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Old May 8, 2017, 10:56 am
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2017 venice biennnale information

http://www.labiennale.org/en/art/information/
The Biennale opens May 13 and continues to November 26
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Old May 9, 2017, 4:37 pm
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For those who will be in Venice during the Biennale, consider going to the gift shop for unique items. I have always come home with books, shirts, shopping bags and gift items for children. The merchandise is all well made and many books are offered in hard cover as well as paper back. These are not tacky souvenir items.
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Old May 9, 2017, 7:51 pm
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I often stay in the Biennale neighborhood when in Venice. It's well away from the crowds except for around now, when it opens. Once things settle down, which doesn't take that long, it has no crowding effect at all, and it sometimes offers the only way to get into the actual Arsenale. It's one of the most impressive "walk around in it," living art spaces I've ever seen, and worth a trip in itself.

The neighborhood, Giardini (part of Castello), once the effect of the opening weeks has worn off, is one of the best places to stay in Venice. Nothing that has been said about Venice and San Marco applies to the neighborhood of Giardini. It's still pristine. And since it's one of the first stops on the Vaporetto to San Marco, you usually can get on a semi-open vaporetto and get a great view. This year it's supposed to be better than ever.

I wouldn't go there for the opening, without some special arrangements. After a few weeks, after the opening has died down and the hotels have stopped tripling the prices, its definitely a site to see. They keep building the cruise ships taller and taller because the tour guides keep saying that the view of Piazza San Marco gets better the higher you go. So they keep building taller cruise ships, for people to go by there. See real Venice from the ground around Biennale and Giardini. It would be a wonderful thing to go and see this once the effect of the initial openings die down.

The last time I went, I was really hungry when I exited. There is a sort of lonely pizza place near the exit. There is no real pizza in Venice because wood-burning ovens get too hot, and are against the law. Most of it is frozen. A handful of places actually contract with a baker, who makes real pizza dough and delivers it to them.

After a hot day at the Biennale I went into that pizza place directly across from one of the entrances to get a drink, and saw the guy making pizza. It obviously wasn't frozen, so I asked him where he bought the dough. He almost chased me out, yelling, "solo compro farina!!!" In other words, he made his dough from scratch, from flour. That's very rare in Venice, Florence, and even in Rome.

Giardini is one of the best places to stay, at any time. And if you are there after Biennale's initial fever has died down, then you will rally experience Venice.

Last edited by Perche; May 9, 2017 at 8:25 pm
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Old May 31, 2017, 12:23 pm
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The Biennale seems to be especially interesting this year. Sometimes, you are barely aware that it is going on. One of the more fascinating things to do for people who want to explore Venice is to visit the Jewish Cemetery on Lido. It's sort of like going to San Michelle Island. It has a very unique history. Probably many people on this forum know that the word ghetto is is a Venetian word. The original ghetto is a neighborhood in Venice where Jewish people were locked into, closed by gates, since the early 1500's.

When Napolean conquered Venice one of the only good things he did was to tear down the gates of the ghetto.

One of the things that guidebooks don't talk about unless it is a very extensive guidebook is to visit the ghetto, and to visit the Jewish Cemetery on the Lido.
The tallest buildings in Venice are in the ghetto because Jews were required to live within the confinement of the gates, and there was no place to expand except upward, so the Venetian ghetto was given permission to build taller buildings.

In one of those tall buildings is the oldest elevator in Venice, built by a man whose wife couldn't walk all the way up the stairs to their apartment anymore, and he refused to put her in a nursing home. He read about elevators, so he saved up his money and put one in so that he and his wife could continue to live together.

If you are visiting Venice not for the usual one day, but staying there to actually visit, the ghetto and the cemetery on the Lido are on the list of things to do. It is interesting that now the Biennale has an exhibit to make people aware of this.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/30/a...e=sectionfront
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Old May 31, 2017, 3:11 pm
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Great article and I was so happy to discover that the exhibit discussed will be only a few steps away from where I will be staying in November: http://www.querinistampalia.org/ita/home_page.php
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