Vegetables and Fruit

Morning delevery at the Piazzetta Mole, vegetables an fruit that will be at noon on the Riva degli Schiavoni luxurious Hotels and restaurants...

Grand Canal at Night

With so short days and never-ending nights, with low skies full of heavy clouds, winter time is the perfect season to wander in the dark side of Venice...

Alberi di Natale

O albero, o albero,
risplendi nella notte !
Le luci tue scintillano,
come le stelle brillano.
O albero, o albero,
risplendi nella notte !

Fra i canti degli arcangeli
ritorna il bambinello
I rami verdi toccano
la capannina di cartone
l'albero illumina
la culla del Signore.

S'innalzano, risuonano
i canti di Natale
La loro dolce musica
giunge fra tutti i popoli.
Ripete ancor agli uomini :
giustizia, pace, amore.

Time ain't on my side

An old palace, at least an imposing town house. How many generations may have been born and raised here, how many people have lived here, before these walls became as empty as a nutshell lost in the middle of the city...

Al Paradiso Perduto

Take one good friend, Alain (whom you already know), one warm-hearted landlord, Maurizio, two talented Italian guitar players (Shady Grove, with Paolo and Stefano) singing the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd or Jerry Lee Lewis, a bunch of smiling (and sometimes dancing) waitresses, a couple of young American travellers (present on this pic, she is from South Arizona, he is from Denver Colorado, "Hi" to both of you btw), an enthusiastic audience of patrons. Add some spaghetti al nero di seppia and one pitcher of Italian wine (ok, maybe two) … Well it was yesterday, at the Paradiso Perduto, The Lost Heaven, Fondamenta de la Misericordia in Cannaregio…

Early Morning Ride

How nice it must be to have one's own boat in Venice and to sail the canals in the crisp little morning air...

Canal Grande

The Grand Canal (Italian : Canal Grande, Venetian : Canalasso/Canalazzo) curves along the very heart of Venice. It is indeed the geographical as well as the symbolic center of the city, and to everyone it gives the sensation of being in a unique landscape.

Prescribed Length

Here on a wall at La Pescheria and, as much as I know, also displayed in at least two other locations in Venice (Fondamenta della Tana and Campo Santa Margherita), this marble slab was designed to inform fishmongers and their customers about the prescribed minimal length in centimeters of the fish sold on the markets and in the whole Venice lagoon. A vital way to protect the fishing patrimony, back in time so important to the the inhabitant's living.

Aqua Alta on St Mark's Basin

The Gondolas on the Piazzetta bank (el Molo), now inaccessible because of the high waters, seem to be moored far away in the middle of St Mark's Bassin.

Image Alain Hamon - Destination Italie

Aqua Alta, this morning at 9

With Alain, this morning on Piazza San Marco...

Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari

Some steps west of Campo San Polo, Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, with its imposing architecture, contains so much chefs d'oeuvre that it can be considered as a Renaissance museum.

Rio di San Giovanni Laterano

I have always loved this narrow house, surrounded by water on three of its sides, right near San Giovanni and Paolo, between the twin canals of the Rio di San Giovanni Laterano...

The Lagoon Towards Marghera

Seen from the western part of Venice, the skyline, over the lagoon, of the industrial area of Porto Marghera.

Anianus the Cobbler

On the little and nice Campo San Tomà, you will discover la Scuola dei Calegheri, build for the shoemakers corporation in the middle of the 15th Century. Over the main entrance, a relief by Pietro Lombardo depicts Venice patron saint San Marco healing Anianus the cobbler.

Autumn on Campo San Polo

Nice moment on a terrace at Campo San Polo...

Il Ponte delle Tette

Do you know why this bridge,situated in San Polo Sestiere, and finally rather commonplace in Venice, is famous?

Santa Sofia

Santa Sofia, almost disappears behind the new houses built after the creation, around 1870, of the Strada Nuova, this large avenue parallel to the Grand Canal in the Cannaregio Sestiere.

Rio del Gaffaro

A little stroll at night in the Santa Croce Sestiere, near Piazzale Roma and Giardino Papadopoli.

Let us eat, drink and be merry

San Nicolo dei Mendicoli. A place that I like, at the tip of the Dorsoduro, in the south of Venice. On one side of the campanile, under the large and ancient clock a slab dated from 1764 reads "Lethi Vive Memor Fugit Hora"...Live mindful of death , time is flowing.
So... Let us eat, drink and be merry!

The Venetian Gondolier

Here rest the weary oar! - soft airs
Breathe out in the o'erarching sky;
And Night! - sweet Night - serenely wears
A smile of peace; her noon is nigh.

Where the tall fir in quiet stands,
And waves, embracing the chaste shores,
Move o'er sea-shells and bright sands,-
Is heard the sound of dipping oars.

Swift o'er the wave the light bark springs,
Love's midnight hour draws lingering near:
And list! - his tuneful viol strings
The young Venetian Gondolier.

Lo! on the silver-mirrored deep,
On earth, and her embosomed lakes,
And where the silent rivers sweep,
From the thin cloud fair moonlight breaks

Soft music breathes around, and dies
On the calm bosom of the sea;
Whilst in her cell the novice sighs
Her vespers to her rosary.

At their dim altars bow fair forms,
In tender charity for those,
That, helpless left to life's rude storms,
Have never found this calm repose.

The bell swings to its midnight chime,
Relieved against the deep blue sky!-
Haste! - dip the oar again! - 'tis time
To seek Genevra's balcony.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

San Polo by Shell Sherree

From a reader and blogger in Brisbane, Australia... Thank you so much Shell Sherree, that's great. I'm honoured and chuffed!
Here is the original pic and here Shell Sherree's blog.

Painting the Town

Burano. The "Rainbow City" as used to say Jean Cocteau. I just let you imagine the amount of paint needed to keep Murano this way... and the colour of the pink shirt at the end of the work!

Image Alain Hamon - Destination Italie

Squero di San Trovaso

One of the lasts gondolas yards in Venice, near San Trovaso Church in the Dorsoduro.

Venice Carnival 2010

Time to prepare your masks, hats and 18th century costumes for next Venice Carnival, in just three month now, on February 6th to 14th...

Gesuiti

In the north of Venice, in a quiet part of busy Cannaregio, along the wide Fondamente Nove canal, you will discover Santa Maria Asunta, also known as the Church of the Gesuiti. A huge baroque building from the 17th century, with a facade by Giovanni Battista Fattoretto.

Saturday Evening at San Giacomo di Rialto

A nice place to end the week with a bunch of jolly good fellows...

Group Portrait with Accordion

You hear them arrive from far away. First it's a song in the background. Then the sound of an accordion. And then they come out on the Grand Canal. A whole party of six gondolas and their gondoliere, two musicians and some twenty tourists. Difficult to go "incognito" in Venice with such a team.

Walk

“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sestiere di San-Polo

Morning peace and quiet in San-Polo.

On the Grand Canal

How pleasant it must be to visit this City in one's own boat..

Ca d'Oro

One more picture of the most famous palace on the Grand Canal, the Ca d'Oro (Gilded House). It was built in the 15e century, along of the Grand Canal, of which it is one of the jewels. Its loggias are fabulous flamboyant Gothic laces.