In the
afternoon (5pm), attended the annual concert for the yearend (concerto di Capodanno) at Teatro La Fenice;
it was a late decision: we have been sitting in better places before but this
time we had to buy tickets in person the day before (I had tried on line much
before but it did not work!) We were
rewarded though by beautiful music (aria from Puccini and Verdi, with the
orchestra and the choir of the theatre and a few renowned soloists). We had
booked dinner at a very small place (a few tables and the kitchen) in the
Castello district – CoVino (hinted
by the NYT!): what a great choice it turned out to be! Spectacular! The food
(we had as starters the soup and the pasta, and as main course, the mullet and ...), the wine (a glass of Proseco – the best Cy
ever had! – and a bottle of light red from Linguria), the original maître d’
and host, Andreas, (the son of the brewer who did the natural Proseco, Mauro Laurenzon)
and the company (a couple from Australia, with their 3 pre-teen children)!
The day after,
we went back early to the piazza San Marco, to visit the Basilica; (while there, read parts of a 1989 Michelin green guide
on Italy on the basilica; see also St.Mark’s Basilica by Maria Da Villa
Urbani and titbits in Venise, Insolite et Secrète) spend a good part of
2 hours there before coming back to the B&B, to get direction (and
reservations!) for lunch at fiaschetteria Toscana (recommended by Alyssa at the B&B): excellent! Cy had a starter
and a simple pasta with truffle as main dish; I had a pasta with shrimps as an
entrée, and a grilled sea bass as main course + a bottle of white wine from the
same region (near Trieste in Firuli-Venezia Giulia, close to the border with former Yugoslavia) as yesterday, an unfiltered
2011 bottle from the winemaker Zidarich (Malvasia grapes).
That evening (before
our departure at 4:15am!), we spend it at the opera – Il Barbiere di Siviglia –
unusually played for a very small audience in a palace (Palazzo Barbarigo-Minotto
which faces the Grand Canal - two different buildings that merged in the XVIIth
century - and has become the base of “Musica a Palazzo”, the association we had
to become members of to attend the opera!), going from one room to the other (3
times)!
Slept very
little to take the water-taxi that came in the middle of the night to pick us
up and take us to the airport!
December 31,2014
