Art in Venice

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Today started slowly with breakfast followed by postcard writing. At around 10am, we wandered down to the Arsenale vaporetto stop and caught a vaporetto to Galleria dell' Accademia, which is the main art gallery in Venice (or so I understand it to be). As with the other paintings we'd seen, there were primarily religious paintings with a smattering of mythology paintings thrown in. The space itself was not good, although the one section that had been renovated was much better. When the renovations are complete, I think this could be a rather good gallery, despite the monotony of subject. We then walked to what is now my favourite part of Venice - the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Set in a relatively stout building (apparently an unfinished palazzo), this modern art collection was a refreshing change. While my parents were less interested in the art itself, the building is situated on the Canal Grande and afforded us with a lovely view as we relaxed on the front steps. I particularly liked a work by Severini called Sea=Dancer as well as many of the sculptures. The Gianni Mattioli Collection part of which is also housed here was rather impressive. The sculpture garden was delightful and we enjoyed a lovely Italian lunch in the museum cafe. Afterwards we strolled along the less-touristy streets of Dorsoduro to the Santa Maria della Salute church. Sadly it was closed for several hours in the middle of the day, so we relaxed on the steps, taking in the sights of Venice, before we caught the vaporetto. We walked back to our very good B&B with gelato in hand for our afternoon rest.

We had a longer rest today before heading out for the evening. Just over five hours to be precise (plenty of time for napping and writing some of my thesis). We decided to go to a restaurant the owner of the B&B recommended, but when we got there the menu turistico put us off. Instead we walked back to the Arsenale to a restaurant we had seen another night that was crowded. We got a table. I had a yummy margarita pizza but my dad had an even yummier pizza with prosciutto and rocket. We wandered alongside the bay, enjoying the cooler night weather. We wandered through Piazza San Marco and then home via a few mask shops. It was very relaxing and altogether a fun day!

x Sarah

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