Wednesday October 19 - Venice

One note before I get into today's activities:  beware the gorgeous view of a Venetian canal from your hotel window.  At first encounter the scene is a romantic one of gondolas, kayaks and tourists strolling over tiny bridges.  Then you discover that each day before dawn, a rumbling, grinding sound fills your room.  You crank your neck outside to see what really goes on behind the scenes to support Venetian daily life.  The trash collection barge!

4 a.m. daily garbage collection below our window

Today was our first day with less than perfect weather. The sky was cloudy and threatening all morning and in the early afternoon a light drizzle began. But by then we had already reached our art destination for the day - The Palazzo Grazzi - one of the two major contemporary art venues in Venice owned by Francois Pinot of LVMH. If we can figure out the vaporetto system we'll visit the other museum that he owns tomorrow. As the name implies, the Grazzi is a former palace now turned into a showcase for his substantial collection. And it remains a beautiful building with intricately carved and painted ceilings. When we entered we saw a Jeff Koons fucia balloon dog as well as a climbing (it went up all three "piano" of the palazzo) appliqué, patchwork, crocheted work called something like contagion by a Portuguese artist whose name I have to find. I won't name other artists in the collection but suffice it to say he owns the best of the best new names. We arrived at Grazzi around 2 and left at 5.

We'd allocated the morning for (I bet you can guess) shopping! I remembered a nice area for walking from my last trip here in '06 and wanted to find it. It's a short distance from our hotel just west of San Marco. On the the way we happened by one of the best eyeglass stores I've been in: Ottica Urbani. This shop is one of Elton John's favorites and we concur. It sells extremely unique plastic frames in every sort of color and shape imaginable. On our rambles we found another that we both like very much, but this one sells hand-made bone and horn rims: Micromega Ottica.

We looked at gloves, sweaters, glass and walked through charming narrow winding streets. Had lunch at a pasta restaurant on the way to Grazzi.

A favorite leather shop

Typical Venetian plaza

Neither Ferris nor I were hungry for dinner so we asked for a recommendation at the front desk. Ugo, the conceirge, has become our best friend. He suggested a place nearby and we assumed it would be a casual affair. Turned out to be a very elegant hidden treasure (as F calls it) I Mercanti. We had a couple of small dishes that were prepared to perfection.