06-09-16 Quite Day in Venice (with rain)

Herb Garden Docent interest kicked in, and Janeen wanted to see the Palazzo museum with emphasis on perfume ,Palazzo Mocenigo.    The display covering the four perfume “families” woody, floral, oriental, and fresh (like lemon)had scent and product examples and also covered an interactive display explaining the different distillation methods used for each type of source. One room also displayed a perfume organ used for blending perfumes and distilling apparatus . 

Surrounding the display room were cabinets containing a superb collection of perfume bottles over centuries, especially the Venician glass ones acquired by one family. The display in the lobby will be auctioned off in October. Venice monopolized the eastern perfume and scent trade during its reign of all things eastern. This week also included lace makers exhibiting their craft and historic samples , including Burano   

Mecenigo family portraits framed in gilt ,rooms full of ornate furnishings and Murano glass chandeliers and household tableware set on embellished cloth were on the upstairs floor.        

With rain threatening, we headed for the restaurant Antiche Carampane for an earlier seating of our lunch reservation.     We were unable to eat there last night because Georgio Armani was hosting a private party to celebrate a new opening. David put us in the hands of the staff for house specialties: starting with cone shaped paper with little tiny flash fried shrimps   followed by smoked scallops appetizer,  squid ink baby squid in house made tagatelle   ,   Primo, then Sea Bass grilled ,   Segundo, paired with a northern Italian Fruili white wine,   followed by cheese,   espresso with biscuits and grappa (longest list of grappa selections I have ever seen.)

Although we spent the full 2 hours over lunch, we were close to our room and made it back in “sprinkles” before the skies opened into thunderstorms causing a brief power outage (lost our net jazz music, but that was all we ‘suffered’) Lazy rainy afternoon, a real luxury for drought tired soCal residents.

  This   Gondolier is anxious to get out of the rain – not much business.