Travelling With Steve: Venice (Pt 1)

We've travelled from Luz-Saint-Sauveur to Venice, via Bordeaux. The drive was straight forward toward Bordeaux, with speccy views of the Pyrenees on the way. We visited Arcachon just east of Bordeaux. There is a substantial bird reserve nearby and the town has an impressive precinct of 19th/20th century villas. The drive back into Bordeaux was pretty intense due to weekend traffic returning to the city, but we got there unscathed. The flight the next morning was uneventful (other than a ridiculously long line for scanning to get to the gates). Once in Venice we caught the ferry direct from the airport to our local stop on the Grand Canal - what an amazing concept to get a ferry from the airport! Italian 'efficiency' was immediately on display, with small ferries to transport long lines of people. We were there for the 1.05pm ferry, but as we weren't in the first 25 we had to wait for 1.35pm. The 75 or so people behind us would have been waiting for a long time! We've come to Venice to visit the Biennale art exhibition and it's been awesome. We've spent 2 or our 3 days on the exhibition and loved it so far. Here are some pics......

This is our little mountain house in Luz....

The bird reserve near Arcachon was great. They had 20 bird hides and other viewing structures. It was very well organised as well as picturesque....

The residential precinct of villas in Arcachon was great - they were mostly built from about 1860 to 1915 and were fantastic - very detailed with an interesting blend of brickwork and timber. There were heaps of them....

Arrival in Venice at the airport, waiting for the ferry. The one on the right took the front of our queue - we had to wait for the next one...

On the way to our stop in the ferry (to Ca' Rezzonico).....

Our apartment in Venice (Carlo's place). We stayed here last year as well, doing a house swap with him for London. It's on a smaller canal coming off the Grand Canal. It's a great little 2 bed/bath apartment....

This is a regular occurrence when sitting in the lounge room.......

Our lounge window is the second on the right - Carlo says the high water has never come inside. We've seen some high tides whilst we've been here and it's not close....

Gelato!....

Random scenes - Venice always delivers!...

High tide in Piazza San Marco - note the water escaping from the drains in the paving. Today was higher than this - the duckboards are ready in the streets in case it gets too high....

The first day of the Biennale was visiting the Giardini precinct (there are two big precincts - the other being the Arsenale). The Giardini has 30 different country pavilions set in a landscaped garden, such as the two below. There are also other exhibits. It took most of the day (after a late start), including lunch in a nice cafe in the venue. It's fantastic to mope around, in and out of each pavilion, checking out each display.....

This is the Australian pavilion, which had a lengthy queue (others didn't). This is because it won the overall prize this year (the Golden Lion). The artist is from Cleveland (Qld) and GOMA has bought the artwork (they'll display it in Brisbane in 2025).....

This is the artwork. It is an indigenous family tree on blackboard, surrounding redacted documents sought in researching the history from government institutions, including the Queensland government.....

The US pavilion was very good. Surprisingly, I read it wasn't established by the US government (as all the others are), but by the 3 main art institutions from New York. It was then taken over by the Guggenheim Foundation, but now involves the government as well. Here's a particularly fetching beaded chicken (or duck?) with a painting by the same artist for backdrop.....

View toward the Central Pavilion, which houses multiple galleries, not just county exhibits......

In addition to the two main venues, there are another 37 country 'pavilions' as well as many other art displays scattered throughout the city (in Palazzo's; churches and other historic buildings). It is a fantastic way to snoop around in places you otherwise wouldn't get to explore. So far we've blundered into several on our way to and from the main venues, but tomorrow we are spending the day going to these places. This is an example from stumbling into the Zimbabwe 'pavilion', which was a display on the second floor of a palazzo down a laneway. It was excellent. The re-use of discarded materials was brilliant - note the detail on this one....

Doges Palace and Campanile....

Palazzo next to the Academia Bridge (eastern side). We've always wanted to go to this building and the Portuguese 'pavilion' was on the second floor. The building was astonishing - the space where the exhibition was also fascinating. It also provided a great view over the Grand Canal (across the Academia Bridge), from a room with a very fetching chandelier....

Today we went to the second main venue, the Arsenale. The historic buildings in this precinct are incredible - huge in scale as they were the centre of the Venetian ship building enterprise for 100's of years. In the early 1500's there were over 15,000 people employed here and they could build a ship in one day (so they say)! They are very long buildings (to store all those ship parts) and now house 23 country 'pavilions' as well as a substantial curated art exhibition for the Biennale....

The one criticism of the show is the appalling verbiage introducing each display. Not only are there way too many words (a word limit was clearly set that is way too long), but the word bingo often so used to describe art was out of control. Perhaps it is due to the translation to English - or perhaps it isn't. Either way, it's pretty ridiculous. For example.....