Bella Venezia

Click images to enlarge.

I went to Venice today with the best intentions: walk around, take pictures, and see Palazzo Mocenigo, San Marco, Il Palazzo Ducale, and the Accademia all before the last regional train left at 7 PM. Well, Rome wasn't built in a day and even I have to confess that Venice simply cannot be done in one day. Unless you want to get the 8:00 AM train. (No.)

While attempting to find Palazzo Mocenigo, I found a restaurant called Alba Nova. It was cute and the menu was in Italian, so I went in and got papardalle with porcini mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and parsley. So fresh, and so good! I was even rewarded with a few locals walking in (including the guy who delivered the groceries!) to chat with the cook and drink a glass of wine at the bar.

My first stop was Palazzo Mocenigo, one of Italy's only historic costume museums. The palazzo also houses Italy's only Center of Textile Studies. It seems like the palazzo is more Center than museum, but that's okay because the few clothes they had were beautiful. All of the dresses were from the 18th century, Venice's last hurrah. The first room had two children's robes:

The dress on the right was a fantastic green silk moire with white, green, and teel embroidery. Drool-worthy. Although you can't see it in this picture, the dress also has a Watteau back. In my costume history class, I learned that this type of dress was called a robe francaise, but the Venetians and the French called it an adrienne. I also have a thing for fabrics, so as you can imagine, this piece was orgasmic:

The palace itself was also quite beautiful: a Rococo interior to match the Rococo clothes.

There was also a family library with 200 years' worth of fashion books on display. What I wouldn't do to revise and update this beauty from an 1886 fashion plate:

Oh, and there was a whole room dedicated to George Barbier prints. It's like they knew I was coming.

Next stop was Piazza San Marco and, naturally, Basilica San Marco:

San Marco is basically ridiculously beautiful and made my beloved Monreale (more on that soon!) look like Amateur Hour. Unfortunately, most of the church was closed off in preparation of Easter. Oh no I will just have to go back, woe is me, etc.

After that, I took a quick turn around the corner to the Palazzo Ducale. Tip: Don't get the audio guide because it's somewhat tedious and it's 5 euro. They don't give you a receipt so you can't get it reimbursed by ECCO. Boo. You also aren't allowed to take pictures inside and the guards are just bored enough to strictly enforce this rule. Poor things, they all looked so miserable.

When I entered the Palazzo Ducale I was like, "Yeah, yeah, Venice is really pretty and all, but I'm mostly over it." Then I turned my head to the right, saw the Renaissance Wing, and then almost burst into tears because it was so beautiful. The picture above is just one teeny, tiny detail of the Giant's Staircase, where the new Doge was crowned.

By the time I had done all of this it was almost 5:00, and what with the crowd and possibly getting lost, I wouldn't be able to go to the Accademia and catch my train. So I meandered around the luxury district for awhile and mentally flipped the bird at the Prada store because how dare Miuccia Prada say she's a feminist when she can't be arsed to design costumes for an opera for any actor above a size 2 so then the Met had to hire a ton of models instead and then this same bitch had a fall collection that purposely made the models look curvy my God what a whore. Ahem. Anyway.

So as I was walking back on the Rialto, feeling badly for myself for having been to both Venice and Florence twice and still not having seen a single famous Titian portrait, I heard a tambourine. And then:

LARPERS!!!! LARPers make the world go around. Of course, they weren't very good LARPers because their clothes were, ummmmm, 16th and 17th century? But we can't complain.

Oh, and there were so many bridges:

Did you know that the Rialto and the Ponte Vecchio in Florence are the only two bridges in Italy with stores lining the sides? How lucky that I have been to both tourist traps!