Lord Byron slept here

My lovely friend “S” likes to be useful. She sets quite a store by this, and she’s darn good at it. I thought of her so many times last week because I found myself with many opportunities to be useful, too, and well beyond my usual restaurant recommendations and meager Italian assistance. For example…

Not far from my house I bumped into an elderly German couple who could not find their way between La Fenice and their little hotel just past Campo San Luca. They were about to tear their map in two between them when I got involved. But the problem was that map – an advertisement was obscuring the way to their destination. Mrs. was satisfied with the directions I gave, but Mr. seemed suspicious, unconvinced… so I said it all again, exactly the same info, but a bit slower. His face softened. And then he said something very unexpected in his German-tinged English: “It is nice to hear a gentle American voice explain it.” I was very moved.

That night, while watching the Italy-Spain soccer match, I met a pair of pretty freshmen from Columbia University. Their first trip to this romantic city, it was easy to tell by the stars in their eyes. The only thing missing for them was – Hello! Where are the boys?! Amazingly enough, I knew just where to send them for that. And for the good, cheap pizza.

The next day I saw a very young, very polite, and very stressed Iranian man trying to communicate with two Australian smart alecks who were clearly doing more harm than good. He needed to locate his hotel, but he had only a sestiere address (almost useless! – you need a street name too). He had a telephone number, but no cell phone and zero Italian. I made a quick call and learned his B&B was just behind my house. Then, as we walked together, he expressed his great relief. He had left his wife and elderly in-laws back at the railway station while he scouted the route through town for them and he had feared he might fail. How gallant! As we parted, I was paid for my effort with a brilliant smile. (Not my first payment for such services, by the way. One time I was paid in cheese for some restaurant suggestions.)

At the fish market I met an Ohioan couple with lots of heavy luggage. He was a restaurateur, she was a lovely blonde, and they were certainly lost. The problem? They had exited the vaporetto at Rialto Mercato instead of Rialto, which put them on the wrong side of the Grand Canal. No wonder their map made no sense! I walked them over the bridge and got them headed toward their hotel. Later that evening I saw them again! This time they were searching for a particular restaurant that I just knew would disappoint them. I convinced them of that and took them to nearby Enoteca San Marco instead. I have no doubt it was a splendid meal.

Another day I met a pair of Asian kids who also had a wrong-side-of-Rialto problem. Following them on the Strada Nuova, I overheard their frusration with Venice’s arcane address system. He admitted he wasn’t even sure they were on the right street, which made her sigh tiredly. That’s my cue! They were way off-track for people seeking Campo San Polo. I explained the long route back to and over Rialto Bridge, and the directions beyond, which made them both sigh tiredly. Then it hit me! We were only a few steps from the Santa Sofia traghetto station – a cheap-and-cheerful solution that would be a real and memorable Venetian experience for them while also shaving off about twenty minutes of their walking time. From mid-Canal they waved to me, utterly delighted to be teetering in the traghetto.

The next evening I was in the Piscina getting email when I spied another couple, two women this time, squinting and craning their necks and coming dangerously close to a real lovers’ spat. These two were operating from a scribbled to-do list, most of which I could not read. And they spoke no English. There followed a long, halting conversation in Italian. I figured out one of them was a Lord Byron fan: she wanted to visit his home. She chattered on, absolutely convinced it was quite close, while I wondered how in the world I would ever direct them all the way to his Grand Canal palazzo from where we stood, or even explain that it’s private and not accessible to visitors. Then, again – a bolt from the blue! I realized she was searching for Byron’s first home in Venice, which is, indeed, in the nearby narrow calle. (I know this because my friend “E” had tipped me off when I first moved to the Piscina back in September.) As you can see above, the ordinary residence door is not marked in any way. No wonder the ladies missed it! It was great fun to be one of only a handful of people in Venice who could actually point it out for them. And weren’t they lucky that they happened to meet another Byron fan there in the twilight?

So why am I telling all these seemingly self-congratulatory tales? Well, certainly not to say, “Ain’t I great?” It’s to show more of La Serenissima’s magic. Last week – like no other I have ever had – made me realize I have a lot to offer Venice’s visitors. (And “S” is right – it’s wonderful to be useful. The pleasure was all mine.) I have toyed with the idea of a private concierge service long enough. Seems like I’m being shown the time has come to give it some serious attention.

What luck!

Honestly, sometimes I cannot believe my good luck. Wednesday night I found myself in a house seat at La Fenice for a beautiful production of Death in Venice, and later enjoying cocktails and dinner with several crew and cast members, including the star. How on Earth did that happen?

A few weeks ago I was out in the Piscina, getting my email (my modem is still out of commission!), when a gentleman passed through. He stopped to ask me about the “hot spot,” and we chatted for a bit. I thought him a bright and interesting fellow right away. And I learned he was a cast member of Death in Venice – a pretty impressive accomplishment in itself.

It turns out he was much too modest. The gentleman was Marlin Miller and his role was that of Gustav von Aschenbach. He was generous enough to offer me a ticket for the show. But when I got there, a video camera was occupying my seat.

“Scusi, Signora,” the usher bowed and apologized profusely. He asked would I mind terribly to take instead… this seat… just right over… here? One, right on the aisle, with a full, unobstructed view! It was a haunting production, nearly all in blacks and whites. My friend (who carries almost the entire show by himself) gave a vivid, poignant performance. Afterwards I picked him up at the stage door. Again he was generous enough to invite me along for the gathering with his friends.

Seriously, do you know anyone luckier than me?

Real estate: Ca’Dario

My “Home Sweet Imaginary Home” on the Grand Canal is this infamous late fifteenth century Byzantine palazzo, Ca’Dario. Why? Because everybody knows it’s cursed and has been for centuries. Byzantine, indeed! Ca’Dario’s history is one of business deals gone bad, families split, fortunes lost, untimely deaths, even the occasional haunting.

Elegance is fine, but I like theatrics, mystery, drama, lurid tales, notoriety. If I am to bear the considerable burden and expense of maintaining a Venetian palazzo, I must insist that it have a fascinating, colorful history that I can talk about at my dinner parties and, if possible, a resident ghost or two.

Real estate: Ca'Faisan

Early on the journey up the Grand Canal one can see this jewelbox palazzo with the name Ca’Contarini-Fasan or Ca’Faisan (apparently the Contarinis were fond of hunting pheasant). But since the nineteenth century, those who know Shakespeare’s Venetian tragedy Othello have called it “Desdemona’s house.” Indeed, many guidebooks and the gondolieri refer to it as such, although there is nothing in the way of facts to support the idea.

Still, that clever Venetian author Alberto Toso Fei, speculating that the Bard just might have visited Venice during “the lost years,” reasons that Ca’Faisan could have earned its soprannome in this way…

Shakespeare’s play opens late at night with a pair of evil tattletales outside Desdemona’s house, shouting to her father about her elopement with Othello. The whole point of engaging in such a charivari (old-style public denunciation of offensive behavior, such as a mixed-race marriage) was to get lots of attention and spread the story around quickly. Ca’Faisan is certainly close to Piazza San Marco, the most populated place in town, and it’s also situated directly on Venice’s busiest gondola route. Gondolieri have always been Venice’s most efficient “grapevine,” so a little shouting here would go a long way.

Fei also notes something eerie about the house: one of the wheels of the balcony decoration “turns” in the wrong direction, reminding us of the wheel of Fate, an idea that appealed greatly to Shakespeare. Perhaps this strange architectural error reminded someone of the ill-fated Desdemona, wrongly accused of infidelity and murdered by her husband, thus marking this house as hers. Look above and decide for yourself.

One time I asked my friend “E” which of the palazzi on the Grand Canal she would most like to own and inhabit. She answered instantly – Ca’Faisan. She likes its convenient location and Bacino view, as well as its compact size and graceful beauty.

And my choice...?

Shopping: the produce

Have I shown you the gorgeous farm stands that I frequent when Rialto is closed?





And did I mention that one of them is a boat?

Nothing prepared me for Italy’s produce, for the vast variety of citrus, pumpkins, beans, pears, potatoes, greens, grapes, artichokes, and melons. For all the different and utterly perfect tomatoes. For the two-bite, super-sweet, seedless clementines with skin so thin that you can eat it too. For the chubby, oily walnuts. For the big, red, pointy cultivated strawberries and the little, pink, roundy wild ones. For doll-size pears, not much bigger than a large olive. For the cheap and hyper-aromatic herbs that don’t go limp or get slimy in the fridge.

My list of things tasted for the first time is still growing: those costaluto di Marsala tomatoes, small, black, tough-skinned pumpkins, big, flat spadone beans and flamingo pink-speckled borlotti beans, cavolo nero (Roman black cabbage), cedro (Sicilian citron), peretti (coppery mini pears with a slight taste of almond) and pere coscia (pretty little yellow pears, perfect to bake in flaky pastry jackets), valeriana (a lot like mache or lamb’s lettuce but much cheaper), Chioggia beets (the slices look like Brach’s peppermints), “coco bebys” (watermelons only slightly larger than a grapefruit) and another smooth little melon with bright lemon-colored flesh, giant-leafed borage that’s cooked and eaten as greens, fragola grapes (like small, tight, double-sugary Concords), leggy Treviso radicchio, lime green-skinned, neon orange-fleshed miyagawas, a particular basil that smells just like a Christmas tree, snowy white asparagus, stinging nettles and bruscandoli (wild hop buds) for risotto, skinny purple artichokes, zucchine tonde (pale green, ball-shaped squash), sea kale...

There is only one thing I miss in this department, and it’s something utterly American: pecans.

“...a gentleman, white of fur...”

The coffee-sipping feline subject of this lively, naïve painting on the front of a bar opposite ai Frari is not a cartoon character. This is – rather this was – “Nini,” and he was no ordinary mouser.

Perhaps the most famous cat ever, Nini was a white tom who lived at that particular bar at the end of the nineteenth century. His owner, being a shrewd Venetian businessman and one with a typically Venetian sense of humor, managed to make it fashionable for visiting dignitaries to call on his cat and sign his visitors’ book.

When Nini passed on in 1894, there was a somber ceremony. No less a scholar than Horatio Brown wrote a flattering poem about him. A sculptor created a figure of him. A funeral march and a long ode on his death as well as many fawning tributes from artists, poets, and musicians (including the title of this post) were added to the long list of illustrious names already scribbled in his book (Pope Leo XIII, Czar Alexander III, the King and Queen of Italy, and Giuseppe Verdi among them).

Alas, that amazing memory book is no longer kept at the bar. But for many years customers could peruse it simply by asking for the privilege in a suitably serious and reverent fashion. Jan Morris, in her The World of Venice, finishes this story far better than I can:

“It was all done in a spirit of dead-pan satirism that was essentially Venetian, and you had to look very hard in the eye of the barman as he wrapped the book in brown paper and put it carefully away, to detect a distant thin flicker of amusement.”

If you visit Nini’s bar, don’t ask the barman what happened to the book, nor whether it shouldn’t be found and added to the city’s archives for its obvious historical value. You’ll just annoy the bejeezus out of him. Trust me on this.

Beauty & the beast

Can anyone tell me who this unfortunate soul was, and why his wildly goofy image is posted at the base of the campanile (bell tower) of a church in Castello? He’s right over a little door, which (I imagine) opens to the stairs that lead up to the bells. One cannot help thinking of Quasimodo…

Venetians have always had a wicked sense of humor. It’s even funnier that this fellow should live in this particular spot: the church is Santa Maria Formosa, so named because in the 7th century St. Magnus had a well-publicized miraculous vision of a cloud that formed itself into the unmistakable image of the Virgin Mary. He reported that she had a very (ahem!) shapely body. Indeed, the church was built in the 11th century with decidedly feminine curves, intended to commemorate that slightly profane vision. And inside is Palma Vecchio’s painting of St. Barbara, long considered the perfect representation of Venetian female beauty.

Hmm… I think I detect a little glint of lust in his eye! The one that isn’t looking the wrong way. Or is it the other one?