Mining the Diaries 101: Italy
Casa Accademia, Fond. Bragadin 624, Venice, 20th May 2023
Awake early, I read for a bit (Where My Feet Fall, Duncan Minshull), though not really focusing. A blackbird had called in the dawn. Showered, out by 6.20 and walked up to the Accademia Bridge for the ritual that was the reason for my being there.
I stood on the top of the bridge remembering the times Nina and I had watched the sunrise and sipped champagne – such happiness. Today it was quiet, a few early people hurrying to work, a lone vaporetto coming down the Grand Canal. I took the little box of Nina’s ashes from my bag, kissed it and dropped it into the water facing where the sun had once risen to greet us. It went under momentarily, bobbed back up like a final wave goodbye and floated very slowly towards the sea for half a minute before sinking out of sight in the grey-brown water. ‘Goodbye, my flower,’ I whispered. Eight swifts wheeled overhead calling.
I set off into Dorsoduro in search of coffee, but found nowhere open, though I could smell the comforting sweetness of croissants cooking. Café owners were putting out chairs on the Campo S. Barnabas; workmen swept up last night’s detritus on the Campo S Margherita, napkins, bottles, cigarette ends and plastic glasses with the sour smell of stale beer. Herring gulls foraged for scraps and a song thrush sang from high up on an aerial. A dozen swifts skimmed overhead. I walked as far as Fondamenta Del Gaffaro and retraced my footsteps.
Then, delight. Il Caffe Rosso was opening! I waited for the first customers have their espresso shots, went in and ordered coffee and an apricot croissant and sat quietly at a table in the back. So, coffee at our favourite place, time to reflect on the good years after leaving the ashes: perfect. Whatever else happens, this sentimental journey will have been a success. I left as the staff were preparing food for the day to Reggae music. Outside the fish and veg sellers were setting up their stalls.
Then it was back to the reality of this trip, joining D for breakfast at the hotel. We were out promptly to get to the Guggenheim Museum when it opened at ten o’clock. It was another place that was very busy and hence a spoiled experience. Still, it has much that was worth seeing and is a good introduction to 20th century art; with some of it 80-90 years old, I wondered if it can still be called ‘Modern’. The café there has curious shaped teaspoons. A customer tried to pocket one as he left. The waitress spotted him, said, ‘My spoon, please’, very loudly and took it from him.
We left without spoons and took the vaporetto to San Angelo for the Museo Fortuny, which was on my list of places I wanted to revisit. I felt that it had changed – fewer curios and more paintings, especially nudes, or so it seemed, a feeling reinforced by occasional re-reading of Art Tempo. I was pleased to go back though; it remains an atmospheric celebration of the beautiful, the curious and the weird.
Ravioli for lunch. It rained. D went to San Marco. I couldn’t face the crowds there and returned to the hotel to write and reflect on this ineffable place that meant so much to Nina and me – ten previous visits together and this will be my last.