Janie and I met in August 1992. Our first overseas travel together was a short trip to Venice, in early December that year.
I didn’t keep a written log on that trip, but we did take some photographs and make up a small album, which is captioned and which you can see by clicking here or on the photo above.
Janie wore the travelling trousers in those days. She bought a little guide book and scribbled some notes in it.
So from the photos and the guide book we have today (3 December 2017, 25 years later) tried to reconstruct our memories of this little trip.
We didn’t have enormous success with Janie’s hand-written list of eateries above:
- Caffè Florian – we indulged ourselves with a coffee but not much more;
- Trattoria Alla Madonna – we recall failing to get a booking there. Other trattorias are and were available – we did eat well in Venice, but not there;
- Harry’s Bar – we had coffee, cake and a Bellini, because apparently that’s what you must do there;
- Gritti Palace – mercifully the top restaurant was closed. I say mercifully, because even the coffee we had in the Gritti Palace bar was, as I described it in my photo caption, probably the most expensive cuppa in the world. We had also hoped to visit the Peggy Gugenheim in that part of town, but that was closed for a refurb at the time.
More successfully, we stayed in the Bauer Grunwald, now renamed the Bauer Palazzo; we absolutely loved it there.
I considered adding my two-penneth to the TripAdvisor reviews, but thought that a 25 year old review might not have sufficient merit. The Bauer still gets great reviews. We were pushing our financial boat out staying in a place like that back then – we both remember it being our first taste of staying in a big room with an enormous emperor-sized bed.
But, extraordinary as it might seem, we also went out of the room on several occasions and did a rather a lot around Venice, enjoying a mixture of sun and rain during our outings, as evidenced in the photos.
If the labelled, album stack of 26 photos (above) is insufficient for you, the entire library of our Venice photos, “uncut”, is also available – click below:
The photographic evidence and Janie’s markings in the book suggest we did a lot of the usual Venice things:
- The Doges’ Palace;
- St Mark’s Basilica;
- The Frari;
- Rialto Bridge;
- The Ghetto (I recall seeing it and on one evening eating around there too);
- Clock Tower;
- Accademia? – not sure we got that far through the list;
- Museum of 18th Century Venice? – not sure we got that far through the list either;
- Murano – yes – we have photographic evidence of that one, and we still have a glass bowl in the bathroom from there, holding the cotton wool, apparently;
- Scuola Grande Di San Rocco – again with evidence:
Also, of course, we wandered around a lot, looking at markets and trying to imagine Death In Venice (in my case) or Don’t Look Now (in Janie’s).
We had a great time. We decided we wanted to explore more places together afterwards, which is a happy ending…
…far more than can be said about the movies that were stuck in our heads.
I blocked out five nights/six days in my diary for this trip but in the end we only went for three nights/four days and went stright on to Annalisa’s party on our return on the Sunday. It’s as if we spent our life in speeded up mode back then – in our relative dotage, we’d never try to fit anything like so much in.