Saturday, September 1, 2012

Travel pictures: photo journal of Venice...

Travel journals: pictures from Venice


(outside the Eurostar hotel Cannaregio)

(the most poetic bridges in the world)

a reminder of our favorite Italian director, the man who "made" Callas...



(one of many sobering memorials around the Jewish ghetto)


with the photographer Paolo Renier in front of one of his images from the Egyptian ruins at Abydos in the Scuola Grande of S. Giovanni Evangelista


Amy, bringing some class to the Ponte de le Tette (the "Bridge of Tits," so-called because the Venetian ladies of the night gathered in this quiet corner around the corner from a nobleman's palazzo...)


Tintoretto's church, Madonna dell'Orto, where Judas is included among the 12 disciples in the facade of the Gothic cathedral (and a legend says one of the 30 silver pieces is with him...)


Amy, outside Tintoretto's house


Tintoretto's workshop, a thriving art center where painters still practice their art


The "House of Spirits" on the lagoon, where Venetian legends say the spirit world comes alive in the air at night...


The facade of the hospital, in the neighborhood where the ghosts of Doges haunt the alleys and where Vivaldi lived and worked...


Along the side of the hospital, the fleet of Venetian ambulances: yellow boats...


One of a series of statues commemorating three brothers cursed for their treacherous treatment of a Venetian woman... It is said that one pure of heart can feel the heart beat inside the statue of the third brother.


The deathly hallows in the cemetery of Venice, the epitome of the "Isle of the Dead," Isola San Michele, final resting place of Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Tiepolo, Ezra Pound, Joseph Brodsky & Luigi Nono...



One of the watch-keepers of San Michele...


The cloisters of the church on the island cemetery...


From the pizzeria across the lagoon from San Michele...


The brick heart tucked away behind a sottoportego, commemorating the mermaid Melusina and her love for a young Venetian fisherman...


The bust of Vivaldi and the certificate of not only his baptism but also the exorcism the priest performed on the tortured infant...


One of the countless "lions of Venice" but the three at the Arsenal, according to Venetian myth, came to life because of an ancient curse (a century or two after Dante's Inferno referenced the Naval port...)



Verdi and Wagner standing guard in the public gardens near the Venice Biennale pavilions...



The awesome statue of Giosue Carducci, Italy's first Nobel poet, an iconoclast against the grain...


More shadowy figures, reminders of Venetian mysteries and the palpable spirits in the air and over the water...


Along the Grand Canal as the gloaming heralds another magical Venetian twilight...


The most striking modern bridge, by Calatrava...its rib-like structure honoring Venice's heritage as a center for shipbuilding and design...



A marker of Wagner's Venetian residence, ironically enough it is now the Casino of Venice...



A glimpse of the famous Rialto bridge...


...and Byron's house, just around a bend in the canal from Wagner's...


Ah, Venezia...


Amore...


Leone di San Marco...


Notte in La Serenissima


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