Venetian Hours: Sant’Erasmo, the Vegetable Garden of Venice
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Venetian Hours: Torcello
Venetian Hours
A sunny day in Torcello, the birthplace of Venice, the island to which the Veneti fled from the barbarians.
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Venetian Hours: French Venice
Venetian Hours: Franco-Venice and French Cuisine
French Food in Venice
The Venetians might have ruled much of the refined sugar trade in Europe, but by the eighteenth century, they were importing French pastry techniques. “Count Cavour, the first prime minister of a united Italy,” sent his personal chef to be trained in France, while the Italian royal family was eating macaroni à la Parisienne.
Today, the French influence is best seen at the Tonolo pasticceria in the San Polo neighborhood, which won a gold medal in Paris for its sweet focaccia in 1909 and has some of the best coffee in Venice. To say this is a Venetian establishment would be grossly understating it. And it wasn’t the Paris-Brest that hooked me on Tonolo so many years ago: it was the quality of absolutely everything they make, from their coffee to their Venetian pastries to their cream-filled pastries. It was the extreme care taken with the presentation and visual aspects — something many Venetian pastry chefs lack, despite the good taste. After living in France for so long, I immediately felt right at home in Tonolo, so familiar, reminding of my youth when I discovered mille-feuilles and éclairs and tried new pastries every day.
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Venice from a Cruise Ship
Venice Photo Diary: Venice from a Cruise Ship
Photo by Mark Wood
Does the fact that this was taken from a cruise ship make it any less beautiful?
Cruise ships in Venice have long been a source of complaint and worry. Venetians complain of too many tourists, making their city unliveable. Cruise ships are too large for the shallow waters, and contribute to the gradual rise in tide that is contributing to the erosion of the city’s foundations. Ships ruin the view and are an eyesore. Shall we continue?
In 2014, the Italian offices banned “skyscrapers” of the sea, i.e. cruise ships,Saint Mark’s basin and the Giudecca Canal Venice, proposing alternative routes. This ban was in application of regulations passed in 2013 saying no cruise ships over 96,000 tons were to be permitted entry in the Venice lagoon, with the goal of reducing all cruise ships over 40,000 tons by twenty percent in one year. The city’s regional court of appeal overturned this earlier this year, limiting the number of cruise ships over this weight limit to five per day.
Yes, Mark Wood took this photo from a cruise ship, and, with a good, expensive lens, one could take just as beautiful a photo from the San Giorgio Maggiore tower, although I haven’t yet seen one as good. Does that take away from the beauty of his photo?
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