The City of Bridges

The rain finally caught up with us. After avoiding it for the better part of a week (excluding travel days) it finally opened up. It didn’t pour but it made for a gloomy day. It added a little extra sluggishness to everyone’s step. We got a plan together so after breakfast we headed out to see some steps that Carlo Scarpa designed that were supposedly watershedding. It didn’t really seem to be working but they were beautiful nonetheless.

Next was the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo. It is currently a hotel but boasts an intricately designed spiral staircase. We didn’t go inside but photographed from outside. It was an eyecatcher. Just a short walk away was the Fondazione Querini Stampalia. It is a cultural institution that Carlo Scarpa designed a lot of. A lot of typical Scarpa details were present in the interior of the building that made it a pleasant experience. We spent some time sketching before heading off to lunch.

Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo

Fondazione Querini Stampalia

Once we finished lunch, we made our way back to San Marco to take a tour of Doge’s Palace. It was the main government building of the former Republic of Venice. Almost all the rooms were ornately designed which seemed appropriate for a palace but superfluous for a government building. Towards the end of the tour was the Bridge of Sighs that connected the Palace to the prisons. It is called so because the prisoners would sigh as they walked across the enclosed bridge and look out a small window which would be their last view of the outside. It provided a stark contrast between the ornate palace and the empty prisons. It was a pretty cool tour that also got us out of the rain and cold.

Interior of the Bridge of Sighs

We headed out to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum on the Grand Canal. It is her old house that had been turned into an art gallery. It was a neat space but we so tired that we finished it pretty quickly. We jumped on a water taxi to Bridge Rialto to try find dinner. We ended up at the place I went the other night. I was with a different group this time but the waiter still remembered me from two nights ago. He was really nice and even brought us glasses of Prosecco. I had a three course meal again which was still good.

The three of us were exhausted so we took another water taxi back to the hotel and called it a night. We will have so time in the morning before we leave but this was our last full day in Venezia.