Yesterday started off slowly with a relaxed breakfast and lunch in the apartment. We had tickets at La Fenice for the matinee performance of “Madame Butterfly” so set out walking at about 1:45. The performance was at 3:30 and we thought it would take longer to get to La Fenice than it did. We were there in about 25 minutes and, of course, the doors were not open so we people watched, always a fun thing in Venice. We did not bring the camera (which, as you will see, turned out to be a good thing), and so have no pictures. We finally were admitted, walked up the stairs four flights to our stall, and realized we were on the back row of two. Luckily only one other person had a seat in our stall so I was able to move to the front row and Alan was able to get between the two front chairs, and we could all see well. La Fenice was as breath-taking as we remembered. This production reminded us of operas we had seen at the Santa Fe Opera in that it is totally minimalist with almost no scenery and very plain costumes. However, it all really worked and everyone was in tears by the end! We are so glad we saw it. After walking down 4 flights of stairs, we noticed everyone but us had umbrellas out and ready. Uh oh! Out we went into the biggest thunderstorm we have ever seen in Venice. That 25 minute walk back turned into a 25 minute bath. Alan’s pants were wet halfway up his thighs, his shirt and wool blazer soaked and I was totally dripping also. We bought one umbrella for 5 Euros but Alan said it was getting him wetter than the storm as he was half out of it and it was dripping on him. This is why we were glad we didn’t have the camera! We got back to Campo SS Giovanni e Paolo and decided to go to Alla Strega right then. We were already so wet, it didn’t really matter that we were unfashionably early for dinner. Everyone in the restaurant was equally as wet so we felt right at home. We shared a cichetti misti which was really not outstanding, fried foods reheated in the microwave just don’t do much for us and a pizza which was very good. We also shared a tiramisu. It was still raining when we walked home an, needless to say, we turned up the heat and spread wet clothes and coats everywhere.
Today most of the museums we hoped to go to were closed (Monday closings) but the Museo Fortuny was open. It is only open when there is a special exhibit so we were lucky. We walked to San Marco sestiere avoiding Piazza San Marco and explored parts of this sestiere we had never been to. We went into S. Lucca and S. Stefano churches, ate gelato, visited various campos, and went to the Fortuny. There are no pictures inside but we did get one in a courtyard.

This is the exhibit we saw. It was way too modern for Alan, but I liked some of the pieces.

The exhibit space is very interesting in that it is the Palazzo Fortuny but everything is taken down to the bare brick walls. There are a few other modern art pieces, a Picasso, a Miro, a Max Ernst and many old photographs. There are also some beautiful oriental clothes and lots of materials hung on the walls. I felt it was well worth the time we took to go there. We also stopped at the Palazzo Grassi but decided not to see the exhibit yet. Here are some random shots from around San Marco sestiere. The Grand Canal is from a little pier next to the Museo Mocenigo that we happened upon because, what else, we got a little lost!




Tomorrow we head out of Venice for a couple of days. We are going to Bassano del Grappa. If we have internet, we’ll try to post from there.