Friday, March 19, 2010

Art and food and day trips--Thursday and Friday--Or, Gail learns how to make a clickable link on Blogger!

When we came in on the train on Monday, we saw a big advertisement for an exhibit of art of Giorgione--Lots of 500 year anniversaries of artists--My perception is that is has something to do with the plague of that time. . .Within the 2nd day of being here, I made reservations for us to go--it also involved a train ride to Castelfranco Veneto which is an hour away from Venice (very slow train). Giorgione is a very different artist than Caravaggio, but Greg pointed out that he came 100 years before (it's the 400 anniversary of his death).

My favorites were this:


and this:


In the Accademia in Venice (not in the town of Castelfranco di Veneto where the exhibit was) is another that's always startling:


On the train ride on the way back, we spoke to a man named John from Ghana who was very nice and asked for our email (ostensibly to correspond). He's been here for 7 years and has been out of work for 1---he seemed very sincere (and somewhat lonely).

When we got back to Venice, we walked from the train station to the Rialto--that's not the most poetic part of Venice but it was a nice day.

Today, we went to the church of Madonna dell'Orto, which is the church of Tinteretto:


I hope this link works as it describes the presentation of Mary at the Temple (by Tinteretto).



We then took the vaporetto back to the Fondamente Nove where we caught the ferry to Burano and lunch at Da Romano---we became inspired for this by the Anthony Bourdain show about Venice


and it was our splurge meal of the trip (always ask how much the fish weighs first :) The risotto (the house speciality) was out of this world. It is made with a broth of small fish and each grain of rice was like a pearl:


After a walk back to the ferry stop (had to wait a half hour, then ride a half hour), we walked along the Fondamente Nove back to our apartment (about 15 minutes).



2 comments:

  1. Yeah clickable links!
    The Giorgione painting of the old woman is interesting; her expression is a bit grumpy, as well as a touch sinister. Makes me curious to know what the note she is holding says.
    The link for the Madonna dell' Orto worked great! :) How absolutely gorgeous! What an impressive tribute to one's self: Cavazza's monument is beautiful, and interior sculpture of the Madonna would be worth the tour alone. Beautiful contrasting stone and back lighting!

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  2. the note says "Col Tempo" meaning 'with time' or 'one day too, you will look like this--it's a very troubling work, way ahead of its time and we're going to see it today!

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