Harpers and Queen, September 2003Walk like a VenetianCatherine Fairweather ...Renting your own apartment will make you feel more connected to local life. Accept that you will most certainly get lost on the first day trying to locate it; getting lost in Venice is an important rite of passage, and an unexpected treat. It forces you to interact in Italian for directions, and invariably brings you into some glorious, peaceful piazza or campo that you would never have known existed if you hadn't misjudged the turning home. On my most recent visit to the city, however, we chose to forgo the challenge of map-reading and waterbus timetables, and went for the safest option of hiring our own motorboat and boatman to guide us from the airport to our residence. And it does feel very glamorous, to be picked up beyond the runway by speedboat and to be deposited with all your luggage at the front door of your very own 16th century palazzo. Our apartment, the Terrazza Ca' d'Oro, was on a turretted top floor, and oozed authentic charm in spades; the faded grandeur of the decor in the living rooms, with their traditional terrazzo marble floors listing canalwards, and with no corner at a right angle, and the fruity smell of the plumbing. And since we were doing our best to live like Venetians - rather grand ones in this case, surrounded by cabinets of antique Murano glass etched with dynastic crests, framed family trees, worn Oriental carpets, and shutters opening onto views over small canals and terracotta rooftops - we took the opportunity to christen the master bedroom - which everyone fought over) with a siesta... Read the whole article in September's Harpers and Queen. |
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