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Alan’s View

March 2010

On The Road: The Venice Trifecta

OK, raise your hand if you missed Venice’s Carnivale last month!  If you did, I hope it was because you were on location at one of my other two picks (published in February’s Night+Day) for the world’s best carnival events, Trinidad or New Orleans. Well, whatever your reason might be for not being in Venice during its most exciting moments, I’ve got some good news for you. First, it will happen again next year!  And more importantly, Carnivale is not the only peak experience time for Venice.

Of course, Venice is worthy of a visit any time of year. But sometime around the first full weekend in September, in odd-numbered years, there is an unusual alignment of the stars—the stars of film, art, and gondoliers—that I call the Venice Trifecta. Three events, none of which reaches peak-experience status on its own (except for aficionados of the genre), collide to make Venice one of the most fun, exciting, and interesting places on the planet: the Regatta Historico, the Biennale, and the Venice Film Festival.

Each year the Regatta takes place on the first Sunday of September, and the Film Festival starts on the first Wednesday of September and lasts12 days. The Biennale runs every other year, from June through November. In fact, the film fest falls under the Biennale umbrella, as do the annual contemporary music festival, and the biannual architecture exhibition, theater festival and dance festival.

Biennale

Given its number of museums and art galleries, it’s easy to forget that Venice is a small town, with a population of only 60,000—which makes the Biennale (labiennale.org), which draws 400,000 visitors, all the more remarkable. The Wall Street Journal calls this event “the Olympics of the contemporary art world.” With 30 permanent country pavilions and more than 40 temporary venues, along with dozens of ancillary art exhibits, this is sensory overload… and loads of fun. It’s a treasure hunt that challenges, inspires, and entertains, with cutting-edge art exhibitions (see this website for good photos from 2009) showing up in both unexpected venues (the Fondamenta Rezzonico and Sala San Tomaso) and the usual suspects (the Giardini and the Aresenale, both near St. Mark’s Square). Going in September means you’ll miss the opening parties (if you could get in) and the art-world elite who attend, but you also miss the crowds viewing the art.

Historical Regatta (Regata Storica)

Like Carnivale, the Regatta (veneziamarketingeventi.it) dates back to around 1300, when it served as a ceremonial event to honor visiting dignitaries or military victories. These days it combines a water parade evoking the 15th century with locally critical (think Super Bowl, or closer to home, the Palio in Siena) gondola races on the Grand Canal. If you’ve got “O Sole Mio” accordion-playing gondola rides in mind, you are going to be thrilled by the speed and precision of these gondoliers (although, I wouldn’t mind seeing a competition for best singing gondolier, either). The event takes an entire afternoon, but unless you’re Venetian, 90 minutes sitting alongside the canal will be more than sufficient time. There are high-priced lunches at hotels and restaurants along the route. Even better, walk the route (or as close as you can get), because seeing these boats in front of the changing Venetian background is great spectacle.

Venice Film Festival

Intellectually, I’ve never understood the attraction people have to stargazing, but bumping into famous movie people in restaurants, bars, your hotel lobby, or on a vaporetto adds another level excitement to just being in Venice. We went to the Cip bar in the Hotel Cipriani for a nightcap during the Film Festival (labiennale.org/cinema) and were enjoying the background sounds of a terrific piano player. Then, after a brief pause, the music continued with “The Way We Were,” and people started getting up from their tables to watch. Curiosity got us to join the crowd, and watch Marvin Hamlisch, the song’s writer, playing piano while George Clooney (in Venice to promote Up in the Air) sang. Not a bad encore to dinner at Locanda Martin at the table next to Michael Moore (Capitalism: A Love Story) and his so-low-key entourage.

Most of the Film Fest action takes place on Venice’s Lido, the small island about a 10-minute vaporetto ride from St. Marks’ Square, which is home to the permanent (Palazzo del Cinema) and temporary (PalaBiennale) festival theaters. The Hotel Cipriani & Palazzo Vendramin (hotelcipriani.com), thanks both to its luxuriousness and location, houses and entertains many of the elite, although the Westin Excelsior (also Lido) and San Clemente Palace Hotel & Resort (a short boat ride away) have their fair share of star appearances as well. Of course, many people also choose to stay in Venice central, at grand luxe properties like Bauer Il Palazzo, Luna Hotel Baglioni, Bauer Palladio Hotel & Spa, Danieli, Gritti Palace, and Europa & Regina. For something with a more contemporary feel I like the Ca’ Pisani Hotel.

I can’t say I particularly enjoy dining in Venice—there are plenty of good restaurants but the cost-to-quality ratio is rarely satisfying.  However, I do make a point of going to Lineadombra on each visit, a notable exception.

The 2011 Trifecta will start with the Regatta on Sept. 4 and end with the opening of the Film Fest on Sept. 7. If you can’t wait until 2011 to go to Venice, you could catch the opening of the Film Fest on Sept. 1 this year and end your visit with the Regatta on Sept. 5. Either way, four days is perfect for a visit that also includes the highlights of Venice.

Buon viaggio!