Venice Biennale ILLUMInations…5 weeks left! Go go go!

Anyone whose read my blog in the past few months will know I spent June darting across mainland Europe with my friend/duplicate Scarlet. We had an amazing time seeing stunning scenery, countless exhibitions, eating amazing food, meeting weird and wonderful people and just getting a bit of ‘cultchhaah’ really! I’d urge anyone whose even got the slightest desire to go to just book your ticket ASAP! It wasn’t like any other holiday I’ve ever been on – physically we became complete messes within about three days and my feet will probably never recover, and despite the amount of strange places we ended up in (a bear pit, a one carriage train chugging through the Czech forests, a hostel which just resembled the set of Hostel – OK that was all in the Czech republic, post on that coming soon) I don’t think I’ve ever spent a month of my life so happy! How brilliant is it to wake up every day and say “so what new and amazing place we’ve never seen before shall we go to today?”.

Honestly, with that little green Interrail ticket the world is your oyster (well Europe at least!).

Anyway, reminiscing aside, one of the places we visited was Venice and my God, did it live up to its name!? I’d never been before and, well, WOW.

We were very lucky to visit whilst the Venice Biennale was on and I’m so glad we did. It’s on until the 27th of November so now’s the time to catch it before it disappears for another four years! We stayed in a wonderful 1* hotel called Albergo Doni Hotel which only cost £70 between us per night – ridiculously cheap for Venice at all, especially as it’s right next to Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square to us Brits). The only drawback is that the bathroom is shared between a couple of rooms like most hostels, but it’s clean, very comfortable, brekkie is included and the decor is out of this world! Such a great find that I will most certainly be boarding with Mr Doni again. So that’s your accomodation booked…now onto the show!

Venice is the kind of place you just want to walk through for days and days and days and days…need I go on? The streets are a maze of dead ends, market squares and stunning views of the river (should not have written this post on a gloomy Birmingham day, incredibly depressing!). Anyway, the Biennale allows you to see the streets of Venice and bump into some incredible little exhibitions from artists and galleries across the globe: double whammy!

All of the exhibitions are free except for the Arsenale and The Giardini, two huge gallery-style areas containing the biggest names. We were on a serious budget and reserved it for clams and wine in Venice so we didn’t venture into either of these two, but I don’t feel as if we missed out as we didn’t even get through the fifty or so little gems dotted around the city itself.

So hop on a cheap November flight, call up Albergo, grab your Biennale map and jet off for a bit of wintry warmth!

….Not jealous at all!

However, if like me you’re stuck at uni or work and actually can’t escape, here’s a little taste of Venice in the form of a delicious drink. It’s cold outside, time to get the booze coat on!

The Venetian Spritz

• 1 part white wine
• 1 part Aperol, Campari (my personal preference) or San Bitter
• 1 part sparkling water
• Ice
• Olive
• A slice of orange or lemon

Throw it all together into a large wine glass and MMM done!

 

BudaBudaBudapesshht!

Budapest has got to be Berlin’s younger brother: as exciting but just a little smaller! It’s quirky, seriously cool, chilled out and vaaary cultural – oh and beautiful too!

We only had three days there and as it was our last three days, we partied a little too hard therefore missing out on quite a few expeditions. I suppose we’ll just have to go back, what a shame!

One thing to beware of in Budapest is Hungarian wine. Just don’t do it. Vomiting in one of the famous spring water bathhouses is not something to be recommended, trust me.

An excursion we did manage to fit in between eating far too much Hummus  and drinking far too much wine was a visit to Budapest’s contemporary art museum to see an exhibition curiously titled Eating The Beard by Michael Borremans, and I’m so glad we made it. Borremans paints bizarre and often sinister portraits and scenes which derive from equally strange narratives. The wonderful thing about his work is that the pieces are beautifully painted in addition to having quite a strong and very interesting concept. His colour palette and compositions make reference to Hungary’s former oppressive regime as his characters are closely cropped into coldly lit scenes; and he dresses his subjects in simple timeless clothing so the viewer’s understanding of the piece isn’t limited to a particular era or place. The gallery presented Borremans paintings without text pieces on the walls so we were left to find our own story behind each image.

I think the reason both Scarlet and I liked this exhibition is that it proves that simple painting and portraiture can be contemporary and can contend with installation, sculpture and video which seem to feature in galleries moreso than painting these days (cue ‘In my dayyy…’ rant). Sometimes it feels like there isn’t space for a bit of decent painting these days, especially not in art school where we’re constantly asked ‘but how is it contemporary…?’ and I think that’s pretty sad, so go ahead Borremans! You show ‘em!

 

A beach in Berlin!? Oh yes…

Back to June and my month-long Eurotrip…

We were blessed with brilliant sunshine every single day in Berlin and after four days of intense history, art and sightseeing we thought we deserved a little beach break so we headed an hour west of central Berlin to little Wannsee. Wannsee boasts long white beaches and shallow fresh waters – which had been nicely warmed by the afternoon sun by the time we arrived.

And how cute are the handy fold-up seats!? Definitely getting my hands on one of those for the post-uni house.

We also found ‘city beaches’ dotted across each of the cities we visited, but the best of them were in Berlin as they faced the Spree. We stopped for a lunchtime cocktail at one next to the East Side Gallery – sitting on deckchairs with sand between our toes with our backs to the Berlin wall and looking down at the river, nice but strange! Wish we’d remembered our bikinis as there was a pool too!

Hackney Wick gets Wickeeddd!

I had my first Hackney WickED experience yesterday and it was wonderful!

Open studios, music, flea markets, cinema and all for freeeee!

I went along with my friend Lucy on a beautiful sunny Saturday – great weather for exploring, not such great weather for photographs, especially when you’re armed only with an iPhone! I tried anyway…

I had no idea there were so many studios packed into this cluster of warehouses and disused factories in the East End. It’s also home to the main Olympic Stadium which rises up from the grid of industrial units like a spaceship, just landed.

We spent the afternoon wandering in and out of the towers of this concrete jungle to various booming soundtracks coming from huge sound systems set up in the streets, stopping for a beer now and then. Lovely!

We settled down in a friend’s flat in The Peanut Factory for lunch which she’s opened up as a Ghanaian restaurant, after the success of the last two years I’m sure it’ll be open next year too! We tried the famous Peanut Butter Stew followed by the Guava and Lime Sorbet, all home-made, all delicious!

Art-wise the standard was pretty high; I liked more than I disliked, and for me that’s impressive!

Absolute favourite were the works of Endri Kosturi, just really refreshingly interesting and well done paintings.

The etchings of Rossen Daskalov, surreal paintings of James Trimmer amazing feather lampshades designed by Latorre Cruz also caught my eye.

We could have easily done two days there, with so much to see I think we only scratched the surface – next year I will definitely be giving this little place the huge amount of time it deserves!