Rod Summers in Venice

Comment

Comment by anna boschi on February 22, 2009 at 8:23pm

Dear Rod,

wonderful photos from Venice! I am glad to see them and to read your travel diary, with meetings and performances with other network friends!
Many greetings and all the best!
Anna

Comment by Rod Summers / VEC on February 22, 2009 at 5:32pm

Comment by Rod Summers / VEC on February 22, 2009 at 5:31pm

Comment by Rod Summers / VEC on February 22, 2009 at 5:31pm

Comment by Rod Summers / VEC on February 22, 2009 at 5:31pm

Comment by Rod Summers / VEC on February 22, 2009 at 5:29pm

My first Sunday in Venice and I have decided to follow a well documented precedent and give myself a day of rest after all the creative exertions of the previous six days.
Vittore ‘Dave’ Baroni made email contact to find out if I had any details about my visit to Viareggio this coming weekend, so I strolled out to check the times of the vaporetto to the station and it seems the Nr. 1 runs there (or should that be floats there?) every 15 minutes. I took a few pictures; it seems that carnival enthusiasm is already beginning to run down.
Returning via the pizza place I came home to check the times of the trains from here to Viareggio and it seems the journey takes a little under 5 hours with one change, I will go tomorrow to book a reservation for my journey. Vittore is planning to come back to Venice with me so that I can make his portrait in the Post Office, a building which is just on the other side of the Rialto Bridge from here.
Last night the sounds of riotous carnival continued well passed 3 AM, this evening it is surprisingly quiet. I think I will begin work on the video.

Comment by Reid Wood on February 22, 2009 at 2:42am

That's a difficult climb ... not for the amateur. Glad to see you made it.

Comment by Rod Summers / VEC on February 21, 2009 at 11:34pm

Such is my luck that today’s weather gave the intended attempt to scale the North face of the Rialto Bridge every possibility of success.
At noon and before I had finished my second mug of tea, the Morandi’s, with their friends Stefano and Silvana, were ringing the doorbell of my luxurious apartment. We spent an hour looking at the VEC videos of the Aimless Gardening project and a selection of my Icelandic landscape photographs; I consider it a pleasurable duty to promote tourism to the land of ice and fire.
Sometime after one we set off towards the bridge which is situated some 100 meters from the apartment. The streets were awash with can only be described as a tsunami of tourists here to celebrate carnival.
At precisely 13:33 we arrived at base camp and began to rope ourselves together without further ado. It was as though the greater part of the population of Italy and all their foreign friends shared the steps with us, but we VECians are made of stern stuff and are not easily deterred from our goal.
It is not for nothing that Emilio is called the VEC Peak Freak and he set off at a blistering pace almost dragging Franca and me off balance, but I wasn’t having that so I dug my heels in and, raising my voice above the tourist chatter, screamed for him to slow down. Which he didn’t… or at least not by much anyway… it could have been a language problem as, in my ignorance, I do not know the Italian for “You’re going to fast!!!”
There were plenty of cracks in the marble facing of the steps and I was able to find finger tip purchase and good footholds practically all the time, however at one point in the upward climb I lost my footing and it was indeed fortunate that at that particular moment I had my fingers well wedged in a crevice between the step and the boot of a scurrying tourist, otherwise I might not have been here to relate this adventure to you dear reader but would instead be floating across the lagoon in the direction of Albania, a fate not pleasant to contemplate!
Apart from that mini slip; which we might refer to as an insignificant thong, the rest of the ascent was achieved without further mishap and soon we were giving each other congratulatory hugs at the apex of the bridge and bravely waving the flag of Limburg.
I was aware that our progress down the other side of the bridge would require that eventually we would have to negotiate a tricky traverse along a marble balustrade, but full of hope and in high spirits we began the descent. I undertook the role of anchor man paying out the rope to allow a gradual descent and focusing my attention to avoid any danger of dangling.
Soon enough we reached that tricky balustrade and began the traverse, it was there we discovered that marble is made of harder material than finger nails. We had almost reached the bottom step when we were joined by two glorious and gorgeous native girls in full festive costume; this raised our spirits to even greater heights.
We had now completed the first stage of our expedition, up one side of the bridge and down the other and considered it such a success that, without pause, we set off on the long trek over paved ways to the gallery of the Emily Harvey Foundation. The walk went without any notable events although I feel I should mention that we did encounter a forlorn looking little dog sitting outside a bar at about half way through the journey and a little later a rather large lady wearing a mink coat.
At 13:52 we arrived at our destination only to find the gallery closed but even that could not dampen our sense of elation so, with achievement glowing on our cheeks, we posed together for the final photographic document made by Stefano Zambelli.
Conclusion: This expedition was a resounding success and the video made by Silvana di Carlo will shortly be appearing on a Youtube near you. Ariverderchi!

Comment by Rod Summers / VEC on February 21, 2009 at 10:29pm

Comment by Rod Summers / VEC on February 21, 2009 at 10:29pm

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