Wrapping up Venice... and ALPS!!!

Hi all, I can post more about Venice quickly. It is an incredibly beautiful city, beyond expectations--- old stone an concrete houses by the canals, arched bridges, labyrinth like alleys leading all over town. Getting somewhere is an adventure in itself. You never know what beauty or surprise you will stumble on.

St, Mark's Plaza, the main square, is astoundingly beautiful. The cathedral is based on the Eastern Orthadox plan for churches. Venice traded with the Byzantine Empire, and got the idea there. The Plaza is stampeded with tourists, and with expensive stores: expensive ties, shirts, purses, jewelry, masks, watches, the Disney store... BASTA!! I wandered through the cathedral quickly, and was totally impressed. Other than that, we stayed out of tourist areas as much as possible.

The backstreets of Venice are full of surprises. There are 60,000 people here (and more than a million tourists each year, most of them in the summer it appears). Still, this is more work a day Italy than you would think. We enjoyed walking through neighborhoods, and discovered co-op groceries, communal pharmacies, and plazas where people gather. Amazingly enough, we also stumbled on an office for the Italian Communist party. The corner of the building where this is housed includes an altar to Jesus with fresh flowers. I could speculate, but won't unless I get more information.

The Jewish ghetto is a  fascinating place to visit. There are bakeries, kosher restaurants, places where you can get mennorahs and other religious/cultural objects. You can also see the area where people were gathered in 1943 and 44 to be sent to the German camps. There are some gutwrenching depictions of this. The ghetto was created in the 1400s, and Jews were not allowed to leave between dusk and morning. Napolean, of app people knocked the gates down when he occupied Rome. Today was a light hearted day, we watched a group of neighborhood kids throwing water balloons at each other.

We also stumbled on the Museum of Everything, a roving museum, based in London and Moscow that highlights work by unknown artists. The current exhibit features work by an Italian artist who was tricked into fighting on Franco's side in the Spanish Civil War. He came back with a condition we would now call PTSD, and became an artist, showing the things he experienced very creatively. His work resembles old cave paintings, but a close look reveals strong impacts.

The International Art Exhibit is going on, countries and artistic movements have pavillions displaying art from their cultures. The Mexican pavillion has a strange device that changes electromagnetic energy in the surroundings to music. Rumanian Pavillion offers a funny online quiz that tests how you respond to reality shows, artificial meat, computer games and other types of fake culture. The Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei designed some representation of his life, in prison with total round the clock surveillance. Our favorite exhibit was called ReEnvisioning Utopia, and it encouriages artists to try bring a sense od creativity and imagination to daily discourse and reality.

Very nice pizza last night, and yes, Italian wine is all its cracked up to be. Venice is beautiful, but there is a sadness from the crowds and their impact on the communities here. Also, there are many men, apparently middle Eastern imigrants who spend their days selling this weird silly putty mexture and glow sticks toy helicopters. How would somens life turn out that way?

So now we are in Bolzano, in the Alps. The train ride from Venice was astounding. We are surrounded by mountains. This area apparently part of Austria fir a while, but is now oart of Italy. I do not know the history but will look it up.SHould get going, I will check in some more.
Paul


We are now in Bolzano, in the Alps.