Mostly Art

I haven't been blogging this past week, but I've been busy nevertheless...mostly walking around large swaths of Venice I've never seen before.  This began with a "Free Walking Tour" of Venice, which was great (though perhaps a little long, at three hours).  I saw and learned a lot.  And since then, I've gotten braver about visiting different areas on my own (armed with GPS-enabled Apple products, it's pretty difficult to stay lost for long).

And I'm doing my best to blend in.  That means that you have to sit in an outdoor cafe and order a Spritz, which is The Drink here.  It's made with Aperol, which sounds like something you might pour into a car's engine but is actually a botanical product, and Prosecco...served with an orange slice and an olive on a stick.  It's too sweet for my taste, but undeniably  pretty.

Today I finally got to the Biennale.  There are two main venues:  the Giardini and the Arsenale.  I started with the Giardini, which is a huge park filled with separate/unique pavilions built years ago by various countries.  We have one, as well as Great Briton, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, South Korea, Germany, Spain, etc.  Here is a bit of what I saw:

                              These sculptures were all made with things that had been thrown away 

The following are stills from a video showing the artist moving his paintings, a LOT of them,  via high-wire over a deep gorge

                           These sculptures all contain pantyhose as their main components

                                        I will leave you with this gem....isn't it perfect??