Escape to myself

I’m sitting in Florian’s in St Marks Square as I write. A piece of Vienna in Venice. Rather beautiful inside but of course it’s now a tourist attraction resting on the myth of turn of the century bourgeois experience. But the coffee is good even if it costs an arm, a leg and a head. But I thought why not. Coffee in St Marks is part of the experience. I’m surrounded by a party of fashionably dressed Japanese ladies drinking hot chocolate with cream and taking selfies. Perhaps this is the twentieth century equivalent of nineteenth century Austrian bourgeois matrons. Venice makes the most of the Belle Epoque idea with a string quartet playing waltzes in one of the cafes. I sit wondering what visitors think … do they embrace this pastiche wholeheartedly or smile as the faintly ridiculous situation. It’s a little preposterous… but maybe a little enjoyable too.

San Marco

The Square is rather beautiful and this morning dawned sunny again. The light over the canals is soft … I can see why Canaletto loved it, it has a really pellucid quality, things seem to dissolve in the distance.St Marks is rather wonderful this morning … grand and imposing … but I won’t go in today … the queues are immense even at this time of year. I shall wander this morning with a visit to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection this afternoon. Later this evening I’m going to Padua to see the Giotto’s in the Scrovegni chapel for an evening visit.

I’m now sitting by a little canal outside he Peggy Guggenheim Collection awaiting my time slot in a short while. Time for gelato (I was complimented on my Italian) and a fag. I’ll post some of the collection in my next update. Buona giornata.