Wednesday 16 August Venice

We can’t believe how quickly the days are going, it’s definitely time to join horrendous queues for our Doges tour. We walked up to the Bridge of Sighs first and took some photos from the outside, will be able to go inside it from the Doges Palace. The inside square of the Doges Palace is almost identical to the outside square of San Marco. We went up the Giants Staircase, to the area where to Doges were crowned and on into the palace, then walked along the Colonnade on the first floor. The ceilings of the palace are very ornate and quite beautiful, as are the lovely gothic stained glass windows. We wandered through all the chambers of the palace, very ornate wooden carvings and the huge table for conferences of the Council of Ten. In the Sala del Maggior Consiglio we found Tintoretto’s Paradise, taking up a whole wall. On the third floor in the Collegiate rooms are his paintings of Bacchus and Ariadne crowned by Venus. The Sala dello Scudo has maps of the world covering every wall with two enormous globes in the centre. Went down into the Torture Chamber, through very low tunnels and 16th century cells, where petty criminals were kept, and from where Casanova famously escaped in 1755. Went into the Bridge of Sighs, an awful place to keep the prisoners as they could see all the people on the outside enjoying life whilst they rotted away in confinement. The window sills there are still covered in graffiti written by the convicts. Andrew had had enough culture for one day by now so we walked down passed Teatro la Fenice to the pretty little square Campo San Stefano where there are lots of shops full of antiques, masks and plenty of little cafes. You can sit outside them and hear music from Palazzo Pisani. We opted for Lucky Corner and ordered wine for me and a beer for Andrew and a sandwich and some dolce. The waiter asked if Andrew would like large beer, when it arrived was the largest beer we’ve ever seen, about 2 litres in a huge tankard the height of a wine bottle. Refreshed we sauntered on and crossed the Accademia bridge into the Dorsoduro region again as we had passed the Peggy Guggenheim museum the other day and I wanted to visit it. This is in a building known as the Palazzo Nonfinito, originally planned to be a four story palace, it never got beyond the ground floor. Peggy bought it in 1949 as her home. It was eventually opened as a museum for her eclectic collection of modern art. The front garden has a throne and beautiful statues dotted around. The museum is modern and airy inside, we looked at all the exhibits then went to get a drink and sit out on the Grand canal side patio area. Halfway down the rather grand staircase to the terrace is a statue of a man with a huge erection, astride a horse it is called Angel of the City sculpted in 1948 by Angelo Marini. Apparently it still embarrasses unsuspecting visitors today. We walked into Santa Croce region, which was roughly heading back towards the hotel, and found Capitan Uncino Taverna in a little square, musicians were playing, a little white church had bells chiming and it advertised the best seafood risotto in Venice. We sat outside in the sun and ordered the risotto starter, steak to follow and a beer each whilst we perused the wine list of about 250 bottles. The risotto was sublime, everything else was wonderful. If you ever go to Venice book a table.  We walked back over the Rialto Bridge to the hotel, time for bed, as we are up early in the morning.