Italy, the Trip of a Lifetime

There are many suggestions for artists experiencing a lack of ideas for painting (not even close in my case) of which traveling is always a major one. I can't begin to paint all the things I came back wanting to paint! Although Bob, my husband, and I have done a lot of traveling in the United States and Mexico, this was our first trip to Europe together....and what a trip it was! As indicated in the blog above, the trip was built around a 12 day plein air workshop with Richard McKinley (more to come about that part of the trip). We added time on to see more of Italy. We flew into Venice on May 7th arriving around 9:00 am. Please don't laugh...but it apparently never quite sunk in for me that Venice was a pedestrian city other than the canals. I guess I assumed there were roads that wove through the city as well. Not so! That became clear with our arrival as we walked out of the airport a short distance to the port to catch a water taxi into the city.

Venice was fascinating! It was like walking in history. Their streets are often only wide enough for two people and certainly do not follow any kind of grid pattern! Street signs are somewhat sketchy as well....but there are signs with arrows directing one to the major landmarks in the city. One is also constantly crossing the bridges over the canals and it is wise to take that into account in trying to plan out your trip to a destination.

A highlight for us was the art. St. Mark's Square is the main plaza in the city. It is a very large plaza that is always teaming with people. One end of the square is the Correr Museum (Wow! the art!!) which is housed in former governmental buildings. Those offices are on another side of the square. St. Mark's Cathedral and the Doge Museum complete the square. There are cafes with outdoor seating around the square and each has an orchestra. They take turns playing. And then there are the pigeons...they are everywhere!!! The Venetians say that there is one pigeon and two rats for every Venetian. We did not see any rats (they come out when they have high water) but we certainly saw the pigeons. The tourists think it is great to put out their arms and wait for the pigeons to land all over them and then take pictures.

The art we saw was truly inspring. Most of the art was Byzantine with no perspective (that cam later). They were flat and included a lot of gold inlay. Very formal art and primarily religious in nature. As we learned...most of the art was commissioned by the church as the church held the power and had the finances. We also saw the armor and weapons from 100's of years ago. All I can say is that I was fascinated at every turn in every street and museum!!

We hated to leave Venice...but Florence was calling.