Window View, Venice

In the city of Venice, where so much is hidden behind doors and glimpses at life inside a window seem a stolen pleasure, I caught this woman enjoying her view of  the neighborhood Piazza.

Other photos simply capture the peeling plaster, streaked paint and rusting metal caused by centuries of rising and falling water. Doorways in Venice can be Moorish, modern, Baroque, Renaissance, Victorian or any style man has dreamed up–but somehow they form a coherent whole that is unmistakably Venice.  I end with perhaps the most famous doorway in Venice.

Windows and doors along a Venice canal.

Venice, Ghetto, weather-beaten door

Window in Venice Ghetto

Venice- Graceful Decay

Window in Venice, Canareggio

A little girl watches other children playing outside her building. Venice

Door to San Marcos Cathedral, Venice

These photos are my contribution to Travel Photo Thursday.  To see more travel photos from around the world, go to Budget Traveler’s Sandbox.

Staying with the theme of Italy–if not Sicily–our pictures today were from Venice and our prize represents Tuscany.  D. H. Lawrence’s Etruscan Places: Travels Through Forgotten Italy, was one of my favorites which I reviewed here. Today’s prize goes to one person who comments, subscribes, tweets or mentions us on Google+ (You can comment on this post or on an earlier post. Just do it before Friday, January 27, 3:00 a.m. MST. If you already subscribe by e-mail and want an extra entry every day as a subscriber, be sure to tell me that in the comments. See complete rules here.)

For Christmas, I received a digital slide converter, which means that I have access to many of my photos that previously were hidden in boxes.  Are you tired of windows? Want a change of subject? or do you want some more doors and windows?

All photos are my property. Please respect my copyright and do not copy without express permission.

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Guarding a Venice Flower Shop

Destination: Venice

Movie: Summertime (1955), Director David Lean

Kate Hepburn chewed the scenery. Rossano Brazzi looked soulful. The Kid stole the show. Venice is the star.

Summertime  is one of those movies that makes you want to travel–but definitely turn off your brain.  The saving grace of the movie  is Venice, the real star of the picture–not Katherine Hepburn or Rossano Brazzi–although they are both scenic, also. Venice (and some wonderful cinematography) saves the day in  all its color and light.  Light reflects on the water, gleams off murals, brings bridges into full relief. You may remember Three Coins in a Fountain, filmed around the same time. I raved about the Italian scenery in that movie, but the filming does not hold a candle to Summertime. As in Three Coins, a woman takes a chance on a love affair that breaks the mid-fifties norm.

Not only is the plot lame, but this is the first movie I ever saw with Katherine Hepburn where I disliked her acting. (The Academy disagreed. She was nominated. But did not win.) Such emoting, such moping around telegraphing her feelings. Such a high-class New England accent for a supposed secretary from Akron Ohio, Jane Hudson. “Oh dear”–or should that be “Oh, deah”–suffice it to say that Venice played her role SO much better than Kate played hers.

The script is based on a romantic comedy–a bit of fluff that played on Broadway, Time of the Cuckoo. Trivia: In Britain the title of the movie was Summer Madness, which is certainly a more appropriate title.  I’m still thinking of the comparison to another scenically beautiful movie set in a place you want to travel to, the similarly named, Summer Lovers, probably the worst movie I ever saw in the most beautiful place, Santorini.

Briefly,Jane Hudson has saved up money as a secretary to take the trip of a lifetime, and she carries her home movie camera with her to record it. She is, in the parlance of the day, a spinster. She is longing for love–because this was before Gloria Steinham told women that “a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” So poor Kate mopes around the piazza of her pensione, sighs over couples holding hands, and sinks into gloom over a cappuchino at Florian’s on Piazza St. Mark. She changes clothes before going to St. Marks. She changes clothes every five minutes, and my feet simply ached at the thought of all those high heels.

People today dress more casually than the white-gloved heroine of Summertime, at Cafe Florian, St. Mark's Square, Venice

There she meets Rossano Brazzi after previous encounters with the cliché gauche American couple and the sophisticated Italian woman who runs the pensione. Ah, yes, she also meets the cutest cast member, the street urchin on the make who saves her bacon several times. At first she flees from Brazzi and her feelings. When she finally succumbs to his “You’re in Italy, live a little” seduction, they cross a bridge (get it?) to his apartment and fireworks explode over Venice. (get it?) I’m not making this up.

Meanwhile, the sophisticated landlady beds the married artist, played by Darren McGavin. The other American couple go sightseeing and he returns to report that the museum had art “all done by hand.” (Not a bad line!)

Spoiler Alert:   After the fireworks, Hepburn’s character sobers  up and decides to leave, despite Rossano Brazzi, the married cad, begging her to stay.  The girl from Akron, Ohio, demonstrated real gumption in embarking on this affair, but even more in saying goodbye to the delicious leading man.

I loved following the characters as they strolled around Venice.  I’m almost sure this well was in a scene with the young boy.

Venetian Plaza, with kids sitting around a well.

Of course St. Marks and bridges over small canals show up numerous times.

St. Mark's Square

Venice Shopping Street

You may want to make Venice travel plans immediately, but, alas, you cannot stay in the Pensione Fiorini, where our heroine and the American couples stayed. According to the web site A Lover of Venice, the pensione is a Hollywood creation.  The writer has tracked down many scenes in the movie, which makes for a fascinating read.  He/she says that the front door of the pensione in the movie opens to Rio dei Bareteri in San Maro in the heart of Merceria. However, “the balcony of Miss Hudson’s room is way up on Rio de la Salute in Dorsoduro, overlooking the churches of La Salute and San Georgio Maggiore and the captivating terrace on the Grand Canal was in fact a set built in Campo San Vio, also in the siestre of Dorsoduro.

Oh, well, there are still plenty of charming pensiones in Venice, even if they don’t have terraces on the Grand Canal. Take a look at Pensione Accademia, for instance. I tried to get in there but they were fully booked a couple of months in advance. One booking agent on line claims it is the locale of the movie’s pensione. Ha!

I have linked movie titles to Amazon DVDs in case you’d like to acquire one.  When you buy anything at all after following that link (Gift shopping yet?) I get a few cents to help pay the Library bills.  All photos here are my property. Please do not use without permission.  Thank you.

I hope that you have enjoyed our visit to Venice this week. We have now looked at Venice in the shadows and Venice in the light.  Which seems most real to you?

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Venice Parking Lot

This photograph is both a contribution to Travel Photo Thursday and a contribution to Venice week at A Traveler’s Library. A slightly different view of Venice craft. No parking meters for these parking places. Go to Budget Traveler’s Sandbox to see more Travel Photos.

The photo is the property of Vera Marie Badertscher. Please do not reproduce without express permission.

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Santa Maria della Salute

Destination: Venice, Italy

Book: The City of Falling Angels, by John Berendt (2005)

John Berendt is a superb story-teller, and Venice is overflowing with stories. That combination makes The City of Falling Angels a terrific read for travelers.

Berendt gained fame with Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a similarly structured non-fiction portrait of a city. In both books, he takes what might be an extended magazine story–in the case of Venice, the fire that mostly destroyed The Fenice opera house, and intersperses the story of the aftermath and characters involved with side jaunts into other interesting characters and their stories. He visited just after the June, 1966 fire.

Since he writes for magazines like New Yorker and Esquire, many of the chapters have been published as articles previous to being gathered into the book, and my only complaint was that the structure became a bit too loose.   Although I loved all of those stories, which reveal the personality and culture of Venice, sometimes I wondered how we got where we were.

Palazzos on the Grand Canal

Some reviewers on Amazon complain that The City of Falling Angels concentrates on the wealthy, but the fact of the matter is that very few “ordinary” people live in Venice any more. About 60,000 people live in the city itself, half of the number before 1966 according to this article in The Guardian. On the other hand as many as 50,000 tourists arrive every day. Would you like to buy property in Venice? This article in last June’s New York Times, features a three-bedroom walk-up for nearly two million dollars.  The population has shrunk, the real estate prices soar, and the permanent population centers around those wealthy enough to own the famous Palazzos along the Grand Canal, and tucked away in narrow walkways.

I found it helpful to follow my Fodor’s guide and map as Berendt mentioned paths, canals and bridges, but if you just want atmosphere, here is an example that reminds me of the movie, Don’t Look Now.

I understood why so many stories set in Venice were mysteries. Sinister moods could be easily conjured by shadowy back canals and labyrinthine passageways, where even the initiated sometimes lost their way.  Reflections, mirrors, and masks suggested that things were not what they seemed. Hidden gardens, shuttered windows, and the unseen voices spoke of secrets and possibly the occult. 

Mask Shop

A writer taking on Venice is in good company–Henry James, Robert Browning, Lord Byron, Charles Dickens, Mary McCarthy have done it, to name a few.  But Berendt points out that all those portraits of the city have made it difficult to say something original.

In preparation for this undertaking, I reread the classic texts.  They were not at all encouraging.  Mary McCarthy put it bluntly in Venice Observed; “Nothing can be said [about Venice] (including this statement) that has not been said before.”  McCarthy’s parenthetical comment, “including this statement,” was an allusion to Henry James, who had written in “Venice” and 1882 essay, “there is nothing more to be said on the subject…It would be a sad day indeed when there should be something new to say…I am not sure there is not a certain impudence in pretending to add anything to it.”

Berendt reasons that he is on safe ground since he is going to write about the people of Venice rather than the city itself. Furthermore he will write about people who, for the most part, live in Venice rather than just passing through. The preface opens with a poetic quote from one of the residents.

“Everyone in Venice is acting,” Count Girolamo Marcello told me.  ”Everyone plays a role, and the role changes.  The key to understanding Venetians is rhythm–the rhythm of the lagoon, the rhythm of the water, the tides, the water…”

Some of the people that fascinated me most were in family spats–like an esteemed glassblower whose sons split the business and the wealthy 4th-generation half-American family who owned the historic Palazzo Barbaro and because they could not agree, had to sell the main floor.( The brother in the family runs a Extraterrestial headquarters from his own apartment!)

Skullduggery with the estate of Ezra Pound and his long-time mistress, which includes dishing about the executive director of the Peggy Guggenheim Museum gets very gossipy. The Guggenheim was one of my favorite sites in Venice, as a modern-art relief for the eyes from the Renaissance and Baroque.

The do-good organizations of Americans and the wealthy of other countries raises the question of why they raise money to restore Venice. Altruism or social climbing?

The title of this book carries a brilliant double meaning. It denotes the decay of Venice–the need to be cautious passing by a church lest a plaster angel fall on you. But it also connotes the double nature of people who live and operate in Venice.  As Count Marcello says, “Venetians never tell the truth.  We mean precisely the opposite of what we say.”

This book makes we want to read  Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil  (or at least see the movie), but also leads me to review Mary McCarthy’s  Venice Observed, which I read some time ago, and dip into Henry James‘  The Wings of the Dove.

In case you have a hankering, as I do, to delve into more literature about Venice, I have included several links to Amazon along with the suggested book titles. You need to know that even though it costs you no more to buy through these links, I am an Amazon affiliate and will earn a few cents from each sale. THANKS for your support!

All photos used here are mine and I ask you not to reuse them without permission.

I have not always written favorably about Venice, as in this article at My Life Is a Trip where I talk about why I do not love Venice.  I am beginning to think Venice is easier to love at a distance.  The elusive “perfect place” like the elusive “perfect love.” What is your greatest impression of Venice?

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Window in Venice

Destination: Venice

Movie: Don’t Look Now (1973)

I think it is appropriate to segue from two weeks of scary things to a week of Venice  by talking about a scary Venice movie. Don’t you?

My friend Ruth Pennebaker, the marvelous writer of The Fabulous Geezer Sisters suggested I watch this movie. When Don’t Look Now arrived from Netflix, I realized I had seen it once before, but still enjoyed it and it still surprised me.

It seemed dated only because it starred Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, and they are such icons of 70′s movies. Am I right, Jane Boursaw?

The film starts in a book-filled country home with the intellectual couple sitting by the fire reading. Suddenly a spilled glass causes a streak of red to run across a slide that Sutherland is viewing, and he intuitively knows his daughter is in trouble. Running for the outdoor pond, he discovers the little girl, dressed in a red mackintosh face down in the pond.  We skip a few years and his job consulting on restorations takes them to Venice, where events become curioser and curioser.

They meet a very strange pair of sisters–one blind, with second sight. We spend most of the movie puzzled by these two–innocents or devils?  And is Sutherland mad or also blessed with some kind of extra sensory perception? Is that his daughter he is seeing? Her ghost?

Evening on the Grand Canal, Venice

Having wandered a bit in the walkways of Venice after dark, I can believe how easy it is to imagine that you are being followed, or that someone just disappeared around the corner in front of you. There is something about being in a city that seems to float on water that makes you begin to drift away from solid reality and tend to believe in apparitions. So many corners to make strange shadows. Broken reflections from water all around. To add to the confusion, as you will see in a book I review this week, Venetians do not say what they mean–it is a Mad Hatter world.

The film presents quite a contrast to another Venice movie I’m going to talk about later this week. That one is all light and romance. This one is all shadows and gloom. I particularly liked the way that color played a major role in Don’t Look Now.

Venice Window

Night scenes prevail, so the effect is almost of a black and white movie.  Costumes are predominantly black and brown, with symbolic touches of red.  The person? ghost? doppleganger? that appears to Sutherland is always in red against the gray and black of nighttime Venice.

As in the movie The Third Man which is set in Vienna, Don’t Look Now does not provide a translation of the native language for English-speakers. Italians speak Italian.  So like the non-Italian-speaking Americans and English women characters in the movie, the audience is on edge not knowing what has been said. This non-understanding adds to the overall feeling of frustration and puzzlement. The mother and father (Christie and Sutherland) get lost in the streets of Venice in more than one sense.

The movie trailer below is longer than most, at 3 minutes and 18 sec. But it really demonstrates the darkness of this movie. I would say the movie is a must see for travelers to Venice. Despite it’s gloom and spookiness, it’s lush portrayal makes you think the movie could not possibly have happened anywhere else.

If you have visited Venice, did you find it rather eerie and other worldly at times? If you have seen this movie, did you foresee the ending? If so, you are far more prescient than I. The movie’s preview–longer than most–comes from You Tube. The other pictures here are my property. Please do not re-use without permission.

Movies that John Berendt mentions in The City of Falling Angels (which is next up in Venice week) as all being about people just “passing through” include:

Death in Venice
The Wings of the Dove
Aspern Papers
Don’t Look Now (reviewed here)
Summertime (stay tuned–review coming)
Across the River and Into the Trees
The Comfort of Strangers

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Trevi Fountain

Destination: Italy

Movie: Three Coins in a Fountain (1954) Stars include Jean Peters, Dorothy McGuire, Maggie MacNamara, Clifton Webb, Rossano Brazzi and Louis Jourdan

If you want a look at a foreign culture, the original Three Coins in a Fountain movie will do it for you. Yes, there is a lot about Italian culture, but you also see another way of life that will be foreign to you–the culture of 1950′s America when women were girls, men wore suit jackets even at home, and the object of life was to get married.

P. della Republica, Naiad Fountain

When you see a movie for the 2nd time more than fifty years later (OUCH!) reality tinkers with your memory.  This ultimate travel movie was filmed just one year after the debut of Cinemascope with stereophonic sound, which was really amazing stuff back then. ( The trailer sells the film technique instead of the film). The use of Cinemascope presents panoramic shots of Rome, Venice and the Dolomite Mountains countryside that could  serve as a marketing tool for the Italian Tourism agency now as well as then.

For instance, the introductory sequence consists of a four-minute tour of Rome with Frank Sinatra singing the Oscar-winning Sammy song, Three Coins in a Fountain in the background, more like a low-key music video than any movie you’ll see today.

Crowds at Trevi Fountain

I only wish that when we visited Rome, the fountains and parks had been so empty. In those lovely scene-setting scenes around Rome, there are almost NO people!

We had to wait eons to get close to the Fountain of Trevi so we could toss our coins.

And I wouldn’t mind an exchange rate that allowed me to live in a villa, either! But, this is fantasy Rome, not the one we walked through.

One lengthy segment takes place in Venice. Plotwise there is no concrete reason  for the actors to be in Venice–and in fact, I suspect the actors were in a studio somewhere. All of their swooping-over-Venice-in-a-plane and floating-down-the-canal scenes are courtesy of rear projections. There is no reason to believe they came within 175 kilometers of the city of canals.

Approaching Rialto Bridge

Rear projection can be annoying to present-day audiences who are used to seeing live action shots, but rise above your annoyance, and you’ll get an excellent visit to Rome and Venice floating by in the background. Rural mountain scenery featured in one sequence, places actors in a more realistic outdoor dining scene in front of a real scene in the Dolomites whose beauty takes you breath away.

When I wasn’t being annoyed by rear projection in car travel shots, I found myself surprisingly aware of camera angles and editing in interior scenes. I’m no expert, so those details usually go right over my head, but when techniques have changed so radically, they become quite obvious. The director shot nearly all the interior scenes proscenium style–as though the camera has been plopped down in front of a stage. The actors face front, the camera stays static, there are no cuts from one person to another.

The benefit is you get a huge hunk of background to help set the scene, and the acting carries the scene rather than random edits providing the drama. The downside is that few of us carry on conversations facing a “fourth wall” instead of each other.

I became so aware of this, that I was amazed when one scene with Clifton Webb and Louis Jordan played more like the movies we are used to.  As in shooting over the back of one character as the other one talked. or having actors move away and toward the camera rather than just parallel to the “fourth wall”.

Someone with more technical knowledge of movie making than I have may drop in to explain the constant use of rear projection and the lack of camera interaction with characters in Cinemascope.

Piazza Navona, Four Rivers Fountain

But despite the technical oddities, the acting was excellent, the three women were interesting and pretty, Jourdan and Brazzi were plain gorgeous, and Clifton Webb was quirky and charming. I found that the film still packs a bit of emotional wallop and as the ultimate travel movie definitely makes me want to return to Rome “presto!”

I watched the restored DVD version of the movie, rented from Netflix. The commentary told me a lot about the actors and production people, but not about the making of the film, unfortunately. Photos here all belong to Ken and me and we would appreciate your asking permission if you choose to use. I want to thank Jane Boursaw, of Reel Life With Jane. Her comment that a vastly inferior girls in a foreign place movie this summer reminded her of movies like 3 Coins in a Fountain. Jane is right about most things cinematic, but in this case, the resemblance is superficial at most. Appreciate the nudge, though.

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St. Peter's Basilica, Rome

I have Longitude books to thank for this discovery, and you can browse the whole collection of these mysteries at their site. If you don’t already get their newsletter, I highly recommend it for outstanding travel books.

Aurelio Zen mysteries by Michael Dibdin  air on PBS, Sunday evenings July 17-31.

• Tour Sardinia with Vendetta.
• Tour Rome with Cabal.
• Tour Venice  (correction) Perugia with Ratking.

The brooding Middelmarch (BBC) actor, Rufus Sewell, plays the detective. (You may have seen him in the TV version of Pillars of the Earth.)

Rialto Bridge, Venice

These pictures are my property. If you wish to use them, please inquire at vmb@atravelerslibrary.com

Before we went to Italy I read nearly all of the Donna Leon mysteries set in Venice, and I read a couple of a series about an art appraiser by Ian Pears,  which I did not like as much, but you may like those, too. Have you read any of the Aurelio Zen mysteries? I have not, but am really looking forward to this series on Public Broadcasting.

A reader has corrected the erroneous destination I listed  for Ratking. Which calls into question my use of the Venice picture. Dibdin, did however, write a book set in Venice–Dead Lagoon,and . My apologies to everyone for getting that wrong. It was incorrect in some promotional materials and I did not check it. Shame on me.

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Coming Attractions:

Johnny Depp in The Tourist

The Tourist

Opens in U.S. December 10:  Starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie.  Now There’s some scenery!

The background scenery promises to be enticing, too. Venezia. (Not my favorite city, as I explained over a Your Life Is a Trip–but it does make good movie.) The movie is a thriller and I’ll watch Johnny Depp in most anything, so, December 10 is marked on the calendar, you’d better believe. Check out the action-packed web site for The Touristwith games to keep you busy until the opening. Or download a Twitter skin. Or an icon — you can have Angelina’s face as your icon! Uh, guys, you might want to use Johnny Depp’s face instead??? I’m just sayin’.

On the Road with Fridge

Round Ireland With a Fridge

Great Britain: Opened in Sept. U.S.: Maybe Never. Great, funny book by Tony Hawkes. Questionable movie (roundly panned in this review) from Cambridge (England). We in America may never get to see the scrumptious Irish scenery if all the reviews are that bad because it will never get distributed in the U.S.  I have been looking forward to this one, too. Ah, well. The book is still on my TBR list, so guess I’d better go read it. Meanwhile, you can watch a trailer on You Tube. Or buy the DVD from British Amazon. Or visit the film’s web site. Or follow author Tony Hawkes on Twitter @fridgeman.

LISTS

Ten modern movies that are almost as good as traveling to their settings. From Bootsnall (the Platinum Sponsor of Passports With a Purpose–where you can win incredible travel prizes that may let you check out those locales yourself.)

Movies that make you want to travel from the blogger who calls himself The Brooklyn Nomad

General Movie Research for Travelers:

Best site to find movie locations. Clicking on google map shows picture of specific location.

Best web site for movie insider stuff. Film Gecko

What is the absolutely BEST travel movie you have ever seen? (Suggest you check Brooklyn Nomad’s article and all 44 comments before answering. You may have forgotten one.)

Also read:Posts

• Bruges, the movie
• Ireland in animation
• Vienna’s Third Man
• Cuba is Music

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Destination: Venice

Gondola Traffic Jam in Venice, Italy Photo by VMB

Books: Any mystery byDonna Leon

Donna Leon has made a career out of killing off many people in just one city. But with all the romance and mystery of Venice, Italy, why not?

Unlike the many writers who have plumbed the rich history of Venice, Donna Leon goes after the gritty underbelly of today’s Italy. Grubbing around in police works and political corruption she exposes plenty of things that the tourist board will not be telling you about. I gobbled the books  down like potato chips before, during and after my Italian trip.

In 2008 the yearly high tides in Venice reached exceptionally high marks, making Leon’s 1996 (reprinted in 2005)  Acqua Alta , timely all over again. Leon’s  police procedural mysteries (16 so far) about the personable family man, Comissario Brunetti, come across as a love letter to Venice. But not a love letter from a smitten teen. Her books strike me as a mature kind of love letter that says I know all your warts and I love you still.

When I went to Venice, the romantic decay all seemed just a little too seedy. And the city that once built an empire on commerce, now trades in made-in-China copies of Venetian masks. Talk about tacky souvenirs–I thought that if I saw one more pair of men’s underwear sporting a bit of David’s anatomy (that’s David by Michelangelo)—I would jump in a canal.

Leon (and Brunetti) also led me to hidden treasures of Venice, and explained the little cultural secrets that sometimes elude a tourist.I went on a Comissario Brunetti alert, recognizing street and plaza names and remembering the crime that took place in a particular canal. The British fan site for the author emphasizes the way that place dominates her novels with a wonderful graphic map

You may want to start with her latest book,  The Girl of His Dreams , but once you add Leon to your travel library, I’ll bet you can’t read just one.

Thrillers from Baldacci in Washington D.C. , mysteries from Donna Leon in Venice.  Why does this kind of book make such a satisfactory travel read?  And what other mystery writers have you read that add spice to your travel? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

* NOTE: In 2011 the number of mysteries has climbed to 20 and you can also buy  Brunetti’s Cookbook. Thank goodness. I’ve been drooling over those pages in the novels where his wife whips up a wonderful dinner for the family.

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