Showing posts with label Venice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Venice. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Travel Tales From The Past: A Venetian Diddler



As an avid reader, I make it a habit of mine to regularly scan through the new additions to that great online collection of public domain books at the Gutenberg.Org website. Currently there are more than 54,000 titles available on the site, and all are free to download (in the ePub and Kindle format), or read online.

Today, on a whim I decided to check out the September 5, 1840 edition of The Irish Penny Journal, and to my delight found the following cautionary tale from a mister Michael Kelly who recounted his experience with a Venetian scammer.

Note: Wikipedia explains that a zecchino or sequin, was "...a gold coin weighing 3.5 grams (0.12 oz) of gold." It was minted by the Republic of Venice from the 13th century onwards.

Oh, and a Capon is a rooster that has been castrated to improve the quality of its flesh for food - although, I hasten to add, not the quality of its sex life! But I digress. Let's get on with our cautionary tale...


* * * 

A Venetian Diddler
When in Venice, I had but two zecchinos left wherewith to fight my way through this wicked world. My spirits for the first time deserted me: I never passed so miserable a night in my life, and in shame of my “doublet and hose,” I felt very much inclined to “cry like a child.”

While tossing on my pillow, however, I chanced to recollect a letter which my landlord of Bologna, Signor Passerini, had given me to a friend of his, a Signor Andrioli; for, as he told me, he thought the introduction might be of use to me.

In the morning I went to the Rialto coffee-house, to which I was directed by the address of the letter. Here I found the gentleman who was the object of my search. After reading my credentials very graciously, he smiled, and requested me to take a turn with him in the Piazza St Marc. He was a fine-looking man, of about sixty years of age. I remarked there was an aristocratic manner about him, and he wore a very large tie-wig, well powdered, with an immensely long tail. He addressed me with a benevolent and patronizing air, and told me that he should be delighted to be of service to me, and bade me from that moment consider myself under his protection. “A little business,” said he, “calls me away at this moment, but if you will meet me here at two o’clock, we will adjourn to my cassino, where, if you can dine on one dish, you will perhaps do me the favour to partake of a boiled capon and rice. I can only offer you that; perhaps a rice soup, for which my cook is famous; and it may be just one or two little things not worth mentioning.”

A boiled capon—rice soup—other little things, thought I—manna in the wilderness! I strolled about, not to get an appetite, for that was ready, but to kill time. My excellent, hospitable, long-tailed friend was punctual to the moment; I joined him, and proceeded towards his residence.

As we were bending our steps thither, we happened to pass a luganigera’s (a ham-shop), in which there was some ham ready dressed in the window. My powdered patron paused,—it was an awful pause; he reconnoitred, examined, and at last said, “Do you know, Signor, I was thinking that some of that ham would eat deliciously with our capon:—I am known in this neighbourhood, and it would not do for me to be seen buying ham. But do you go in, my child, and get two or three pounds of it, and I will walk on and wait for you.”

I went in of course, and purchased three pounds of the ham, to pay for which I was obliged to change one of my two zecchinos. I carefully folded up the precious viand, and rejoined my excellent patron, who eyed the relishing slices with the air of a gourmand; indeed, he was somewhat diffuse in his own dispraise for not having recollected to order his servant to get some before he left home. During this peripatetic lecture on gastronomy, we happened to pass a cantina, in plain English, a wine-cellar. At the door he made another full stop.

“In that house,” said he, “they sell the best Cyprus wine in Venice—peculiar wine—a sort of wine not to be had any where else; I should like you to taste it; but I do not like to be seen buying wine by retail to carry home; go in yourself; buy a couple of flasks, and bring them to my cassino; nobody hereabouts knows you, and it won’t signify in the least.”

This last request was quite appalling; my pocket groaned to its very centre; however, recollecting that I was on the high road to preferment, and that a patron, cost what he might, was still a patron, I made the plunge, and, issuing from the cantina, set forward for my venerable friend’s cassino, with three pounds of ham in my pocket, and a flask of wine under each arm.

I continued walking with my excellent long-tailed patron, expecting every moment to see an elegant, agreeable residence, smiling in all the beauties of nature and art; when, at last, in a dirty miserable lane, at the door of a tall dingy-looking house, my Mæcenas stopped, indicated that we had reached our journey’s end, and, marshalling me the way that I should go, began to mount three flights of sickening stairs, at the top of which I found his cassino: it was a little Cas, and a deuce of a place to boot; in plain English, it was a garret. The door was opened by a wretched old miscreant, who acted as cook, and whose drapery, to use a gastronomic simile, was “done to rags.”

Upon a ricketty apology for a table were placed a tattered cloth, which once had been white, and two plates; and presently in came a large bowl of boiled rice.

“Where’s the capon?” said my patron to his man.

“Capon!” echoed the ghost of a servant; “the——”

“Has not the rascal sent it?” cried the master.

“Rascal!” repeated the man, apparently terrified.

“I knew he would not,” exclaimed my patron, with an air of exultation, for which I saw no cause. “Well, well, never mind, put down the ham and the wine; with those and the rice, I dare say, young gentleman, you will be able to make it out. I ought to apologise, but in fact it is all your own fault that there is not more; if I had fallen in with you earlier, we should have had a better dinner.”

I confess I was surprised, disappointed, and amused; but as matters stood, there was no use in complaining, and accordingly we fell to, neither of us wanting the best of all sauces—appetite.

I soon perceived that my promised patron had baited his trap with a fowl to catch a fool; but as we ate and drank, all care vanished, and, rogue as I suspected him to be, my long-tailed friend was a clever witty fellow, and, besides telling me a number of anecdotes, gave me some very good advice; amongst other things to be avoided, he cautioned me against numbers of people who in Venice lived only by duping the unwary. I thought this counsel came very ill from him. “Above all,” said he, “keep up your spirits, and recollect the Venetian proverb, ‘A hundred years of melancholy will not pay one farthing of debt.’”—Reminiscences of Michael Kelly.

* * *
For other cautionary tales of travel scams, read One Ring To Scam Us All, and Another City, Another Scam.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Armchair Travel: Venice In A Day



Joerg Niggli's creative interests include producing time-lapse movies using his own video footage and photographs. The films on his Vimeo page provide stunning images of Jordan via his videos of Amman, Petra, and Wadi Rum, while other videos include a hot air balloon flight over the Swiss and French Alps, and today's Armchair Travel video documenting a day in Venice, Italy.

Venice is one of the most interesting and lovely places in the world. Visitors with a special interest in architecture will find much to delight and occupy them, with a seemingly endless array of stunning architecturally significant buildings on every narrow street or facing the many canals that make Venice such a special experience. The city is virtually the same as it was six hundred years ago, which adds to its fascinating character, and although Venice has decayed since its heyday, the city's romantic charm remains to fascinate and seduce millions of annual visitors.

The Republic of Venice dates back to 827, when a Byzantine Duke moved to what is now known as the Rialto, and for the following 970 years, the city prospered as a centre for trade under the rule of a Roman-style Senate headed by the Doge. In 1797, the city was conquered by Napoleon, a blow from which it never fully recovered. Today, Venice remains a monument to the glory days of the Renaissance, and Joerg Niggli has captured the city’s charm, beauty, and stunning buildings magnificently in his short film.

Joerg writes, “A day in Venice (Venezia) in Italy, from daybreak to sunset in time lapse. It's really a great place and I hope I can share some of its magic with this short video.” Rest assured Joerg, you have.

The video was part of the selection of Artfutura 2012 and will be shown in large cities around the world.

Music: «Heart of Champions», Chris Haigh, with a licence from premiumbeat.com. 

Joerg Niggli adds that the video was recorded mostly using a Canon G10, with some wide angle shots taken with a Canon 7D. Post production was completed in Motion, After Effects, and edited and graded in Final Cut Pro X.

More Information

Monday, March 23, 2009

How to Live Like a Local in Italy

~ How To Experience Local Family Life On Your Trip In Italy
by Margaret Cowan

Today on vacations in Italy, travelers want to experience real, local life in a meaningful ways with families, to visit their homes, share pieces of their lives, learn new things and even make new friends.

Four ways to get to know locals are cooking with families in their homes, taking a course and renting a room in a local home, staying at a farm B & B, and dining with families in their homes through Home Food.

1. Take a cooking class or cooking school tour with a family in their home kitchen
Here's an example of a delicious cooking school in Bologna, Italy's gastronomic capital.
For your cooking week you live in an independent apartment in the medieval centre, next door to your host family's home, so you live like a local and have local friends nearby.

With the mother and daughter, both excellent home cooks, you cook full menu dinners hands on for about three hours in three lessons in their kitchen. Then you gather around the dining table to eat your creations with the father, sons and your two cooking teachers, sharing laughter and good conversation. You soon feel part of the family!

Your cooking teacher tours you around Bologna's food market, telling you about local food treasures like parmesan cheese and buying ingredients for your lesson. Your week also includes a Bologna city tour and a day trip to Florence or Venice where a local guide shows you the sights. You can also enjoy a one day experience with market visit, cooking class and lunch.

2. Take a course and ask for home stay accommodation
In 1996 I took a month long Italian language course in Rome and asked the language school to get me a room with a family where nobody spoke English. They matched me up with Lucia, a 45 year old high school art teacher, architect and single mother of two kids, aged 8 and 16 in their apartment near the Vatican.

At first Lucia was surprised to see a woman her age arrive, not the usual 22 year old student. We discovered we had a lot in common, had many long conversations in her kitchen and became friends. For 12 years, I've visited Lucia, shared many meals around tables with her friends and taken trips to Naples and her country home in Le Marche with them.

Take a course, stay with a local family in your favourite Italian city! You never know what lovely surprises may come out of the experience!

3. Stay on at a farm B & B or apartment where the owners live on the property
If you're renting a car to explore the Italian countryside, stay in agriturismos (farm B&Bs or apartments). Many agriturismo owners make wine and olive oil. You may want to help pick grapes or olives at harvest time!

To make sure you meet the owners, confirm they live on the property so you'll get to know them. For example, in southern Tuscany about nine km south of Montalcino, Agriturismo Podere La Fonte offers two small suites in the country with marvellous views of Val d'Orcia. The organic property full of exotic plants and trees, birds and a chemical free swimming pool, has many olive trees. Owner Alberto makes olive oil the traditional way using the big granite wheel.

Friendly, joyful Alberto and his wife make your breakfast and can make dinner for you. Alberto is a fantastic cook and gives cooking lessons too.

4. Eat traditional dishes with families in homes all over Italy through Home Food
Imagine yourself arriving at 8:30 p.m. at a family's home in Venice. The mother, Mercedes, whom you don't know, welcomes you warmly to share a dinner of traditional Venetian dishes she's just cooked for you. You join her and up to five food loving tourists you may not know around her table through the Home Food organization.

You savour dry cod with polenta (a dish from the 1500s), risotto with radicchio from Treviso, sardines with saor (fried onions, wine, vinegar, pine nuts, raisins) that fishermen in the 14th century made, vegetables in oil and pincia, a soft cake of bread soaked in milk with raisins and apple.

As you eat and drink local wines, you learn about Venetian culinary traditions and history and get to know a local family as well as fellow food lovers.

Home Food started in Bologna in 2004 and spread to 14 regions in Italy. Its mission is to preserve traditional recipes and food traditions handed down from mothers to daughters and to share these dishes and local food culture with food lovers.

About 100 women throughout Italy, all excellent home cooks with a wealth of food knowledge, enthusiastically open their homes for scheduled dinners for small groups. Visit the Home Food website to know more and register for dinners.

Have fun cooking, speaking Italian, picking grapes or olives and dining with Italian families at their homes! You'll experience genuine Italian life as an insider friend and soon feel Italian!

About the Author
Since 1995 Margaret Cowan has owned a tour company, Mama Margaret & Friends Cooking Adventures in Italy. For a free report on finding the right Italy cooking school tour for you, see
Italy Cooking Schools.
Thanks to Margaret, and Go Articles for the use of this entry...
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