Walking the city

Very busy day with much walking. We started with a tour of the Doge's palace, a huge pink and white marble Gothic palazzo beside the San Marco Basilica. For over a 1,000 years a series of elderly men with virtually no power ruled Venice.


The palace is packed with art and endless grand rooms but you can't escape the sense of isolation and inertia the Doges must have experienced. Exhausted and starving we headed for a nearby restaurant where we ran into a man who Carl knows from his many visits to the Vintages section in the LCBO. He too lives in Leaside and had just arrived in Venice - what a small world!

In an effort to escape the hordes of tourists in San Marco we jumped on a vaporetto and headed to Cannareggio, a section of Venice where all the people who are actually Venetians live.


There we visited the Gheto where Venetian Jews have lived since the 14th century- and, yes that's where the word ghetto originated. The only trade Jews were allowed to engage in was money lending and they were confined to a small area in Cannereggio. To accommodate their growing population they built tall apartment buildings which stand out compared to the low lying buildings in the rest of Venice - see photo here.


We visited a Jesuit church where one of Titian's great works, The Martyrdom of St Lawrence, hangs over an altar. But wouldn't you know it, after walking endless streets in the heat, we arrived to find out that the painting was out for restoration. We consoled ourselves with a gelato and a visit to Ca' Doro, a huge palazzo on the Grand Canal whose owner had donated the house filled with Renaissance paintings to the Italian state in 1916.

We ended the day with an excellent dinner at a small restaurant Bentigodi Osteria Da Francesca. Filled with locals and no English menus in sight, we had a feeling it was going to be good and we were right. We had to try that classic Venetian dish, risotto with squid ink and it was delicious. Followed that with grilled filet of beef and panna cotta for dessert-perfetto!!


My attempts at Italian are improving - I made a restaurant reservation and was actually understood. Weather continues to be very hot and very humid- no surprise given all the water. The beauty of the city continues to amaze - wandering the streets and getting lost is a very enjoyable experience! Here are some more photos taken as we walked the city .


























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Sat Sep 10, 2011

Got up early and wondered through the streets. Very peaceful and quite that time of morning. Only the church bells ringing break the silence. We crossed the Accademia Bridge, picked up tickets for the Accademia Museum - an amazing art museum showcasing all the great venetian artists, Bellini, Tintoretto, Titian etc. Breakfast of pannini & brioche on the Giudecca Canal prior to the cruise ships distorting their hordes.


We all met up with Mom, Niall, Carina and Niall Jr at 10am to see the best collection of the Venetian masters. 2h of tour in an uncrowded museum was a pleasure.





Then on to Peggy Guggenheim for modern art, a small but significant collection. Its location on the Grand Canal is worth the admission alone.


Took our first vaporetto ride ( a ferry performing the role of a bus)- public transit with the best views in the world!- to San Toma to see the Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari Church with its magnificent altar piece, Titian's Assumption.
Venice is crowded but if you stay away from the Piazza San Marco and wander the side streets its a very different experience. Weather is amazing -hot and sunny -like July! All of us met for drinks on the terrace of our hotel overlooking the Grand Canal and then over to the east side of San Marco for a leisurely dinner at Il Ridotto, allowing for 3h of stories. Food was excellent. Carinna treated us to drinks in San Marco as a farewell-they headed back to Ireland next day. We are now planning next year's destination.





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Location:Venice

Fri Sep 9, 2011

3h sleep on the flight to Dusseldorf and 3h more in the Lufthansa lounge and we arrive in Venice in good shape. We took the water taxi from Marco Polo through the city to our hotel (see photo) right on the Grand Canal. We took a quick tour of Piazza San Marco while awaiting Maeve, Carina, Niall & Niall Jr. Dinner near the Rialto with all 6 of us.












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Location:Venice

3 days to go

Thu Oct 22 - Nice

Briefly sunny here in Nice today so we wandered around Place Massena and contemplated taking the train out to Cap Ferrat and hiking out . However, it did not take long for the clouds to roll in and the drizzle to begin again. We've been a bit cursed with the weather since arriving in Nice. So, we went to the Musee Matisse. What luck for Carl, because right next door are the remains of the Roman town Cemenelum. There are for the most part only foundations which survive. The exception in the baths building here. The museum is not big but it was worth the 45 mins we spent there.

Thereafter, we went to see Matisse. This museum has a wide variety of his works, covering 60 years. Perhaps the best part was his works for a chapel he had planned for Vence, just NW of Nice.

One of our blog followers asked how our French language skills were working out. Overall, we've been making many attempts - of course, the French seem to always want to respond in English - but the Rosetta Stone has definetly helped in understanding alot of day to day French. I made one funny mistake when in a drugstore I asked for a hairbrush ( brosse de cheveux) but instead I said brosse de cheveaux (a horse brush) . I'm sure they get those all the time.

This could potentially be our last blog. Tomorrow we take the train back to Paris. We'll stay in a hotel at the airport and fly out next day. It's been a wonderful trip and we're both very sad to leave (hopefully to return one day). Au revoir, all our blog followers. A bientot!

October 21 - Monaco

Well, here's Monaco. 32,ooo people squeezed into a 2km square area - you can actually walk across the country in 56 minutes (how's that for a fascinating fact). There's no personal income tax here - the result is that 80% of the population are rich foreign nationals - and that wealth is very obvious from the size of the yachts and the make of cars everywhere. It is, though, very interesting to be here.




After arriving by train (only 20mn from Nice) we headed to the Royal Grimaldi palace, where Prince Albert resides. (Where he keeps the bimbos is unknown.) Someone had told us the changing of the guard is fascinating to watch at noon everyday but when we arrived a sign was posted saying it was cancelled for today.
The picture here shows the outside of the palace - quite plain, not a very ornate style. It was raining so we moved on St Nicholas Cathedral where Princess Grace was married and later entombed.



Here's the picture of her grave - Gratia Patricia is the name engraved. Below I am lighting a candle in her memory.

Another couple of photos of the harbour.

Some of the architecture in Moneco is stunning - lots of Beaux Arts style. This is is the Prince Rainier Theatre.

Above is the famous Monte Carlo casino. We just peeked inside - this ain't your regular Vegas casino - beautiful opulent rooms for the baccarat and other table games.

Below is a beautiful hotel near the casino - The Hotel de Paris - Queen Victoria stayed here and
other royalty has since then. By now, I was tires hiking up and down the hills so Carl bought me an ice cream and then back to Nice. We are stealing free WiFi from McDonalds by sitting in the bar above it. It saves us 25 euros a day for hotel wifi but they are getting it back on our bar bills...

October 19 & 20 - Nice

Greetings from Nice! We arrived here from Eze yesterday. Perfect weather - sunny and very warm. After checking into the hotel, we wandered around the old part of the city. I would say Nice is probably most remarkable for it's Promenade de Anglais which runs all along the seafront for approx 5 kilometres ( photo on the left). Very tropical in appearance, palm trees everywhere, and the beaches, despite being pebbly are extremely popular. We headed up to the Marc Chagall museum. M. Chagall lived near Nice for many years - for those not familiar with his art, he painted mainly interpretations of biblical stories from the Old Testament along with some amazing stained glass work. I included some shots here from the museum.

Today we decided to do a day trip to Antibes. We had planned on taking the train but had heard from the hotel staff that a train strike was planned for today so we headed for the bus station instead. Slow ride - took over 60 mins for the 20k trip to Antibes.

Certainly, more yachts than we had ever seen in one place- and massive ones in the outer harbour - Antibes is very much a playground for the very rich. And many stores dedicated to outfitting yachts. Carl's pilgrimage to the home of Graham Greene from 1969-1990 (he died a year later near his daughter's in Switzerland) was his highlight. Greene lived in a true menage a trois with Yvonne Cloetta. She with her husband and daughter on the 2nd floor, he on the 4th. They would lunch at Chez Feliz nearby, spend their afternoons togther, then she would fix his dinner and return to her family. (this info courtesy of Carl)

Here is Greene's apartment. I think Greene would have been outraged by the appearance of a faux Aussie bar but hey we Irish (of any number of exiled generations) have endured cultural appropriation for years.

Unfortunately, Chez Felix appears to have just closed. We had hoped to have a licit lunch there.

Picture of an unusual item over on Antibes resident's front door.

We took a couple of hours to visit the Musee Picasso - no photos allowed so can't show you anything - he lived here for one year in 1946 and produced over 150 pieces of art. He learned pottery while here and produced some very astounding pottery, imagine his exagerated women come to life on a pitcher. The museum is in the old Chateau Grimaldi, the original home of the Monaco mafia.

Tomorrow we head for Monaco - plan to visit the Monte Carlo casino and the grave of Princess Grave...stay tuned.

Sunday October 18 - Eze

Here we are in Eze. We arrived on Sat by train - to very warm and sunny weather - what a change from the chilly Le Mistral. We took a taxi up the winding roads to Eze to our hotel, Le Chevre D'Or. Eze is a medieval village perched on a mountain, as you can see from the photos. The views are absolutely spectacular of the Mediterranean coastline. We wandered around the village - very steep climbing but filled with lots of boutiques and art shops. That night we had dinner at The Troubador, a restaurant beside the hotel - wonderful John Dory fish and scallops and a poached pear dessert - the weather suddenly turned chilly and rainy.

That night we slept 11 hours - every day up to that point, we had been getting up early to see all the sights and hadn't realized how tired we were. Anyway, we woke up to the most amazing warm and sunny morning. We had breakfast on the hotel terrace overlooking the Mediterranean - just amazing views - as well as incredible pain chocolate and croissants. The rest of the day we relaxed around the hotel, took photos, read and just plain did nothing - which is not difficult in such a beautiful location as this. Tonight we had dinner in the hotel restaurant, Le Chevre D'Or, a 2 Michelin star restaurant. It was the culinary highlight of our trip. Superb food and service with amazing views of Cap Ferrat and Nice. We had duck liver terrine with truffles, sea scallops, blue lobster from Brittany, selection of cheeses and chocolate Grand Cru - one of the best meals I've ever had. Bono from U2 lives nearby here and apparently this is one of his favourite restaurants.

Here I am by the hotel pool - it had to be a little hotter to get me in there.

Here's the rental car (only kidding)

The gardens around the hotel are beautiful. This one had lovely statues of animals.

Above are the winding roads from Nice to Eze. These roads were used in the Hitchcock film To Catch a Thief with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly - the site of the car accident where poor Grace died is just a couple of kilometres from here.

At the very top of the Eze village hill, there is a fortress ruin and a Jardin Exotique - a garden filled with desert plants - cacti and other flowering hot weather flowers/plants. Lib, as requested, here are 2 photos. You're right, the views are spectacular from there. You can see Consuelo Vanderbilt's former home, Chateau Balsan, in the distance. Not open to the public because it is now privately owned.Tomorrow, we move to Nice for 4 nights - very sad to leave this exquisite place.