Anything Goes at Carnivale

We boarded the bus at 5:50 am with 80 other students, and headed on the four hour bus ride to Venice to see the opening of the Carnivale. After much confusion in the parking lot as to where we were actually supposed to park, and which busses had to pay and which didn’t, we finally parked with about a thousand other busses at the docks. While parking alone was a great example of Italian disorganization, the chaos that followed getting to the boat matched it. We boarded the Moby Dick, a private boat that took us to Venice city center docks. The weather on Saturday was disgusting, it was raining and cold, and mix this with thousands upon thousands of tourists all carrying umbrellas with pointy edges, made for a rather unpleasant morning.

Venice is an interesting place. It’s a combination of islands, most of which are sinking. Currently, they are dealing with huge flooding problems (thankfully not while we were there). On the bus, they were telling us that a couple years ago a bunch of engineers came up with a levee system to try to save Venice.

Back to our day. We got off the boat onto the dock and the amount of people that were flooding towards San Marco Piazza was ridiculous. Stepping into the mainstream of people was like getting swept up by a large wave and just being taken along with the rip tide. We finally made it to San Marco Piazza, along with the million other people, and were scheduled to tour the Basilica di San Marco. The church, which is rightfully the crown jewel of Venice, is a perfect example of Byzantine architecture. The church towers over the Piazza, an imposing image when you first arrive. The basilica’s construction began in the 9^th century, when two Venetian merchants stone St. Mark’s remains from Alexandria and brought them to Venice. The original church burned down in the 11^th century, but was redesigned in Greek cross plan instead of the classic Roman cruciform design. The interior of the church is covered in gold mosaics, made of both tiles and murano glass tiles infused with gold. The crowds inside the church were almost as unbearable as the crowds that throbbed outside. We had bee pushed and shoved and rained on so much that by the end of the church tour we had had enough, and were ready to leave the church. The crowds in Piazza San Marco were incredible, which I though was surprising because it was the day before the opening of the Carnivale. It was basically impossible to see anything over the umbrellas.

On Saturday, I was very convinced that Disney had stolen Venice and moved in. Everything looked like an amusement park. This might just be from America’s fascination with taking the worlds treasures and smushing them into amusement park settings and deauthenticating everything. But regardless, Venice did feel like we were at an amusement park on Saturday. The crowds, the stage with huge speakers in the Piazza blaring Disney music in Italian,…. Yeah, I know. I had had enough. My frustration with Venice came just in time, when we had to report back to the boat to go to Murano.

Murano, famous for it’s glass production since 1292, is a six island cluster that allows tourists to see the actual production of Murano glass. Some factories offer opportunities to watch master glass makers while other offer the option to actually help make the glass. Historically, the glass makers used to be on Venice, until they were booted off the island because the glass factories kept starting fires, so they got their own island, (which very amusingly is right across from another island specifically dedicated to graves. A cemetery island.) We got to go to one of the major glass factories on the island to see how they make the glass and then we got to shop there. If I was a millionaire, I could have dropped my life savings in that store. The glass pieces were absolutely incredible, and the selection of glass chandeliers was mind boggling.

After Murano made a killing off of our group, we jumped back onto the boat, and headed to the island of Burano, by far one of the most beautiful islands in the area. Historically, Burano was known for lace production. Women who were waiting for their husbands to get back from sea started a college of sorts on the fine art of lace making. Today, there isn’t much original production still going on on the island. This island is mostly what you see in pictures when you see a quaint picture of the Venice area. The narrow streets house brightly colored houses in blues, pinks and yellows. With narrow, quiet streets and the beautiful houses, it was a welcome change from the super hectic morning that we had.

After Burano, we headed back to the busses, and traveled to our hotel. We changed and ended up traveling 45 minutes out in the boonies to a restaurant the proved to be well worth the exxttttteeeeeemmly long bus ride.

I think that eating here is a combination between an art and a job. We are getting used to the fact that it is normal to be only half way through dinner at 10:15 pm, that there never seems to be a rush and if there is a rush, there’s something wrong with you, that you will never see the check if you don’t ask at least twice, and that eating is a marathon and not something for the weak hearted. With this in mind, we finished appetizers, two first courses, a main course, desert and coffee (more like coffee soup with how thick it is), and headed home, uncomfortably stuffed but happily slipping into a food coma.

Sunday: 9:00 am we were back in Venice, again taken there by private boat. Except this time, surprisingly, the docks were a lot less crowded and getting into Piazza San Marco was a lot easier. Not to mention that the weather was much nicer, with clear skies, and…we were able to wear our boots, which may have just made the morning.

San Marco was jammed with people in Costume. The most wild costumes you have ever seen in you life. There were cartoon characters, super heroes, historical figures, costumes from every time period in every different culture. The Native Americans were even there. When we first got there the festivities were just beginning. There was a huge stage and a runway in the middle of the square, where contestants in costume would walk down the runway and they were presented by a costumed host. Not only were people in full costume, but there were masks everywhere. And we got masks too, all three of us!!! And we looked damn good…

After we had looked around for a while, we met one of our professors to go to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. The Peggy Guggenheim Museum is located directly on the Grand Canal. She was an American philanthropist who was married to several different art critics, before she moved to Venice and married Max Ernst.

The Peggy Guggenheim Museum was a Religious Experience.

The museum is a small collection of modern abstract art, with famous names like Duchamp, Klee, Kandinsky, Picasso, Magritte, Pollock, Dali, Ernst and Severini. I have studied many of these modern artists at school but I’ve never seen them up close. There was an entire room dedicated to Jackson Pollock paintings. And it wasn’t like a normal museum where you had to stand back from the paintings, you could practically brush noses with a Dali painting or a Pollock. I think that Peggy Guggenheim in my new hero. I have been to bunches of art museums in different cities up to now, but nothing measures up to this art collection. I think that it is a combination of the setting and the collection, because the house is an unfinished Venetian palace/villa, right on the Grand Canal, with an open interior and windows everywhere. And maybe my favorite part was the little patio at the front of the house that was right on the canal, that you could go out on the patio and watch all the gondolas go by. But even better than that, there is a statue right at the front of the gate that looks out to the canal called Angel in the City. It is a relatively simple statue of a man on horseback, rather abstract. The man has an erection, which is conveniently detachable for when Ms. Guggenheim had more prudish guests. But more over, I am in love with this museum.

http://www.guggenheim-venice.it/inglese/default.html

After the gallery, we headed back to the Palazzo, and stopped at a restaurant for lunch along they way. Back at the square, festivities were in full swing. People that were dressed for Carnivale were out on patrol, posing for pictures everywhere.

We also went to the Palazzo Ducale, or the Doge’s Palace. This was the main building for government procedures in Venice. We climbed the Golden Staircase, which was being restored by Bulgari, the gold company, and went through the many rooms of the building. All the rooms were decorated by lead artists in Venice at the time, such at Titan. Not only were the rooms decorated with Silk tapestry wallpaper, but the reliefs on the ceilings were enormous, bolted onto the ceiling with bolts as big as two fists. There was an armory, and we crossed the Bridge of Sighs, which is a bridge connecting the main palace to the dungeons. It was used for mostly political prisoners, since Venice was known through Italy for having very strict sentences for prisoners. We got to go down into the dungeons and everything.

The rest of the time we spent in Venice was used mainly on walking on all the back streets, crossing small canals and watching gondolas filled with masked passengers pass under bridges.

I will have to post the pictures as soon as possible. This weekend was the most incredible thing. I am determined to come back to Venice at some point in my life for Carnivale. And I will have spent the year before I go making the most incredible costume.

On a different note, I am going to visit Benji this weekend in Bologna for birthday celebration. We might actually go again to Carnivale just because we can.

Oh yeah..and everyone here seems to be slowly becoming addicted to Nutella. Nutella is good on bananas, on toast, in a cookie, in a cake, on a spoon, Nutella is good on everything. Its pretty cheap here, Im not really sure how expensive it is in the states, but I’m pretty sure that it is a staple in the Italian diet. Small jars are these tiny glasses, which very amusingly, are the only glass ware, minus two, that were supplied in our apartment. We all seemed to get a pretty big kick out of that.