Holy Gelato, Batman!

It's c-c-c-c-cold out there. The weather network says it's13 degrees, but it feels more like 3. The cafes are only setting out half their outdoor tables, and everybody is bundled up as warmly as possible. A good day for indoors, so off to the Accademia. It houses a huge collection of monumental paintings by Titian, Tintoretto, Bellini, Veronese and many others, and key works by Giorgione, Canaletto, Carpaccio, etc. Just now they are also showing a special exhibition of Leonardo's notebooks and drawings. Fun to see the original page and drawing of the Vitruvian Man (the guy stretched out, arms and legs, in a circle). 

Then it was time for lunch - pasta carbonara (senza glutine for me, regular pasta for Valerie). Really delicious comfort food on a cold day. Wandering back toward the hotel, we stumbled on the Biennale outpost set up to display the work of two Newfoundlanders. Good stuff!

Valerie was so cold that we had to duck into a little shop to buy a knitted hat for her.

Also passed a gondola repair shop.

Valweiwei's Newest installation at a little known side venue of the Biennale...the Paganelli Hotel

This Monumental Performance Piece is truly brilliant and original.  We think it is her best work, her

masterpiece!  Limitless in scope, it depicts the dilemma of the modern day traveller.  The fundamental question remains:  do you unpack, only to pack again a few days later? Or, equally puzzling, do you stop buying trinkets knowing that you have to carry them home, or do you suck it up for the peeps?

In a side gallery at the same venue, a minimalist piece by Eye Weigh Way Less Now, the acclaimed gluten free sculptor:

Suitcase on Ottoman, 2013: Canvas on Silk on Fold-out, 45"" x 38" x 34"

The Arsenale

This is the other venue for the Biennale, not far from the Giardini. Most of the exhibits are housed in one gigantic building, so long that we were grateful to hitch a ride on a golf cart shuttle from the far end back to the exit. The endless series of exhibits was sensually exhausting. A lot of very noisy and very "deep" (?) video. The overwhelming in-your-faceness of way too much stuff seemed to interfere with appreciating each individual object/installation, so it'll take a while to decide whether we saw things that were really impressive. I guess so, but whew! 

Very early takeoff on the vaporetto to the train station in the morning. We arrive back in Rome early afternoon tomorrow, for two nights. We have tickets for an evening performance of Coppelia on Sunday, and may try to see La Traviata in another church performance tomorrow as well. Then to the airport on Monday, heading for Heathrow.

From Valerie

An early night last night after we packed and got ourselves braced for the morning run to the train.  We had picked up the vaporetto schedule in anticipation of stress and I gamely tried to decipher it.  It turned out that if we had breakfast pronto at 7:30, raced back upstairs to brush teeth and pick up bags, check out and scurry across the promenade for the vaporetto at 8:06, after an express ride in the big water outside the canal,(where we passed huge cruise ships) we could make it to the train station in time for our train to Roma.  Everything went according to plan.  When we got on the vaporetto, the conscientious boat man made us stand in the rain.  We left Venice like true Venetians.  Dripping.