Hard-spine to Peggy Guggenheim

Dorsoduro (hardspine) is the name of one of the sestiere (neigbourhoods) of Venice. It houses the Accademia and the Peggy Guggenheim collection, doggana (customs house) and a marvelous view across to Giudecca (the island on which the Reddentorre church is housed).

My aim after class (and one must always have an aim in your wanderings in Venice, even if you do end up lost), is to walk  down to the fondementa Zattere ponte lungo (which is easy for me to say as I have a map next to me) from school and wander along the Canale della Guidecca (the Canal of the  Judged)to the  punta della Dogana there to watch the sun set.

From thereI'll walk back towards the Peggy Guggenheim gallery and over the Accademia bridge (and the grand canal) and then down behind the Rialto back onto the main tourist strip to Cannaregio.   Well it's a plan any way.

It's a beautiful balmy evening and at first there isn't much of a breeze so its very pleasant to find oneself walking out of a maze of crooked calle and onto a broad, sunlit promenade.

In the distance, across the Guidecca canal you can see the church of the redeemer (il Reddentore) glowing in the final rays of the early autumn evening.

Il Reddentorre - designed and built by Palladio

il Reddentore was one of two churches built by the Venetians to give thanks for the ending of a terrible outbreak of the plague in the late 16th century. 

It's a marvellous piece of classical revival architecture by a master architect.

Here's another view:

As you walk further along the fondementa, you cross a small bridge and walk passed a Jesuit church (whose interior I will visit when it's open next - the Jesuit's do total baroque over-the-top-ness like no others) and then you come to the great bond-stores and warehouses which in the days of Venice's glory were the storehouses of her wealth. Venice was Europe's entrepot for trade with theEast so all of the riches of the East were stored here waiting for the taxes on them to be paid and thence shipped for resale elsewhere.

After years of neglect the warehouses have  been restored as an exhibition centre. I visited a sculpture exhibition as I walked by - it was totally high concept: "Cosmic stones" - unresolved lumps of cast silver coloured metal on metal stands.  To the few that understand it undoubtedly full of deep and profound meaning - to me it was  an eloquent essay in what can go wrong in modern art. Still, l as the show was opening that night it was also an excellent chance to see what la bella figura means amongst the artistic gliteratti.

Unfortunately, there was a great preponderance of the 1664 effect (16 from behind, 64 from the front) amongst the female invitees - Why so  many Italian matrons  wish to dress exactly like their daughters escapes me  (even my landlady Nadia does it).  And as for the men, well there was  a fair contingent of the beautifully besuited, exquisitely tailored , perma-tanned silver foxes of the Italian art mafia in presence, while the younger set (presumably the actual artist and his friends) were dressed down in Italian rent-boy and Donatella Versace  good-time girl couture.

I marched forward in search of the point of it all.  The custom's house sits on the very point of the hard-spine: Every ship that entered Venice during her reign as mistress and bride of the sea had to pass by here and pay the appropriate tax on the merchandise it bore.

  If there was illness on board the ship was directed to one  of the quarantine islands and the crew and passengers  were directed to stay there (at their own expense) for 40 days.

On top of the customs house that strumpet goddess fortune, fickle as ever surmounts  the golden globe of the earth supported by two Atlantes (atlases) struggling to withstand the load.

That strumpet goddess fortune, fickle  as ever turns this way or that in the breeze 

And here I am, a photo taken by an obliging German couple, at the hard point of the fish-spine:

Geoff coming to terms with the point of it all! 

And here is a short clip looking across to il Reddentore from the doganna:

From the tip of the Doganna to the Academia bridge.

Around from the sharp point of the fish-spine of Dorsodurro one enters the grand canal. The grand church - Santa Maria Della Salute - just on from the customs house is "Our lady of health" - which was one of the two churches Venice built in remembrance of the plague that killed one third of the population in the late 16th century.

To this day there is still a ceremony where a bridge of boats is built across the canal to the Salute  in memory of the plague, God's mercy and Venice's promise well kept.

 It has an octagonal plan and is surmounted by a dome supported by volutes. The architect (Lohengra) had his work cut out for him however. The marble structure is so heavy that 100,000 piles had to be driven into the mud of the lagoon to support its weight.

 It was dusk when I arrived  and not open to visitors  but I will visit again.

Ste Maria della Salute

Here's the mandatory artistic shot:

One of the decorative sculptures above the archway in the main door of the Salute.

And another:

An angel finial.

But where do gondolas go to sleep at night? Apparently many of them snuggle up together just beyond the Salute and spend the night together in each others company.

The mandatory gondola shot.

The carving at the prow of each gondola has six notches below the large finail at the top - one for each of the six neighbourhoods of Venice.

Around 7pm on a warm summer/autumn evening is peak hour on the grand canal.  Here's a short video of what the peak hour is like on the grand canal.

It's at this point that my like runs out - I'm back, lost in a rat's nest of calle and sottoporto hoping to find my way back to the Guggenheim collection and the Accademia bridge. But by the time I find a way through it's night.

The Guggenheim museum from the Accademia bridge.

The grand canal at night looking towards the Salute

It took me an hour or more to wend my way back to my room. Navigating Venice at night is like discovering an entirely different city! The stall-holders and African bag salesman are out in full force as I walked down the main tourist strip and the simple paper lanterns one man was selling  looked enchanting at night

  

And thus, finally a little before twelve I reach home - and so to bed.