Venice: Day 4 (8/25/19)
Its Sunday so the streets are relatively dead, which is nice. I mostly just meandered around the northern half of the city while hitting some free exhibits. Around noon I had lunch at Chiesa di Santa Maria Assunta Detta Gesuiti, which enlightened me to the fact that these churches are kinda starting to blend together at this point. I also noticed quite a few lone cats and folks out walking their dogs, which is a nice change of pace from Rome which had approximately zero doggos in the entire city from what I could tell.
After a few hours wandering about and visiting the Tom Parish, Lee Bae, and Xia Tian free exhibits I arrived at an odd marine biology education through art exhibit that was real weird. The hanging paintings were fine, but there were videos playing which were a combination of performance art and interpretive dance. Not my thing I have to say. But that’s OK, because I found some pistachio + salted caramel gelato nearby that was exactly what my inner demons craved.
About 3pm I arrived at the Arsenale museums which looked interesting but rather expensive, so I was going to pass on it in favor of coming back tomorrow but its closed on Mondays so I just committed to having a long day and bought a ticket after taking a few minutes to cool down/snack.
I wasn’t sure what to expect in detail but I was not at all prepared for the wild modern art ride that was the Arsenale: CGI children crying and playing discordant piano chords, massive sculptures made of recycled clothes, a very concerning and off-putting dance routine involving self mutilation, rooms full of bones and a hay maze to wander through while disconcerting noises play overhead. It was weird…but I was kind of enthralled and spent a good 3 hours art-tripping my way through several dozen exhibits from across the globe. 10/10 would art again! (even if I found most of the exhibits to be just weird for the sake of weird I still had a good time!)
Raced back to the train station/hostel since I was totally exhausted and hungry as a starved rat. Well, I say raced but it was a 50 minute slog into the low-angled sun and through crowds of tourists on the main thoroughfare. But the walk gave me a chance to think and I came up with a plan for tomorrow! I’m going to get up early and walk through town while taking a hyperlapse. But while I’ll have a destination in mind, I won’t look at any maps and try to avoid the main streets which should make for a fun trek across the city!
Diner tonight was at the pizza place kitty-corner to the hostel. I got one with sausage, proschuto, mushrooms, peperoni, fresh basil, and spicy olive oil. It was Divine and perfect for a hungry lad like myself!
