Last day in central Venice

We got packed up and moved out of our Airbnb by 10am. Glenn and I took the vaporetto back to Punta Sabbioni and our campsite Al Bateo. Gus was fine after his week by himself so we quickly put things away and got back on the vaporetto to town.

We met up with Ange and Oli for our final lunch at the Flying Dutchman Osteria.

Ange and Oli recommended we all go to the Peggy Guggenheim Contemporary Art Museum as our last event. It’s in a lovely location right on the Grand Canal.

Peggy Guggenheim was the daughter of Benjamin Guggenheim who went down with the Titanic in 1912, and the niece of Solomon R Guggenheim who created the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation to fund the Guggenheim museums.

She had art galleries in Paris and New York and was the first to organise a Kandinsky exhibition in Great Britain. After the war she returned to France and bought a Palazzo on the Grand Canal. She opened her art collection to the public a few days a week.

She later donated the palazzo and her art collection to the Guggenheim Foundation so it could be preserved as a museum.

She had many Jackson Pollocks.

These were interesting creating different patterns from different angles.

This silver bed head was commissioned by Peggy from Alexander Calder.

There were very nice wrought iron gates and fences.

There was a Kandinsky in the same vein as Blue Mountain.

In the front courtyard we got some photos.

After a visit to the very nice cafe we then left for our next destinations. We said goodbye to Ange and Oli after a great week in Venice. They were off to catch their flight back to Mainz.

We then continued to the nearby Basilica Santa Maria della Salute - a huge white dome we had seen many times on the Grand Canal.

It was impressive inside as well as outside although there was a lot of restoration going on to save its floor that had holes in many places.

The views outside were impressive as we made our way to the vaporetto terminal.

We waited some time for a vaporetto as the first one was so full it didn’t stop. We squeezed onto the next one- Glenn just got on before they closed the barrier. We then had a pleasant trip back to Gus after many people got off at St Marks Square.

We made dinner of tortellini with cherry tomato sauce from the fridge leftovers - tasting very good for leftovers. We then had a quiet night back home in Gus.