Venice - The late great Canaletto expert and furrier (Keeper of the Queen’s Furs, no less) J. G. Links once recalled how a friend returned from Venice and claimed he was “disappointed”.
“I must say I envied him his power of imagination,” proffered Links.
History doesn’t relate what time of year his friend visited, but I would hazard a guess it was June, July or August, when the queue to enter the Basilica of San Marco is even longer than that for Space Mountain at Disneyland Paris.
The canals can smell in summer, too, while all over the city there’s the unmistakable whiff of fiscal opportunism. Cruise ships dump their human cargo indiscriminately every morning and cappuccinos cost a fiver in kitsch cafes playing O Sole Mio over and over again.
But there’s a solution. Go in winter. The colder the better, mist or shine. This is when Venetians reclaim their promised land, when little boys kick footballs against 14th-century walls, when restaurants shut their doors and glow from within, when you stand all alone in front of Titian’s Assumption at the Frari.
The art dealer Jack Wakefield has described Venice as a “10 000-carat jewel set by the greatest ever goldsmith pinned to the breast of the most beautiful woman to have lived”. That’s precisely what we felt last weekend as our water taxi moored outside the 450-year-old Palazzo Papadopoli — now the new Aman hotel on the Grand Canal near the Rialto Bridge.
There are just 24 gorgeous rooms, many with original ceiling frescoes, oak parquet floors and exquisite chandeliers, all off-set by Aman’s trademark contemporary style. The Count and Countess Arrivabene (what a name) still own the building and live on the top floor.
We had three main goals: to see an opera at the Fenice, to visit one or two of Venice’s secret gardens, and to drink a bellini in the bar of the Gritti Palace. As it happened, we attempted all three in one day.
We’ve had Jenny Condie’s The Gardens Of Venice And The Veneto book for several months to fire our imagination. But make sure you contact the lovely Mariagrazia (another fine name) Dammicco, author of Venetian Gardens. She’ll give you a fascinating tour.
There are more than 500 gardens in Venice, of which 60 or so are open to the public at various times. We went first to the Garden of Palazzetto Bru Zane, commissioned in 1695 by Domenico Zane as a setting for his daughter’s violin recitals.
Blithe cherubs repose on low walls covered in ivy over a small square carpet of grass. It’s not much bigger than our back yard in London and I knew what was coming.
“Why can’t our garden be like this?” said my wife, Joanna.
Then Mariagrazia took us round the corner to the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista. No garden here but a lovely entrance screen. Its soft, milky stone reminded me of the Taj Mahal.
Next up was the Garden of Palazzo Gradenigo on Rio Marin, not far from the train station and a favourite of Henry James.
Mariagrazia produced a rusty key and invited us to meet the owner, an eccentric architect with flowing locks who gave us coffee and cake and a taste of bohemian Venice.
The Aman offers a 60-minute foot massage to help guests recover from a day of street-pounding. But sitting through a performance at the Fenice — which has been completely rebuilt since it was burnt to the ground in 1996 — is the tonic of a lifetime.
I had hardly heard of the composer (Giacomo Meyerbeer) never mind the opera (L’Africaine) and feared it would go over our heads. But it went straight to our hearts, with performances, sets and lighting so mesmerising, four hours seemed to pass with a few waves of the conductor’s baton.
Time to celebrate at the Gritti Palace, which has just had €35-million lavished on it but, thank goodness, seems to have changed very little.
And here’s something else. In summer at the Gritti you make for the terrace and watch the passing parade on the Grand Canal.
But in winter you huddle inside and feast your eyes on the mirrors, wallpaper and the spectacular marble bar that used to be the altar at a 15th-century church in Sicily. It was deconsecrated and brought here.
“Two Bellinis please.”
“I am sorry but we do not offer Bellinis at this time of year because peaches are out of season.”
We loved that. How easy it would be to serve up some tinned peach juice and few of us would know the difference.
On the vaporetto (waterbus) back to the Aman, my wife gazed up at the beautifully lit palaces and across at our fellow passengers, many of whom were Venetian women of a certain age in fur coats and matching hats.
“This is my favourite city in the world,” said Joanna. “Can you imagine what it would be like to have a little flat here?”
No, but I can imagine coming again and again for a weekend — always in winter. - Daily Mail