From our September, 2007, visit to Venice.
Tag Archives: Venice
High Water (Not Hell) in Venice, part 7
Hummingbirds & Other Venetians
Sep 29, 2007
^ detail on Saint Mark’s cathedral
^ So much for the singing gondoliers. They seemed to spend most of their time on their cellphones (like everyone else in Italy).
^ Alitalia Italian Airlines? Not for much longer…
The scene above took place on the balcony of the apartment, whose beautiful hanging garden of herbs and flowers attracted the local wildlife, including very large black bees and what appeared to be hummingbirds – which caused some debate among us. When finally convinced that they were birds, Enrico hoped that we had spotted something rare and strange (he’d never heard of hummingbirds in Italy). I asked our seemingly knowledgeable boatman later on about the surprising presence of colibri’ in Venezia, and he claimed that they were common.
Turns out everybody was wrong.
They weren’t birds.
They weren’t bees.
They were hummingbird moths. The antennae should have tipped me off. I did notice those, and thought it odd for a bird to have something like that on its head…
High Water (Not Hell) in Venice, part 6
Venice’s Bad Karma
On Saturday morning, I learned what a macchiatone (“big spotted one”) is: it’s basically a caffé macchiato (coffee “spotted” with steamed milk), with a bit more milk – so, somewhere between a macchiato and a cappuccino, served in a cappuccino cup. I had it with a delicious little torta di riso (rice cake).
Then Enrico and I explored some more.
^ “In this antique home of the Dario family, Henri de Regnier, poet of France, Venetianly lived and wrote in 1988 and 1901.” Venetianly?
^ This was a mystery. Was the pigeon already dead when someone gored it with an umbrella?
The apartment we were staying in was owned by a Jewish family. On the wall near the kitchen was a framed edict of 1777, issued by a prince of Venice on the orders of an “Inquisitor of the Arts”, detailing horrifying restrictions on Venice’s Jewish community. Sobering reading. The Venetians invented the concept of ghetto, apparently.
Venice is indeed a beautiful city, but it has many centuries of bad karma to pay off.
High Water (Not Hell) in Venice, part 5
When in Venice, Eat… Curry
In St. Mark’s Square, Jeet bought some necessary props (above).
We returned to the apartment to greet Andrew and Victoria, arrived from Paris. Jeet and Andrew set to work making a fantastic Indian meal.
Which they served in appropriate national costumes:
(Hey, I just live my life, in all its glorious weirdness – don’t ask me to explain it!)
Jeet learned his Indian cooking from Tsering and Tenzing, old friends from Woodstock. While we were enjoying the results of their lessons in Venice, our daughter, on quarter break from school, was staying with them at their home in Mussoorie. Yes, we’re all just one big happy family!
High Water (Not Hell) in Venice, part 4
^ Even in Venice, kids go to school, and furnaces must be refueled.
^ How real Venetians ride in gondolas – none of your touristy lolling about on plush sofas!
^ The modern world is out of proportion to Venice (look closely).
