Home » Italy » 4. day. The Guggenheim Museum and a visit to Antonio's.

The Guggenheim Collection

Today Helle is the early riser and we're at the breakfast table a few minutes past 8. There are new guests every day; most seem to stay for 1-3 days only and with so few guests you cannot help notice.

4. day. The Guggenheim Museum and a visit to Antonio's.

Eric
2005-12-08 19:28:06

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philosophical matters. Antonio is a retired math teacher and a bit absent-minded in his eagerness: "What can I show you? What can I show you?" he repeats and piles books on the table while telling their history and how they came into his care or possession. From time to time I discreetly save some bottom-books from the burden of latter times and put them aside.

At some point Antonio's son in law is on the phone. We go into the living room to chat with Cristina, and when Antonio returns we say goodbye. Antonio joins us, or more precisely: we follow Antonio. On the way he shows us a storage room in the basement with piles of boxes that all contain chess books.
Antonio In The Lead

Antonio takes the lead with vigour and has a story about everything we see on our way. Around the corner we see the house where he was born in 1942, and soon we loose all sense of direction in this labyrinth of crooked alleys. There's no end to Antonio's stories and just around the next corner is always another exciting item - if we have got ten minutes?

Of course we have got ten minutes - this is gold and Antonio is a gifted storyteller. Among other things we visit Scuola Grande di San Marco, where Antonio boldly takes us to the hospital grounds. "Tourists never come here", he says, "but the manager is a chess player, so we'll be okay!" Keeping in mind that the hospital is hundreds of years old and built before concrete was reinvented it is an impressive building: large, architecturally impressive and with beautiful marble floor mosaics and a peaceful garden bordered by a colonnade.

Helle makes an attempt to befriend a hospi-cat in the garden and Antonio says with a grin that the cats of Venice never catch a rat, but that rats stay away if there's a cat! Maybe that is why they never catch any.

We continue our criss-cross towards Rialto and Antonio often greets people he knows. Many are old pupils and at least twice we meet a chess player and I am introduced formally as "un maestro danese".

Rialto, the birthplace of modern banking (58 kb)Antonio takes us across the Rialto Bridge and we enter the square in front of the oldest church in town. The bell tower has one of the peculiar clocks with 24 hours. This spot, Antonio explains, was the birthplace of modern banking; in the days of glory a courier could deliver a voucher from Venice to Istanbul in just seven days. And close to this spot, which Chase Manhattan, Deutsche Bank and many others owe gratitude, we say goodbye to Antonio, who just manages to catch a traghetto across Canal Grande and thus save 20 minutes' walk. If you want to try a gondola ride you can cross Canal Grande for half a Euro, whereas a ride in one of the tourist gondolas is a very expensive matter.

Feeling spent we settle for a tourist menu at La Spada very close to the hotel. The food is honest and cheap, but doesn't deserve elaborate description. Sitting outside we are not the only ones to enjoy a tourist menu; local mosquitoes feast on Helle's ankles and are discovered too late. My skin is also punctured in a few places, but contrary to Helle I am immune and do not swell or itch.

Just across the street at Osteria Vivaldi we enjoy a goodnight beer and then it is off to bed - it has been a long day.