Churches in Venice

Another large and well-loved shrine in Castello, this one has three statues inside - Mary, Christ, and a nun-saint who is probably Santa Rita. This one has double doors - the wooden ones which were open and then the glass-fronted doors which were closed and locked. Love the white roses and lace curtains.

There's an old vintage black-and-white photo of this shrine inside the shrine, with the caption "Tanto Tempo Fa" ....."So Long Ago."

Next in my series of big shrines in Castello, this one has a chalet feel to it with its shingled roof and wooden doors. As I was peering inside the window of this shrine, a local resident strolled over to check me out. He/she posed for a photo and then ran over to a nearby house, jumped in the window, and went inside.

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "Stripes."

I've got one from Venice and one from North Carolina this week.

First up, boat poles in a Venetian canal:

And an old-timey barber shop pole in NC. That's me reflected in the metal part of the bottom. :)

You can find more Photo Hunters and join the hunt here.

Have a great weekend everyone. Happy PhotoHunting!

I stayed in Chapel Hill after Saturday night's game and yesterday morning, I went and walked around campus and town for a while before I drove home. I'll be heading back over there after work today (and this day is dragging!). Thanks everyone for all the well wishes for my Heels!

Here are a few photos I took yesterday. The UNC- Chapel Hill campus is so beautiful, especially in spring.

Lots of Hoopla downtown on Franklin Street

There's a building downtown with all these gargoyles on the roof, flying the Tar Heel flag

Nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina when the Heels WIN IT ALL!

And it was so great that instead of a nail-biter, we got a nice relaxing old fashioned BLOW OUT of a game! What an awesome team. I'm so happy for those players.

Dancing in the Streets of Chapel Hill last night with 40,000 fellow Tar Heel fans

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "Triangle."

Many triangles decorate the apse of the Basilica dei Santi Maria e Donato (also known as San Donato di Murano), a church built in 1140 on the island of Murano in the Venetian lagoon.

This is one of the oldest and finest churches in Venice. Inside, there's a beautiful golden mosaic of Mary, and amazing multi-colored Byzantine mosaic floors with foilage and peacocks.

You can find more Photo Hunters and join the hunt here. A few more photos of the church are below the jump.

Happy holiday weekend and happy Spring!

This 1898 watercolour by Maurice Prendergast shows the Easter Procession inside the Basilica di San Marco. Easter is one of the high holy days when they turn the Pala d'Oro around to face the congregation, and I bet that the church will be full today for Mass.

Coming soon: another post about Prendergast and an upcoming show of his work at the Peggy Guggenheim museum in Venice.

I plan to spend part of this holiday weekend "in Venice" with Guido Brunetti via the latest Donna Leon mystery, just released this month. There's not much that's better than having a new book that you really want to read!

Here's a BBC interview with Donna Leon and Toni Sepeder (author of Brunetti's Venice, a book of walking tours based on the mystery series).

Happy Easter, Happy Passover, Happy Spring!

Back to big shrines...I wrote about this one last year, and I revisited it this past December and took more photos. It's one of my very favorites.

To visit the shrine, you walk through the very charming Campiello de Ca' Sarasina. Love those flower pots on the building. You can see the open green door of the shrine on the right.

A shrine and some laundry. Doesn't get much better than this. :)

There's lots of stuff inside this shrine but the central image is a framed Byzantine-looking Black Madonna adorned with votive jewelry. She does NOT want to be photographed (I've tried twice and failed!).

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "Purple."

A few of the purples of Spring time.

A couple of crocus:

A spring sunset in my backyard:

Wisteria

Even though this vine borders on being a noxious weed, I love it, and it's blooming like mad right now. So beautiful and it smells amazing!

You can find more Photo Hunters and join the hunt here.

Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend!

Also known as San Giuseppe di Castello, this church was built in 1512 by the Venetian Senate in response to popular demand for a church dedicated to Joseph, father of Jesus. The church complex also included a small convent and three cloisters for Augustinian nuns from Verona.

In 1801 the convent was taken over by Salesian nuns who opened a girl’s boarding school. Today the convent is a Nautical Institute while the church is a still consecrated and active parish church, though currently undergoing restoration.

Maurice Prendergast (1859-1924) was a Canadian-born American painter whose work spanned the transition from Impressionism to Modernism. I found this press release about an upcoming exhibition, Prendergast in Italy, that sounds quite interesting especially since it will be at the Guggenheim in Venice next fall and winter. I like his watercolors but have never seen any of them in person; if I end up returning to Venice later this year, I’ll definitely go see this show. Most of the paintings included in the exhibition are of Venice but there are also views of Rome, Siena, and Capri.

The exhibition opens on July 18, 2009 at Williams College Museum of Art in Williamstown, MA, where it runs until September 20. From the WCMA website:

"Prendergast in Italy traces the footsteps of Maurice Prendergast as he painted his way through Italy in 1898-1899 and through Venice again in 1911. Approximately seventy watercolors, oils, and monotypes by Maurice Prendergast will be on view, along with related letters, prints, photographs, films, guidebooks, and sketchbooks to situate the work within the new visual culture that Americans had embraced by 1900."

Here's the schedule after Williamstown:

Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (October 9, 2009-January 3, 2010)
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (February 14-May 9, 2010.)

A few of his Venetian scenes (I don't know if these are in the show or not, they are just some that I like).

Campo Santa Maria Formosa

Earth Day 2009: The Green Generation

A few photos from the Earth Day parade that I went to this past weekend at Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance in Silk Hope, NC. It's such a wonderful festival in beautiful rural North Carolina - I heard lots of great music but this parade was my favorite part. Puppets created by NC artists/activists Paperhand Puppet Intervention whose mission statement includes:

Our vision is inspired by our love for the earth and its creatures (including humans) as well as our belief in justice, equality, and peace.

This week's PhotoHunt theme is "Protect(ion)."

This is a bottle tree. An old African folkloric tradition - put a bottle tree in your yard to protect your home and family from bad spirits who will be attracted to the shiny colors and get trapped inside the bottles.

You can find more Photo Hunters and join the hunt here.

Thanks for visiting and have a nice weekend.

Spring is here, and the Slow Travel cooks have finished with soup and are moving onto salad! And thanks to Eden of Eden's Wonderings and Wanderings, we've gotten off to a great start.

Back in March, Eden blogged about The Search for Blood Oranges and the beautiful salad she created once she found them. I was lucky because I found them at the first place I looked (Whole Foods). Then I went to the Farmer's Market and bought strawberries, asparagus, and a baby letttuce mix with violets in it. I also added some avocado, gorgonzola, and toasted pine nuts, and made a Strawberry Vinaigrette that was wonderful. Recipes are below.

Thanks Eden! And thanks to Maria I of My Place in the Sun for making the nice salad logo for us.

Some of the shrines in Venice are very elegant while others are more homespun. This Castello shrine is kind of a mix - there's an intriquing old relief of the Mother and Child inside but the tabernacle and its dusty silk flowers are more charming and folksy than elegant.

This tiny ancient chapel is known as "Il Capitello" and is inside the Basilica di San Marco, near the left aisle, and houses a miracle-working cruxifix of Byzantine origin.

I found this vintage photo on Flickr where the Architecture Library of Notre Dame has posted thousands of old photos from around the world. I was excited to find it because I'd never seen a photograph of this little chapel before.