Following Epicurienne and Pat’s advice, Engogirl and I went and had a look at the Guggenheim museum and some of the Biennale art exhibits that are on at the moment.

The Guggenheim was a tour de force of some of the biggest names in 20th century art. It was a real who’s who of modern art. I’d see a painting and I’d think to myself, “gee that looks like Léger’s stuff, but surely it can’t be”, but it was and so it went on. I kept on seeing styles that I recognized but couldn’t believe I was seeing them for real.

There was even one of (there are nine bronzes) Brancusi’s “Bird in space”. I couldn’t believe that such a famous statue was once owned by one person and not an institution. Every time I’ve seen pictures of “Bird in space”, I’ve wondered about the thinnest part of the statue near its base, as it looks too thin hold the weight of the rest of the statue. Sure enough, the thinnest part of the statue does look like it has been repaired, and not that well to boot.

Unfortunately, no photos are allowed in the museum so I wasn’t able to take many shots of the art there. Out at the rear of the museum that backs onto to Venice’s Grand Canal is Wim Delvoye’s “Torre”.

As stunning as Delvoye’s sculpture is from the outside, a shot from underneath shoes even more amazing detail.

Just down from the Guggenheim is the French billionaire, François Pinault’s new art museum in the Punta della Dogana. We didn’t go in (the cheeky bastards wanted 15 Euro) but at the back of the museum is Charles Ray’s “Boy with frog”.

Apparently Ray had wanted to make the statue larger but changed his mind in consideration of the locals who enjoyed walking in the area in the past. Trouble is that the statue is small enough to vulnerable to vandalism and now has to be guarded full time. It’s not hard to see why. That frog would snap off real easy.

Near where the hotel where we are staying are a few Biennale exhibitions. One is by Grazia Toderi

and the other was by Iranian artists.

Minding the Iranian art was the photographer Ali Reza Karimi Saremi. Ali is a very friendly and personable guy but unfortunately we couldn’t communicate with each other too well because of language difficulties.

I tried to ask Ali about the human and animal representations in the exhibition and if that meant that the religious leaders of his country weren’t so fundamentalist (the Koran proscribes Muslims from creating images of people and animals) as the western media shows them to be. Ali didn’t understand what I was trying to ask but he did understand that his country gets a lot of bad press in the west.

As best as he could, Ali explained to me that Iran is a beautiful country full of decent people who create art and lovely music. He then went on to explain that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was only one man and that not all people in Iran were like him. Then Ali went on to say that just like the various artists in the Iranian exhibition who all created different art, the people of Iran all have their own ideas.

It was easy for me to see how sincere Ali was being and it was obvious that what the western media had to say about his country hurt him but that didn’t prevent him from showing me the utmost courtesy and hospitality. As we were leaving I shook his hand and as I did, he asked me to wait and he ran out the back, brought back a small box and presented it to Engogirl, saying that he hoped we would one day visit his country.

In the box was a lovely pendant made of blue Persian tile.

Despite my worries about Venice being a total tourist trap, I’m loving it here.

Venice is famous for a reason, it is fantastic. I’ve taken about 300 photos today and my feet are sore. There is so much that I want to write about that it can’t go into one post. Also, I’m so caught up in experiencing Venice that I don’t feel I have the time to elucidate in writing about what I’m thinking.

Venice is so concentrated that it almost overwhelms the senses, so in the meantime, here’s a few straight ahead tourist shots until I find some time to expand on the multitude of my thoughts.

Tonight, Engogirl and I followed Epicurienne’s advice and went to Taverna San Trovaso for a lovely dinner and I’m just too tired to post any more today.

As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been using a GPS to avoid travelling the major roads. Instead of going down the big motorway from Innsbruck to Trento we went via a very torturous narrow route through the Albula Pass in the Swiss Alps.

Even with high voltage transmission lines all through our route, the scenery was spectacular.

I’m starting to think that visiting famous places is masochistic and unsatisfying pursuit.

The trouble with famous places is that the whole world knows about them and wants to go there.

About three weeks ago I was in Paris with my wife Engogirl. We wandered around fairly empty streets and didn’t see that many other tourists until we approached various famous landmarks.

One day after wandering around the area near the Louvre that was crawling with people like us, we decided to check out the neat looking church with the unusual domes (Sacré-Coeur Basilica) on a hill in the distance. 

Sacré-Coeur is in Montmartre, the area made famous by those brothel creeping, absinthe swilling Impressionists. It would seem that the whole world including us was in Montmartre when we got off the metro.

The place was totally packed with people.

It was almost impossible to walk in a straight or constant line due to tourists like us taking photos. The whole place was just one big tourist knick knack shop. An artificial Disneyfied construct with a French twist.

Bleeeaughk!

So far on this trip, the most pleasant times we’ve had, have been in little villages out in the middle of nowhere that we’ve stumbled across. One of the best investments we’ve made is a GPS. Our GPS has been a real god send, as it can be told to avoid toll roads and motorways so it will take tiny little back roads that aren’t in our European road atlas. The added bonus of using a GPS is that all the stress of navigation is removed which means there is far less bickering and way more enjoyment to be had whilst driving.

I think that it’s so easy to get caught up in the whole, “you’ve JUST GOT TO see such and such” headspace that turns travelling into something like train spotting where one ticks various sighted items off a list.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen fellow travellers walk up to a sight with their camera held up to their faces, snap a shot and instantly turn on their heels and walk away. So many people don’t seem to be taking the time to stop and actually look and think about what they are viewing.

To soak it all up, would be such an alien concept.

It’s almost like for some people, travelling in Europe is like a trip to the moon and they’re running short of oxygen. Just grab a shot like it was some sample of moon rock so that they can take it home to analyse over the coming years.

I’m beginning to think about next week in Venice with a mixture of anticipation and dread.

For our trip to Europe, my wife and I bought two cheap folding bicycles so we could get some exercise and extend our range without using a car all the time.

Before we left, my friend Paul, who knows a fair bit about folding bikes, suggested that we get better tires for our bikes, so I bought some Schwalbe “Marathons”. The Marathons are puncture resistant and can be pumped up harder than the tires that came with our bikes. Hard tires mean less resistance and friction, which in turn means less energy is used whilst cycling.

Being the slack guy that I am, I left off putting the new tires on our bikes until the day before we left for Europe. The new tires were so tight; I couldn’t get them on my wheels so I took them to a local bicycle sales and repair store to have them fitted. 

As it seems to be usual (in Sydney at least), the bike mechanic was a young guy who exuded more confidence in his skills than he could demonstrate. After wrestling with my tires and rims for about an hour he handed them back to me and said, “this is the best I can do with them”.

I looked at the wheels and they didn’t look as they were seated correctly and I said so. The mechanic said not to worry as I should let the tires down for my upcoming flight anyway and that the tires would re-seat themselves when I pumped them up again.

When we got to Bruges in Belgium we pumped up tires up but they didn’t seat properly on the rims but we rode our bikes anyway. By the time we got to the Mosel in Germany we’d already spent a fair bit of time on our bikes and were putting up with the lumpy ride our badly seated tires were giving.

One of the parts of our trip we were both looking forward to the most, was cycling down the Mosel River. We started off on a Suday near the town of Kues and not long after we left, an irritating squeak started to emanate from my wife’s bike.

Eeeh, eeeh, eeeh, eeeh, eeeh, eeeh, eeeh, eeeh, eeeh.

We tried everything we could think of. We adjusted her brakes, gears and mudguards but nothing seemed to work. We came to the conclusion that the badly seated tire on the rear wheel was causing the problem by making the spokes rub against each other but we kept cycling.

The constant, eeeh, eeeh, eeeh, eeeh, eeeh, eeeh, eeeh, eeeh was driving us nuts and totally ruining the whole cycling experience.

After about 10kms we came to the lovely quite town of Erden and I made enquiries as to where the nearest bicycle repair place was. I was told there was a very good one only about 1.5kms away in Lösnich, but because it was Sunday and since the Germans are a civilised bunch who take their day of rest seriously, they were closed.

Both Engogirl and I knew we didn’t want to cycle anymore that day because it was so unaesthetic, so we stayed in Erden overnight.

First thing on Monday morning we rode to Lösnich and had our bikes looked at by Harald Warscheid at his shop and service centre. Harald is a very helpful and nice guy who took us into his immaculate workshop to work on our bikes. I’d never been into such a nice bicycle repair place before. The radio was playing some soft rock and various locals would drop by and shoot the breeze for short periods while Harald worked on seating our tires correctly and adjusting all the various other things that needed to be done.

All very calm, clean, convivial and civilised.

As I watched Harald work, I couldn’t help but think that I was watching a guy who had figured out how to make a living in a very pleasant way.

A bodhisattva of bicycles if you will.

As we chatted with Harald, it became obvious that he wasn’t impressed with the construction of our bikes (we already knew they were cheaply made) and he explained to us that the wheels had been assembled by a machine and machines over tighten the spokes. Our badly seated tires and over tightened spokes had caused our wheels to warp. Engogirl’s squeaky wheel had warped the most. Harald sorted out the tire seating problems and realigned the rims as best as he could, but the damage had already gone too far on the squeaky wheel and it couldn’t be fixed.

A new wheel was needed.

Now I know at this stage, many people might think that a mechanic would say that so they can sell you a new wheel, but Harald didn’t have anything to gain because he didn’t carry such small wheels.

Luckily Germany is the sort place that has bicycle stores in every other town and all the towns are only a few kilometres apart. So we rode up the Mosel a few more kilometres to the town of “Wolf”.

It was about five minutes to noon when we walked into the bicycle store in Wolf to buy a new wheel. We were told it would take an hour and a half to fit the tire onto the rim.

“Why so long”, I asked?

“Vee closs vor vun hour vor luntch” was the answer.

“Gee, I guess that means that we have to find some nice place and have some lunch ourselves?” I thought.

“Fine with me!” was my next thought.

So down the road we walked to a row of lovely little eateries near the river that cater to people cycling down the Mosel and had a delightful lunch of the local seasonal specialty of flammkuchen, washed down with some white wine from the Mosel region.

Thank goodness we needed a new wheel or we might’ve missed having such a nice meal.

Flammkuchen is like a thin crust pizza, topped with onion, crème fraîche and small pieces of bacon. It’s surprisingly tasty and with the cold white wine it was simply divine.

So simple, yet so perfect!

After lunch we picked up our bikes and set off to Zell.

The short time that we spent on cycling down the Mosel made me really envious of the German people for living in such a nice country.

I could really get used to such a way of living.

I travel to see different things.

 The more I travel the more things start to look the same.  Although the background has its own distinct look, the subject’s look is ubiquitous.