Venice 3: And Yet...

And yet it was, for most of the time, a joy to be back – the place is just so beautiful. There were new wonders to discover, or rediscover after many years (I'd forgotten, for example, just how enchanting the Carpaccios in the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni are). There were new drink experiences even – Chinotto (a kind of pleasantly bitter Coca-Cola, flavoured with myrtle-leaved oranges), a fine rosé from the Bekaa valley (Chateau Ksara), a honey-flavoured Greek grappa...
 In Ca' Rezzonico there was a small exhibition of superb figure drawings (very much in the Piazzetta style) by Giulia Lama, a Venetian late Baroque artist whose name was quite new to me.

 The art collection at Palazzo Cini I had never visited before. Indeed it seems to be little visited, even though it's very near the ever popular Guggenheim. We had the place to ourselves, our only company being two patrolling guards, one female, one male with notably squeaky shoes. When I chanced to rest my hand on a marble table top as I examined a picture, the male guard pounced and told me, in time-honoured fashion, not to touch.
 The Cini collection is strong on 'primitives', but might seem barely worth the visit but for two stunning masterpieces – a powerful double portrait of two young men by Pontormo

and a glorious Judgment of Paris by Botticelli.

Despite everything, Venice remains as inexhaustible as it is beautiful.