Buses, taxis & gondolas, part 1

The waterways of Venice are world famous. The city is made up of 118 islands and 150 canals. It is home to over 400 bridges and the only way to travel in this city is either on foot or by boat. Click here and here to see our posts about the Grand Canal.

This post and the next two will be dedicated to what travel the canals. We will start with the buses, and finish with taxis and gondolas.

The waterbus in Venice are known as “vaporetto”. We bought the Venezia Unica pass which allowed unlimited use of the vaporetto service for 5 days. Sue and I arrived by train, getting off at the Stazione di Venezia Santa Lucia, and got on our first vaporetto ride at the Ferrovia stop – we took Linea 4.1 to get to Fondamente de Noue where we made our way to the apartment.

The vaporettos operate just like buses, quite frequently, the service is basic but reliable. At smaller stops, boats will come from both directions. So it is important to watch the board or the sign on the boat otherwise one can quite easily be going in the opposite direction.

Linea Uno (No. 1) zigzags along the Grand Canal running from Piazzalle Roma to San Zaccaria near Piazza San Marco, and then enters the lagoon to get to Lido, making 20 stops. Not only it is great for tourist to see the canal, it also offers a quick way to get from one side of the canal to the other.

In 1881 a regular public transport service with mechanically-propelled vessels began in Venice. In 1978, the current Venice Public Transport Company (Actv or “Azienda del Consorzio Trasporti Veneziano”) began operating. In 2010, ACTV owns approximately 620 buses and 160 boats and 150 floating pontoons. There are 19 scheduled lines.

The vaporettos are super-crowded at certain times of day and the conductor is non-forgiving when it comes to crowd-control. I (Chris) was separated from Sue and IT and the crowd while getting off the boat at Accademia (I was too busy snapping the pictures for this blog). And I got stuck behind people who were not disembarking (with strollers and luggages). The conductor let a few people on and promptly put the chain across the little ramp, and signaled the boat to leave. My protests (verbal and eventually gestures) were totally ignored. Thankfully, there were enough boats going back and forth. I reunited with them within 15 minutes.

Waterbus routes between the airport and the city and the lagoon area are provided by Alilaguna. We used Alilaguna service to reach the airport (Aeroporto di Marco Polo).

The airport is located on the mainland 4.3 nautical miles north of Venice in Tessera.

The waterway that connects the airport and the Venice lagoon operates just like a two-way highway on land.

We saw pets on people’s boats.

These dogs were watching the owner who got off the boat to bum a cigarette from a tourist nearby.

More boats in our next post.

Arts & Foods, Milano – part 4

This is the last of our 4-part mega blogpost about the exhibition –  Arts & Foods. Rituals since 1851 at the Palazzo di Triennale …

On the day, we were a bit of short of time because of our train for Venice in the afternoon. So we rushed through the museum. This was a far cry from the crush of people at the Expo 2015. At the Triennale, there was hardly anyone and we could enjoy the exhibits at our own pace.

This is the part of the show that we saw really quickly – it is mostly about appliances and equipment.

Magic Chef by American Stove Corporation 1935

Many of the objects here are made by Alessi. First, there are these oversized reproductions of iconic designs of daily objects. La Conica by Aldo Rossi.

Philip Starck’s “Juicy salif” – looking even more alien-like when it is five foot tall.

Alessi was founded in 1921 in Omegna as a maker of tableware and household objects. During the 1950s the company gradually replaces soft metals with stainless steel, marking the transition from artisanal craftsmanship to mass production.

La Cupola by Aldo Rossi. We actually own one but it is not being used much – yeah, Nespresso’s fault.

There are several windows displaying small tools for the kitchen. Most if not all are timers. Timers definitely do not need to look like a clock.

Alessi begins working with external designers in 1955. In the 70’s and 80, Alessi became a “factory of Italian design”.

Alessi’s mission is now one of translating its quest for the most advanced cultural, aesthetic, design and functional quality into mass production. The company is committed to a design approach in which the most advanced expression of international creativity is always balanced against the desires of the general public.

Well, the Arts & Foods was one of those exhibitions that had both depth and breadth, that we would love to spend more time seeing but just cannot manage.

This post closes the 4-part story. Click here, here and here to read the earlier posts.

 

Arts & Foods, Milano – part 3

Continuing with our tour of the Arts & Foods. Rituals since 1851 at the Palazzo di Triennale …  click to see part 1 and part 2.

This section of the exhibition is concerned with more conceptual rather than the applied aspects of foods, starting with an igloo made of bread by Mario Merz (in the far corner below).

Urs Fischer – a chalet made of bread – popular Process Art / Arte Povera idea.

Apparently, there was a whole village made of these bread houses when originally installed in 2004-5. Apparently, using bread as construction material has been popular.

Edward & Nancy Reddin Kienholz (US) made Useful Art No. 3 (1992) –   it will be curious to see when all the lighters are on …

Subodh Gupta – Two cows – 2003-8

Sarah Lucas (UK) created this in 1992 originally. 

Sarah Lucas pretty much took over the British pavillion with a much more provocative set at the Venice Biennale – see later post.

Frank Gehry (US) – the GFT Fish. Fish is a favorite inspiration of this architect. I(Chris) attended a conference at one of his fish-themed creation in Berlin – it is really fantastical – see the post here.

The fish is looking at the Leaning Fork with Meatball and Spaghetti (1994) by the husband and wife team of Clares Oldenberg and Coosje van Bruggen.

Tom Friedman – Big big Mac

Jake & Dinos Chapman (aka the Chapman Brothers) made “When the World Ends” – one of a series of landscape of miniatures – that mix Nazi soldiers, along with various characters from the fast food chain McDonald’s, committing violent acts on a boat ushered by dolphins … the shores are littered with bodies and heads on sticks.

There are several of these installations, displayed in a large glass case, which are apocalyptic in setting, minute in size, but rich in disturbing details.

This sculpture looked eerie to us in that it is just a little bit smaller than a real human, which amplifies the vulnerability of the subject. To get a sense of its scale, it is visible in the picture of the bread house above.

Pleats Please Sushi 2014. The fashion designer Issey Miyaki known for his technology-driven clothing design used the pleated material he developed to make sushis and doughnuts.

The next post concludes our visit.

Arts & Foods, Milano – part 2

Part 1 of our tour of the Arts & Foods. Rituals since 1851 at the Palazzo di Triennale is here.

ARTS&FOODS CONTINUA

According to the Catalog, the show “… allows us to take a unique and unrepeatable journey through the artistic languages that have characterized the relationship between arts and foods since 1851 – the year of the first Expo, to the present day.”

This section of the exhibition was eye-catching for the pastel colors of the walls.

This is the 60’s – 70’s.

Probably one of the first things people will think of when ask about arts and foods – Andy Warhol’s soup cans

Mel Ramos – the lost painting of 1965, 2012

More food posters – all by Amando Testa – mostly from the 60’s

Coca-cola retail designs

In the golden age of glamorous, international commercial flights (think BOAC and PanAm) these plastic utensils was cool …

Maison Bulle

We could not find description of the next few items in the Catalog.

This unit could have been in the house of M. and Mme. Arpel in the comedy Mon Oncle (1959 Academy Award winner) which chronicled a Monsieur Hulot’s struggle against postwar French modernism.

… yes, they are Panton chairs in this 70’s dining room set

Dress with steak, chicken feet and drumstick prints.

Moschino-branded McDonald’s matching set.

More photos in part 3 and part 4 to come.

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