Venetian Dreaming : A Love Affair With the World's Most Treasured City

by Paula Weideger

Who hasn't dreamed, after a particularly mind-numbing meeting, or in the midst of another punishing five-thirty commute, of chucking it all and packing off to the enchanting canals and mysterious alleyways of Venice? Globetrotting writer Paula Weideger not only dreamed the dream; she and her partner actually took the leap. VENETIAN DREAMING charts the course of Weideger's passionate love affair with one of the world's most beautiful cities. Weideger opens her book with the wry, mishap-strewn account of the search to find a place to live which eventually takes her to the world famous Palazzo Dona delle Rose, the only palace in Venice continuously occupied by the family that built it. She weaves the past lives of the family Dona with her own present adventures, creating a tapestry that captures at once the grand heritage and imperilled labyrinth as she gives a lively, riveting and eye opening tour of the city. She explores the centuries old streets, meets locals from noblemen to shopkeepers and artists, makes peace with the ghost of Peggy Guggenheim and explains how Ishmael Merchant and James Ivory almost dislodged her from her home, and more.

Genres: Italy, Travel, Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography

Paperback

First published June 4, 2002

Reviews

[NancyS · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I began reading this book I thought it was going to be a 5 star. It gave interesting, vivid descriptions of Venice exploring and living there. However, about half way through the author's personal issues and personality took over the narrative and it became much less interesting. It deteriorated rapidly in the second half.

[Judy Frenette · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was engaging to begin, the author had the ability to paint a picture of a newcomer to Venice, but I started to feel uncomfortable with the personality of the author as it started to reveal itself through the lines early in the book. The second part of the book could have been so different if the author had worked with the Dona family for the first 10 days of their second stay in the palace, she most likely would have been treated as a friend , maybe a queen and the apartment would have been even more beautiful as it would have been prepared and presented to the high paying guests, it could have been a win win situation for everyone, sadly she created her own bad karma and made an enemy of the family of her own doing. An unfortunate end to their year adventure for the couple, and the ending of the book was very abrupt for the reader, a book I will not be reading again.

[Linda Amos · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do you learn to live in a foreign country? Especially if you don't speak the language! Mistakes will be made: some are funny, some are costly in time, effort and money, but the result is an experience you will never forget. As a tourist, we don't even scrape the surface. The author goes much deeper into the city, seeing and hearing what goes on and where. Getting lost is an oft-repeated exercise, but there is so much to see, hear and smell in the little calles, piazzas, churches and byways of going out and getting back home. Makes me want to go back and stay for more than a day trip.

[Lucinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful descriptions of Venice. Her first trip was wonderful but upon 2nd trip and closer inspection the flaws of the beautiful city and its people became apparent. The first trip was a dream but the second ended in an accident and was more of a nightmare. The enchantment was ended.

[Pam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has been on my shelf for years and I finally read it. As others noted, it starts strong but then gets draggy. I didn’t need so many personal fights and minute detains of Venice. My book about living in Venice is better. Braving the World. Adventures in Travel and Returement

[Avid Series Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

Venetian Dreaming by Paula Weideger is a non-fiction memoir of the year she lived in Venice. Paula was from New York, and her husband Henry was from London. Neither one wanted to live in the other’s hometown year-round. Paula had a dream of living in Venice, and Henry agreed – as long as she took care of the details. Their first stay in Venice lasted only a month, because they could not find a rental for longer, but Paula became obsessed with Ca’ Dona, a palace she saw when riding the ferry to Murano. Due to her connections, she was able to return to Venice to stay for a year in the 400-year-old house of her dreams.

Not long into the book you suspect Paula was high maintenance, and she confirms it with this quote: "There is plenty I can ignore but when it comes to the look of things around me, I am, alas, a delicate flower. Forced to live in a visually blighted zone, I do not rise above, I wilt." Luckily for Paula she adored the stucchi they rented, a lavishly over-decorated romantic fantasy, however tremendously rundown. Paula loved it enough to fight continuously with the landlord over the terms of her stay.

Reading how much Paula was cheated and tricked, not only in real estate but many other transactions, makes me resolve never to stay in Venice. "(a will to profit) characterizes Venetian restaurant owners today. -If you don’t like the food or the prices, don’t come back- appears to be their motto. Some other tourist will fill your seat tomorrow, no matter what awful stuff is on the plate and how much it costs. The high-handed tendency to gouge people applied not only to restaurants, I now understood. Or, as one friend of mine put it when I told her about my real estate troubles, It’s a very Venetian story."

Not only are visitors gouged, but: "Venice sits in a 35-mile-long lagoon…2 times a day, Adriatic tides enter and leave the brackish lagoon. This, as it always has been, is the drainage system for Venice. (That’s right, just as many tourists and their noses suspect, there are no sewers in the city, although there are septic tanks.)" Although reading about the beauty of Venice in other books did make me want to see it, with the information from this book in mind, I would choose a very brief tour.

Paula and Henry had a policy of never passing by an unvisited church, to view the artwork inside. Paula had a lot of trouble getting lost in Venice, until she began associating places with the nearest church. She struggled to learn Italian, at the bottom of her Intermediate language class. (One wonders why she did not drop down to the lower Beginner class where perhaps she could have achieved basic fluency.)

Paula loved to eat olive ascolane, a stuffed fried green olive appetizer, and ordered dozens to serve at dinner parties: "As far as I could work it out, olive ascolane are made by taking a large green pitted olive, stuffing it with a mixture of such mild minced meats as chicken and veal to which herbs and maybe Parmesan cheese have been added, then smoothing another layer of the same mixture over the stuffed olive, rolling it in bread crumbs and giving the whole business a plunge in the deep fryer. As you bite into one of these oval tidbits, layer upon layer of tastes and textures are revealed, pleasure and calorie count rising together toward the sky."

About charitable donors, Paula says: "People who donate cash to this kind of worthy cause get a chance to rub shoulders with folk grander than themselves and visit places they would never be invited to otherwise." Ironically, she joined civic organizations and attended countless board and council meetings to see the insides of historic palazzos. She described them and the council and board members' long-standing disputes in extensive detail, more than I would ever care to know.

A fascinating detail I did not learn from other books on Venice: "The funeral boats carrying the dead to their burial on the cemetery island of San Michele are painted acid blue and have a singular design. The boatman has a small enclosure at the front, while in the rear there’s a large, squat rectangular cabin for the nearest and dearest. In between, on the open deck, rests a metal frame that can be raised or lowered for the coffin. These coffins were often piled high with lavish floral creations, draped with satin sashes on which were written messages in a gold or silver metallic script."

Near the end of her year in Venice, Paula goes on a birthday trip in Italy, which abruptly and tragically ends with a car accident. The book wraps up with her painful recuperation in the stucchi.

[Rozelien · Rating 4 out of 5]

I see where other people where annoyed at the narrator and her descriptions of her problems with her landlord, but as someone who has lived in Venice and read enough generic books about the city, I was pleased by the personal touch, and liked that she did not describe the city in an idealised way, but was open about the difficulties she had living there. The ending, while abrupt, somehow fit for me, as it was like a sudden shock that woke her up from the “Venetian dream” she was living.

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having recently spent an early spring weekend in Venice, with the guiding eye of an ex-resident, I was keen to read this and expand my physical memories by relishing an author’s impressions. I now wish I could go back! It was certainly good to read after, but I wish I could also ‘read before’.

I was initially mildly annoyed by Paula, hoping she was not going to be too gushy or flowery in language. Trying to find her feet, she stumbles about like a tourist – like me, essentially. But I soon forgave her when I realised her knack for describing interiors intricately. Her chapter-long description of the stucchi in thorough detail created a strong image in my mind that stayed with me throughout the book. It would be so interesting to go to their habitation and see how it matched up.

The title seemed overly romantic, but I realised its appropriateness – it was such a strong dream of Paula’s to live in Venice that she overcame many obstacles to make it happen, and for that you have to admire her doggedness: including the battle of wills between her and her gentile landlady. (and that’s ‘gentile’ in the English, not the Italian!) Paula ends up living in a palazzo apartment still owned by one of the last pure lines of Venetian nobility, direct descendants of a Renaissance era doge. This was fascinating in itself, and I wish I could go and peer at this building, having pinpointed its location on a map. (I recommend reading with a map at hand.)

I was delighted to learn more Venetian history as told in the author’s style. She rubs shoulders with local historians, and some of the movers and shakers at the Peggy Guggenheim collection. Her journalistic curiosity also allows us to learn about restoration funding, the boating industry, the future of the lagoon and the acqua alta’s effect on the city, the Jewish cemetery, and the contrasting points of view between long-time Venetians, and the new inhabitants who flock to live there, chasing their own Venetian dreams.

The book ends on a poignant note. By this time, I cared about the author more than when I started, and am keen to locate and read the articles she wrote for the press while living in Venice.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Opinion seems to be divided down the middle about this book and I can see why especially if you haven't been to Venice. Without being able to visualize the descriptions of the streets and people, the detail in the church of San Marco, the transport, the food and bridges and general beauty and wonder of Venice, this may come across as just a book about a group of entitled individuals and one women's opinions of them. Having been to Venice, however, just a few months ago, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I had my map out tracing the routes Paula took on her walks, I loved the pieces of history she put all through the novel, whether it be tenth century or twentieth, the detail of the various festivities and buildings especially the 'stucchi' she lived in. I was entertained by her journey in learning the language and descriptions of those she met or heard Venice gossip about; the Dona's, Peggy Guggenheim and various other unknown but fascinating characters (I wouldn't want to read this book if I was some of them as she holds no punches when someone annoys or upsets her).Occasionally Paula Weideger comes across as a high maintenance, whining child, but having a few friends like this, I realize this doesn't always mean they don't have hearts of gold or other redeeming qualities -I just wouldn't want to live with them, I can only assume, Henry, her English partner has the patience of a saint or is of a similar disposition.

The last chapter just before Paula is due to leave Venice, is unfortunate, in what happens to her but also in that this is our last impression of the book and isn't really about the city but as she has been open about her experience throughout her time in Italy, so I suppose this had to be continued to the end.

Recommended reading after a trip to Venice or before you return to this Italian gem!

[Laurie Byro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read some of the reviews as I was reading this book, and came to the conclusion it is a book to be read shortly before or after a trip to Venice. I DO understand that some of the details regarding her contract for the apt etc may have dragged it, but I am in the midst of writing a Peggy Guggenheim poetry sequence and so that alone was interesting and true to what I have read about Peggy. I was a travel agent for 25 years. There are less obvious "insights" than say "Under A Tuscan Sun" regarding the personality of Venetians and Venice, but I do think that Venice is sort of like Bavaria is to Germany and that is so different in personality and culture that it SHOULD be another country all together and this back and forth between private/reticent and warm/charming to me is exactly the feeling I got when I was in Venice for a couple of weeks this past summer. I was warned "2 days tops to see Venice, spend your time in Rome" but to me there is no comparison. I wanted to help push the kiosk to St. Mark's in the morning when the locals began their day. I wanted to hang out at the coffee shop and listen to the canaries in the windows of the Venetians and because we were staying in a residence and a residential part of Venice, that was achieved. So to ME, this book, gives just a slice more of the Venetian life, of how it must feel as an ex pat discovers this city. I DO understand that feeling of being slightly in love, this was one of the few places on this earth that I said I could live and meant it, and to me this book made me feel like I had done that and was totally and perfectly at home.

[Kathleen Fowler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weideger knows Venice well, and does a good job sharing what she has learned of its history and culture over the course of many lengthy sojourns there. The high point for her was the opportunity to live in the remarkable Ca’ Donà, a sixteenth century palazzo on the Fondamenta Nuove of Venice, which she had long admired from afar, unaware of its name or its history. As is often the case when we realize our dreams, the reality was fraught with difficulties that could not have been anticipated: inadequate appliances, aged wiring, poor internet service, a laughable heating system, a leaky roof. Weideger initially took all these in stride as the not unreasonable cost of “living the dream,” but the honeymoon was soon over, so to speak, and Weideger ends by becoming a tiresome complainer and shameless gossip.

Aside from the unwelcome intrusion of too much of a personal nature as the book progresses, it is pretty much guaranteed to fuel the flame for those already besotted by Venice, those for whom Weideger’s references to particular places and particular views will awaken cherished memories of time spent in this most unique of cities. It may even be enough to kindle a desire to experience Venice in those who have never seen it. Either way, it accomplishes what the best travel writing always does: it brings the city alive, evokes an atmosphere, transports the reader to another place. “More Venice, less Weideger,” is what her editor should have demanded, and this would have been a far better book.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvelously entertaining book about an anerican woman's love affair in Venice. She's a tad spoiled and arrogant, but Zi enjoyed her momoir very much.

"Olive Ascalane - Large pitted green olive stuffed with mixture of such mild minced meats as chicken and veal to which herbs and maybe Parmesan cheese have been added, then smoothing another layer of the same mixture over the stuffed olive, rolling it in bread crumbs and giving the whole business a plunge in the deep fryer. As you bite into one of these oval tidbits, layer upon layer of tastes and textures are revealed, pleasure and calorie counting rising together toward the sky. But how dangerous could this be? Italy has a very low death rate from heart disease.

Look for Pinoccchio by Collodi. Illustrated by Carlo Chiostri in the 1901 edition.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of the story is wonderful. And overall, the writing is sophisticated.

The family that is renting the apartment to the author, ask if she would stay in another apartment, so they may let some big wigs in the film industry stay in her place for a short time. It is during the Venice film festival. The author refuses.

The family is angered by her refusal. So the balance of the story is told after the authors' bubble has burst, and its fairly obvious that her attitude has become one of sour grapes.

I found the ending to be abrupt and very unlike the style at the beginning of the book. So the way it ends is disheartening.

I learned a great deal about Venice. Personally, if I were in the author's shoes I would have given up the apartment for that short time.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd read this before traveling to Venice. Having been there, it was a fun reread to know exactly where the author lived, shopped and roamed through this fascinating city. A New Yorker living in London, she falls in love with Venice on a short visit and returns for a year. The earlier parts are better, as in the middle, her personal issues with her landlord overshadow her view of the city. Read it after you visit.

[Kendra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book. I wish I would have read it before I knew so much about Venice - I likely would have enjoyed it so much more. My mind was cluttered with what I know and have experienced in this incredible city, so having said that, it spoiled the book a bit for me. I do suggest reading it however. Well worth it!

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up at a BHF charity shop. I'm hoping to go to Venice, so it was a must. I got quite tired of the author, though. She has created a worthwhile memoir of Venice here, but I would rather have read more about the city than her. However, her experiences of living in a palace for a year and exploring a city she loves made me want to see it all even more.

[bridget Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

i have had this book for many years and finally decided to pick it up. this is a memoir of a woman and her love of Venice. i love her description of things...i want to go to venice now. however, i am not a fan of cold so i would not go in the winter time.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This memoir of the author's year of living in Venice in an apartment in a venerable old palazzo is a fun way to learn about Venice's culture, art, history, food, geography and more. Even the occasional name dropping is done in a self-deprecating manner.

[Jim Gifford · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you want to descend into the daily life of a self-absorbed, narcissistic journalist living in Venice for a year, this is the book for you. And it begs the question, why was this book allowed to be published?

[Al Price · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly kind of bored me, but i thought parts of it were entertaining. Overall, i feel like i know Venice a bit better (in preparation for an upcoming trip) but i dont really know what the point of the book was.

[Katrina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book created inspiration for me to paint. Her descriptive paragraphs gave me endless painting subjects.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

read this book while in - where else - venice.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

a lady from England went to rent an awesome apartment with history in Venice and shared her experience with the life there.

[Machel]

The prose are enchangingly delightful. Rich imagery, easy words, and brilliant description. Not my typcial read (Normally devour fiction) but loving this writer's narrative voice. Looks promising

[holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book and agree with the average 3-star rating......I think if I were 10-20 years older, and had been to Venice I would have enjoyed it even more : )

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

did not want this book to end...great!

[Deirdre Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked up in a second-hand bookstore while in Venice. A great companion book giving insight to the venetian psyche. Also acted as a alternate tour guide.

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book a lot. I kept my phone handy to look up the places she referred to. I will read another book of hers soon.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely memoir of an American living in Venice. If only she had kept her acerbity and meanness to herself.

[Fiona Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some great detail about Venice past and present but the author is a real pain in the proverbial.