Friday 17/02/2017.
Our 34th birthday. We got up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 a.m. to accompany Lesley to the vaporetto. And found the Settee of Despair on the other side of Pont San Caterina, the next street over, looking like it was contemplating throwing itself into the canal. Farewell, old friend, you were a source of comfort in troubled times.
We got to the vaporetto at 6:50 a.m. Lesley thought there was a 7 a.m. one. There wasn’t. We waited 40 minutes in the freezing cold for one to show up. Finally, the promised fog showed up. We went back to bed til 8:30 a.m. only to find the boiler had broken, so we had no heating and no hot water. Today was clearly being sponsored by Unbearable Cold, brought to us by the letters BRRR! This wasn’t a great start to our birthday. Maybe we should join the Settee of Despair by the canal, work through our grievances together.
It’s the first birthday we’ve ever spent away from home, so it didn’t really feel like our birthday. Mum video called us, so we opened our presents from her – Grim Reaper necklaces. Then our sister, Sarah rang, so we opened her presents – a skirt and skull leggings. Our niece got us skull neck scarves. Tom and Amy got us 3 Del Toro films and a book of animals recreating Shakespeare.
Muscle Museum
We set out for the Museo Correr. It was cool and massive. There were a lot of Greek statues, but the men were missing their penises. In Ancient Greece, having a small penis apparently meant you were highly intelligent, but we’re not sure why these statues were castrated. Were they geniuses maybe?
We like to think the penises were kept in nests and fed oats, like witches of old apparently used to do. Or maybe they were being used as coat hooks in the cloakroom. We also like to think that they’re in a box somewhere and one day, it will be some poor apprentice’s job to pin the penis on the statue. We left the museum at 12ish and had lunch by the Grand Canal. It’s now our spot. It’s like recreating our last day in Paris picknicking by the Seine but without the smell and Lynx jumping in after her phone.
Asylum Seekers
Today is really cold and foggy. Whilst we were happy that Venice looks suitably gothic for our birthday, we were less impressed with the cold. There was only place where we wanted to spend our first birthday away from home: San Servolo, the asylum island. And we would spend it alone. At 12:30 p.m., we headed for the vaporetto stop while Tom and Amy returned to the apartment to chill out because Tom’s suffering with his feet. Fog shrouded the way over to San Servolo, so it was really atmospheric. There were only two other people on our vaporetto so it was almost like being alone and lost in the fog. Heading to the island where they housed the asylum patients, in the fog, with only two other passengers, was suitably creepy. The perfect birthday. This is the side of Venice we wanted to see.
Deserted Island
We docked after 15 minutes so we wandered the island filming and taking photos. What used to be the asylum is now the university, and the grounds were lovely, even in the winter. Parts of San Servolo Asylum have been preserved as a museum inside the university. With the fog surrounding the island, and the silence it created, it felt like we were the only ones on the island. And the only island in existence. Venice had disappeared. We decided to head inside to hide from the cold. We regretted not wearing our big coats, but vanity overruled sensibility and we wanted our outfits to be seen. Beauty is worth suffering for, apparently. Older us would choose warmth over style on future trips.
At two, the tour guide appeared. There were only two other girls on the tour, who were Czech. The guide just pointed to the information and did his best to talk to us in English. We visited the 18th century apothecary first. That was fascinating. All the medicinal herbs were kept in pretty, porcelain jars. It’s so different to the plastic bottles and blister packs we have today. After the apothecary, we went to the anatomical theatre. It had the examination slab, real skulls who looked like they were in a gurning competition, and real preserved brains.
Patient History
We visited the church, which was more impressive than we were expecting. The guide took us to another part with patient admittance records and patient photos before and after their admittance. The difference was incredible. They went in looking like how you would imagine asylum patients to look, all miserable and emaciated, and left looking healthy and had gained weight. A display case showed items the patients made. We saw a room filled with various restraints. Some, like the leather muff, were new to us.
The hospital used hydrotherapy, where they would blast the patients with cold water or put them in a bath for up to 12 hours. Another room contained medical equipment. The guide asked us how we knew of San Servolo, as the only visitors they have are either students or visiting lecturers. It seems tourists don’t visit the island and asylum museum. We explained about our interest in asylums. If a tourist destination has anything remotely unusual or creepy, we will find it. The website Atlas Obscura is a wonderful research companion for our trips. Plus, Poveglia was closed, so San Servolo was the next best thing.
Eyes Wide Shut
We caught the vaporetto back and decided to explore parts of Venice we hadn’t seen. We went through San Marco a different way and walked through Dorsoduro and San Polo before heading back over the Rialto Bridge. Our map reading only failed a few times and that was when we encountered streets that weren’t on our map. Getting home from the Rialto is now easy. We then put our map away and decided to just explore. Good job too, because we found the shop where a man makes masks for Hollywood films, such as Eyes Wide Shut. It was on our list of things to see, but we didn’t know the address so our chances of finding it were slim. We accidentally found it by trying to get lost. We wandered for two hours!
Taste Test
We headed back, put our feet in cold water, like we’ve done every day, then went out for chips with Tom and Amy. They’d spent the day in the apartment. We tried the tiniest amount of Tom’s pizza. We’ve never eaten pizza before, but as we were in Italy, we figured we should be brave and try some Italian food. Fortune does not favour the brave.
It was covered in tomato sauce, herbs, and nothing else. We could smell the herbs as Tom walked past us with the closed box, and when we saw the pizza, we nearly backed out. But we’d vowed we’d eat an Italian pizza, so damn it, we were doing it. If we can hold a tarantula, we can eat a bit of pizza. It was officially the most disgusting thing we’ve ever put in our mouths. Tom and Amy returned to the apartment, while we headed to the vegan gelato place to wipe the taste from our tongues.
“Due vegano per favore.”
He responded in English. We were trying to be cultured!
We finished the day with uploading photos, writing this blog, and doing 150 squats. Happy birthday to us. The pizza still haunts us like a foul ghost.
Learn about San Servolo’s history
Read Day 3.
Read Day 5.