01 VIEWFEB:NOVEMBER COVER - View Magazines

sigh
I feel like Tippi Hedren among the
pigeons of Piazza San Marco. They look
well, except for the dead ones. The Danieli is
two minutes’ walk from the piazza, steps
away from the Bridge of Sighs: the hotel’s
ancient reception is fantastic, pure Venetian
Gothic, originally an open courtyard with its
arches and ballustrades. A glass ceiling was
added sometime between the 14th and 17th
centuries. No-one knows when. Mighty
marble columns, marble floors scattered with
fine rugs, Murano glass chandeliers, ornate
gilded and painted plasterwork and marble
walls - oh, stop right there, those walls are
faux marble, but again nobody knows from
which century. Venice’s shops are full of
carnival masks and the Danieli, keeping all
these secrets, seems to be wearing one too.
These masks are part of the city’s
mystique. Venetians and visitors will don
masks and costumes for the lovers’ ball at the
Papafava Palace on St Valentine’s night, just
one event in the Carnival that this year runs
from 13 to 24 February. This is one of – if
not the – most romantic cities of the world,
a perfect setting for proposals and the
gathering of brownie points. Once the dawn
breaks, and the music fades, there are
wonderful strolls to be had along the canals
and narrow streets, art and churches to glory
in, hideously pricey but delicious
cappuccinos to sip and an atmosphere
second-to-none to suck up and enjoy.
Famous names from Astaire to Zeffirelli
have waltzed across the Danieli’s elegant
tableau, including Connery, Gere, Heston,
McCartney, Minnelli and Spielberg - the list
is endless. Dickens, too. For the flush, the
Danieli’s suites are fabulously palatial,
protected by law. They’re furnished with
ornate, original gilded furniture, decorated
with gilt and a rare fresco or two, hung with
valuable paintings.
My room looks out over the lagoon from
about the most perfect position in Venice.
Below, artists sell their work among tacky
souvenir stalls, gondoliers in boaters wait for
customers, and water-bobbing bus stops rise
and fall with the tide. Glass, a local
speciality, is everywhere around the hotel and
in the shops, ranging from gaudy to
exquisite. This is not bargain city.
Murano glass is either expensive or
outrageously expensive. Once the
painters and souvenir
sellers pack up for the
night, there’s nothing
more than the slap,
slap, slap of little waves
hitting the hulls of the
The mystique of Carnival
travel v
parked gondolas to disturb the night.
All that slap, slap, slap and jumping on
and off of boats gives me an appetite for fish,
so it’s off to the Danieli’s top-floor
restaurant, complete with breathtaking view
of the lagoon and beyond, for scallop sautéed
with shrimps and wild mushrooms, broiled
king-size scampi flavoured with parsley, then
home-made ice cream. When in Italy…
If the sensational view and classic Italian
food aren’t amusement enough, there are
always other guests. American husband one:
‘I’ve bought my wife some earrings.’
American husband two: ‘I’ve bought some
for myself. Gonna split them with a friend
and we’ll wear one each.’ I wonder whether
Doge Enrico Dandolo, sacker of
Constantinople, would countenance such
thrift. V
www.carnivalofvenice.com
www.starwoodhotels.com
Photographs courtesy of Fototeca ENIT/Vito Arcomano
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