Italy Series: Northern region// Venice

View of Santa Maria della Salute from boat on the Grand Canal. It is a Baroque architectural masterpiece and one of the largest churches in Venice

For this part of the Italy Series, we visit Venice. I'm happy to be doing this because its actually quite uplifting to revisit the this trip through pictures, the images I post can't fully capture the feelings and experiences, I actually have a lot on video but I will continue to try to select and post a few nice images from each trip. 

Piazza San Marco ( St. Mark's Square)

Venice is truly breathtaking, we left Termini station in Rome early in the morning by train and arrived in Santa Lucia trains station by midday, when we got off the train, I remember walking down to the boats and waiting to get a boat that would take us to Piazza San Marco via the Grand Canal. I didn't know what to expect since it was our first group trip and were just getting comfortable with Rome having only been there for two weeks. Compared to Rome, Venice seemed so open, you could see a lot of sky and water with great architecture in between. It was truly breathtaking. The ride on the boat was fun even though I was not looking forward to it, in Venice the isn't really anyway to avoid the boats

As we rode along, we could see Santa, Maria della Salute, San Giorgio Maggiore, The Campanile from a distance. I remember the intensity of Piazza San Marco, it was packed with people and pigeons, yes..thats right pigeons..more pigeons than anywhere I've ever been. In fact I remember trying to dodge them and get a picture without a flock in it! I digress. Anyway, it is extremely ornate, the scale of the domes unbelievable. The Doges's Palace utilizes repetition of as its architectural language and the gothic arch as its main element. The Basilica is adjacent to and connected to the Doges palace and is the main Cathedral of Venice. Its quite magical to view in the daytime and glows like gold in the evening. 

                                       

View of the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore

At the end of the day first day, we took the boat back across the canal to our hotel and then went to dinner with Cinzia at a small restaurant over the Rialto bridge. It was funny because she left us to have dinner together after saying she was tired, we had no idea how to get back but I suppose thats what she wanted, it forced us to walk around and try to speak Italian in order to find our way home. Walking through the streets in Venice at night, you could here a pin drop, at one point it felt like I was on a movie set or somethingWe spent three days in Venice because in addition to seeing the city, we also wanted to go to the Venice Biennale which is the largest architectural exhibit in the world and take place every two years with a different theme and director. The theme that year was "Cities, architecture and Society", curated by Richard Burdett held at the Corderie dell'Arsenale venue. We spent an entire day there and still did not get throughout the exhibit, so we returned for another few hours on our third day there which was also my birthday. Imagine that, my birthday in Venice..it was nice, we had a group dinner and the actually got me a cake and sang happy birthday to me.

La Biennale di Venezia 2006- "Cities, architecture and society"

We spent some time sketching in the courtyard of this Querini Stampalia designed by Carlo Scarpa and walking through the museum spaces as well. Carlo Scarpa is known an Italian architect known for his meticulous detailing, material sensibility and integration of the landscape into his projects. While in the North of Italy we also visited the Brion Cemetery and Castelvecchio Museum which are famous works also by Scarpa.

La Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Architect Carlo Scarpa designed interior, exterior, and garden elements and spaces on the ground floor of the historic building.

Residential building on La Giudecca by Cino Zucchi Architects

Eventually we made our way over the an island (series of Islands) called La Guidecca which had been designed and redeveloped by Italian architect Cino Zucci in 1995-2002. Its a quiet, clean residential neigborhood, we strolled along looking a nicely detailed building which were very nice models compared to what we knew as "affordable" housing.

Residential buildings on La Giudecca by Cino Zucchi Architects