Jan Morris's 'Venice'

I've been trying to satisfy my 'obsession' with Venice by reading Jan Morris's book Venice, first written in 1960 in the persona of James Morris, Morris tried to update it in 1970 and realised that it was not updateable. Much has changed, but much remains the same. La Serenissima has come through a dark period (lasting, however you make your calculation, for 150 or 750 years). It has now settled into a fairly secure future as the 'must see' wonder of the tourist world.

The Book is a "highly subjective, romantic, impressionist picture less of a city than of an experience." (Jan Morris) It is a book to cherish as much as Venice itself. and I would like to quote a short passage to illustrate the wonders therein:

"The church in Venice, though, is something more than all things bright and beautiful. It is descended from Byzantium, by faith out of nationalism: and sometimes to its high ritual in the Basilica of St Mark there is a tremendous sense of an eastern past, marbled, hazed and silken. St Mark's itself is a barbaric building, like a great Mongolian pleasure pavilion, or a fortress in Turkestan: and sometimes there is a suggestion of rich barbarism to its services too, devout, reverent and beautiful though they are.

In Easter week each year the Patriarch and his clergy bring from the vaults of the church treasury all its most sacred relics, and display them ceremonially to the people. This ancient function is heavy with reminders of the Orient. It takes place in the evening, when the Piazza is dark, and the dim lights of the Basilica shine mysteriously on the gold mosaics of its roof. The congregation mills about the nave in the half-light, switching from side to side, not knowing which way to look. A beadle in a cocked hat, with a silver sword and the face of a hereditary retainer, stands in a peremptory eighteenth-century attitude beside a pillar. The organ plays quietly from its loft, and sometimes there is a chant of male voices, and sometimes a sudden hubbub from the square outside when the door of the church is opened. All is murmurous and glinting.

A flash of gold and silver from an aisle, a swish of stiff vestments, the clink of a censer, and presently there advances through the crowd, clouded in incense, the patriarchal procession. Preceded by flurrying vergers, clearing a way through the congregation, it sweeps slowly and rheumatically up the church. A golden canopy of old tapestry sways and swings above the mitred Patriarch, and around it walk the priests, solemn and shuffling, clasping reverently the celebrated relics of St Mark's (enclosed in golden frames, jewelled caskets, crucifixes, medieval monstrances). You cannot see very well, for the crowd is constantly jostling, and the atmosphere is thick; but as the priests pass slowly by you catch a queer glimpse of copes and 'Poi Cristiani' 79 reliquaries, a cross set with some strange sacred souvenir, a fragment of bone in a crystal sphere, weird, ornate, elaborate objects, swaying and bobbing above the people as the old men carrying them stumble towards the altar.

It is an eastern ceremonial, a thing of misty and exotic splendour. When you turn to leave the great church, all those holy objects are placed on the rim of the pulpit, and all those grave priests are crowded together behind, like so many white-haired scholarly birds. Incense swirls around them; the church is full of slow shining movement; and in the Piazza outside, when you open the door, the holiday Venetians stroll from cafe to cafe in oblivion, like the men who sell Coca-Cola beneath the sneer of the Sphinx."

Visit Venice whenever you can (Winter is best if you actually want to SEE things; Summer will do for the excitement, heat, crowds and colour). If you can't get there, read Jan Morris's wonderful book.

Adriatic Cruise, Part 4

Adriatic Cruise, Part 4.



You should start with Adriatic Cruise Part 1.
http://livingvillage.blogspot.com/2010/10/adriatic-cruise-1_01.html)


19 September 2010; Sunday: Venice
The promised thunderstorm came in the night and there was a bit of pitching and rolling. It woke me up at one point and kept us awake for a while. We came into Venice about 7am, but I wasn’t up to see it

Piazza San Marco already getting crowded

This time, we had decided not to do an excursion so we took the water taxi to Piazza San Marco(it’s a real pity that there’s no vaporetto biglieteria at Santa Marta because this would have meant only one fare, but we couldn’t get tickets before San Marco) and walked for a while looking at shops before taking the vaporetto to Rialto for more shop and an ice cream.

Still the odd quiet corner

Murano Glass - I'm going to have a go at this when I retire

Wonderful windows

Waiting for the vaporetto

Rialto Bridge (with adverts)

On the Canal Grande

Santa Maria della Salute (built in thanks for the ending of the plague)

Queuing for the water taxi

The forecast had been for 20°C but it got much hotter and was unbelievably crowded. We did manage to escape the crowds a bit in some of the less central areas but we were both tired and didn’t want to miss the 3.30pm ‘back on board’ time and we knew it would be a long walk from the water taxi stop to the embarkation point so we came back about half an hour early.

Lifeboat muster

I have to say, I much prefer Venice in the Winter – so long as it doesn’t flood. Lunch was being served until 3.30 so our early arrival meant we could have a cool salad on the Boat Deck. As not many people were back, there was lots of space and plenty of umbrellas. The entertainment was watching the new embarkees doing their lifeboat drill.

Through the Giudecca

Towards the Punta Dogana, San Giorgio Maggiore on the right

We left Venice about 5pm, going back through the lagoon past San Marco, etc. Stunning views, marred a little by the crew’s idea of entertainment for leaving Venice – line dancing to very loud disco music. We all would have preferred something lighter and more classical. We cruised through the Lido and into the Adriatic. Dubrovnik next.

Passing the Punta Dogana

San Marco crowds

20 September 2010; Monday: Dubrovnik

 

Arrival at the Port of Dubrovnik

Today’s excursion was in the afternoon so we had a chance for a lie in. We eventually went out onto the Boat Deck for breakfast but it was so windy it blew the scrambled egg off my fork! We moved into the sheltered part of the deck and it was a bit better but there was a very fine salt spray; not great when you wear glasses. We got lumbered with a very boring couple and couldn’t wait to get away.

Dubrovnik from the Road

We were late getting into harbour so the trips had to be delayed a bit. Gave us a chance to have an early lunch in the restaurant – much more comfortable.

Cavtat Bay

Before Dubrovnik, we went to Cavtat (pron. Savtat). This is an extremely pretty peninsula with a by each side. Not a great deal to do, but the views were great and we enjoyed sitting in the shade with ice creams.

If you were staying in Cavtat, however, you would need to travel around a bit. It was almost like Cittagazze (in His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman)

(Cittàgazze (sometimes abbreviated to Ci'gazze),is a seaside town, reminiscent of those near the Mediterranean, which seems to have Italian roots. Its main features are quaint restaurants, parasols hung over circular tables beneath trailing plants, wide cobbled roads, and ancient architecture. However, it should not necessarily be considered "old-world". There is mention of electric devices such as lights and refrigerators and places such as department stores. Thus, the world appears to be similar in some technological achievements while vastly inferior in others such as modern medicine and transportation.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locations_in_His_Dark_Materials.

Interestingly, I saw pomegranates growing in gardens as we left.

The walls of Dubrovnik

The Gates of Dubrovnik

The Old Fortress

Main Street

Central Square

Main Street (marble pavements like glass - dangerous when wet)

The Old Harbour

Up to the Walls

Dubrovnik old town has some great architecture and the main streets are wide and paved with marble but it lacks character. It almost seems as if it has been scrubbed clean to remove anything that might give it character. We followed the guide around the old town and she was very good but I couldn’t really get interested. I wondered whether the lack of character was due to the restoration after the recent bombings in 1991.

“It was the attack that shocked the world. In 1991 Dubrovnik was a UNESCO "protected" World Heritage Site, a designation that was supposed to save it from the war just boiling up in former Yugoslavia. It didn't. Dubrovnik was left practically undefended by Croatian forces as, frankly, no one thought the Yugoslav forces would dare to attack such an important cultural monument with negligible military value. In fact, Serbian-Montenegrin forces wished to seize Dubrovnik from Croatia and annex it to Serbian-Montenegrin control." http://www.croatiatraveller.com/southern_dalmatia/Dubrovnik/bombing.html

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSXXcViVc3U&has_verified=1”

After walking around Cavtat and Dubrovnik in the heat, I was getting tired, so we retired to a bar had a drink, paid in kuna and watched the world go by for a while. While we waited for the bus back to the boat, the French sang La Marseillaise (Il n’ya rien a dire!). We got back on board and set sail immediately. Villages on the way to Cavtat: Mlini and Plat. (I can see where Terry Pratchett gets his Uberwald and Borogravia names from).

Next stop: Corfu

Overtaken by Autumn

After almost exactly a month of whirling about, concentrating on the office move http://www.le.ac.uk/ms/news/newhomeafter.html working on the designs for this year's Leicester Children's Holiday Centre (Mablethorpe) charity Christmas Card, visiting Venice, and now getting ready for the new academic year, I've come back to the blog to find that we have been overtaken by Autumn....

How do I know? There are bales of hay in all the local farm fields (and a strong, rich smell of muck, following the cut!)

The chestnuts are coming on a treat. Hopefully, there will be a better crop than last year when we were so disappointed when the chestnuts developed early because of the damp and lack of sun. Most had no nut inside, and those that did went rotten on the tree.

M's bramleys are full and ripening - we had apple and blackberry pie for Sunday lunch today, with blackberries picked a couple of weeks ago from across the road.

The blackberries are almost over, though our son says he has plenty in his back gerden. Of course, at the risk of repeating myself, it's no use thinking of picking blackberries after next week. http://livingvillage.blogspot.com/2008/09/blackberries-have-more-vicious-friends.html

The last of the strwberries and raspberries are in the farmers' market, and by the time the next one comes round, they'll have gone,

There are always some picturesque visitors as the Summer comes to its close...

Though I think he was moved on rather quickly.

Anyone know what this is? I've been all through Keble Martin and I can't find it. Anyway, it's another sign that Autumn's here.

One of the more obvious signs of Autumn is the start of the Remembrance season. For thoseof you who are used to the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month", it might come as something of a surprise that Remembrance starts on this Sunday towards the end of September. It is, of course, the memorial of the Battle of Britain which saved Britain from the Luftwaffe and from subsequent invasion in 1940.

The memorial service took place in the Church of St James the Greater in Leicester, a 'Goddard' Church. There are few Victorian or Edwardian churches in the Midlands that weren't designed with at least some elements of the Gothic style, and this is one of the few. The Italian Renaissance style can be attributed to Henry Goddard's trips to Italy which produced sketch books full of ideas. (quote from http://www.le.ac.uk/emoha/leicester/goddardchurches.html)


Though these photographs do not really do it justice, it's easy to see the the influence of the great cathedral of Torcello in the Venetian lagoon, especially in features such as the pulpit, though all these features in Goddard's church are made in terracotta - more endearing than stone.