Along the Fondamente delle Procuratie - cold, damp, tiramisu & the local prison

After several months of enjoying my lovely apartment on the Calle dei Cerchieri, I had to find cheaper accommodation. I found a little room in a flat on Calle del Volto just off the Fondamente delle Procuratie near Piazzale Roma. 

I shared the apartment with an incredibly sweet-hearted, gregarious and generous Venetian flatmate. His landlords in turn lived in the flat below us with their two children. 

My new surroundings were much more humble.  Here’s a view of the street leading to my flat:



Calle del Volto, off the Fondamente delle Procuratie, Dorsoduro

Entering the building, we would walk past our landlords' laundry, playroom and storeroom, and then climb an incredibly steep set of stairs, past their flat on the first floor, to reach our flat on the top level of the building.  From our front door, we then climbed another steep flight of steps which ended in a kitchen that was just large enough to fit a stovetop and a small set of shelves.  The window sill was the kitchen bench. 

I swapped a view of the campanile of San Pantalon for a view into the apartments across the alleyway and my new street ended at a bridge leading to a local prison (at the former Santa Maria Maggiore complex) instead of the Grand Canal. 

I follow InVenice (the official booking agency for the Associazione Veneziana Albergatori) on Facebook.  Each day they post an Instaweather snap of a Venetian scene with the weather forecast.  It was so lovely to find a photo of my old building on 24 November 2013:

 

 

As you can see, the building is made up of two blocks (containing 60 apartments in total) joined by a pedimented roof and an arch.

The blocks span from Fondamente delle Procuratie across to the Fondamente dei Cereri. At either end of the blocks are larger apartments that look like the façade of a typical Venetian ‘palazzo’ with balconies and large windows. 

 

A long courtyard provides light and ventilation (and front door access) to the smaller flats within the block. 

 

Living inside the flat, I could easily have mistaken the modular apartment construction for a modern building, but in fact the building dates from the late 16^th century, when the Procurators of San Marco had multi-family housing built for the needy (hence the name of the street – Fondamente delle Procuratie).

When I moved into the flat, there was a wardrobe literally stacked with blankets.  As winter deepened, I gradually added blanket after blanket to my bed, so that by the time Carnevale rolled around, I would be burrowing under at least ten layers of blankets every night.  It was so damp that the walls would drip green during the winter, and come summer, we had to whitewash the internal walls. 

Apart from the intense damp and cold, my abiding memory of living there is of countless platefuls of fresh tiramisu which my kind hearted flatmate would whip up most evenings.  He’d start making the tiramisu late at night, so in the early hours of the morning, he'd be urgently knocking on my bedroom door to let me know that the tiramisu was ready, and that he had to get to the laundry pulley (outside my bedroom window) to relay a plateful of tiramisu to our neighbor across the alleyway.



Calle del Volto, off Fondamente delle Procuratie, Dorsoduro Venezia

Here is a view of the complex on Google maps - you can just make out the arches at either end of the blocks.  The yellow building to the right of the map on Fondamente Cereri is where the poet Diego Valeri lived (click here for more about Diego Valeri).  The complex on top left hand corner of the map is the prison.

View Larger Map

If you want to read more about this place, Dorsoduro 2410-30 (Fondamenta Cereri and Fondamente delle Procuratie) is described on page 67 of Egle Renata Trincata's A Guide to Venetian Domestic Architecture. 

What I'm reading - Diego Valeri's my name on the wind...

I've been quiet with this blog as I prepare to start a new job next week, and finalise my previous work.  I've also been occupied planning and preparing a visit to Venice later in the year. 

It will be my first visit to Venice with my husband, and we'll have just six short days.  My husband has been to Venice twice, but only as a day-tripper during his younger, back-packing years, and I am completely over excited and nervous at once. 

There's so much I want to pack into our six-day visit (my list of things to experience is already six pages long), and I also want to give him time and space to know Venice.  My goal is to have him be so bowled over by the light, the history, the mystery, the magic of the city, that he too will want to visit again and again and again...

My question for you is this: if you wanted your loved one to fall in love with Venice, where would you take them?   

One of the places I want to visit is the site of poet Diego Valeri's home on Fondamente dei Cereri in Dorsoduro.  I've only recently discovered Valeri's gorgeous poetry, and through Alloggi Barbaria's blog, I discovered more about Valeri in Venice. 

I used to live just a few streeets away on Fondamente delle Procuratie and I savour picturing Valeri's local scene.  A plaque marks the spot:

Qui c'e sempre un poco di vento
a tutte l'ore, di ogni staggione:
un soffio almeno, un respiro.
Qui da tanti anni sto io, ci vivo.
E giorno dopo giorno scrivo
il mio nome sul vento.

Here, there's always a bit of wind
all hours, every season,
a puff at least, a breath.
Here, I've lived so long, here I stay.
And I write day after day
my name on the wind.

Calle del vento 1975