glass and tourists from everywhere. St Marks was beautiful and the facade of the Basilica is guilded ornate and provides a beautiful backdrop for the entertaining stage that is the center of the square. Although I live in and have visited cities filled with flying rats, I have never seen anything like what I witnessed with the pigeons at St Marks. Millions of themthey are everywhere and it is the most amusing sight to watch the tourists who think its funny to put a little bread in their hand, until they immediately find themselves with pigeons landing on their head hands arms chests children screaming freaking out. Even though it made my skin crawl (bird flu is all the talk these days) I couldnt get enough of watching stupid innocent people so sweetly start to feed them then quickly become part of Hitchcocks worse nightmare… we had a delicious lunch quick rest then later feasted again until late in the night and wandered aroun the quiet foggy streets. Sunday up early to catch the free breakfast (ie bread in many forms) and make our way to Venice’s 51st Biennale, an international art exhibition that occurs every two years since 1895, with different pavilions and over 40 countries represented. Unfort right now in art painting is dead. It was heavy with video installation which is ok but requires a lot of time but also many interactive pieces that the viewer walked in or around including one pavillion where the entire piece was a giant wooden treehouse structure to climb up and around. We managed to hit every pavillion in the Giardino and barely make it to the train station that evening to head back to Firenze. Two days was not nearly enough time to explore the delicate floating mysterious city that is slowly sinking into the marsh and fog it once so elegantly rose above.
Rick Steve isnt such a jackass afterall.
