MY VENETIAN WISTERIA WALK
Just a beautiful and colorful virtual walk for you if you’re missing Venice and her gardens in spring. This post takes you on a relaxing morning walk amongst wisteria blossoms. We start right here in the image below, admiring the “wisteria house” next to a pozzo (well) on Campo di San Giacomo dall’Orio.
And yes, this is a long way from my home on the opposite side of the Grand Canal. But I think this campo is a good starting point for a morning walk in April, when the city is wrapped in warm and humid haze and wisteria fragrance.
You’ll certainly come across beautiful wisteria on the campi, or along a quiet calle framing a door, or reaching down to the waters of a quiet canal. But the real beauty is always “inside”, in private gardens, where more varieties of wisteria grow than in most other places on earth. I also love the mighty white wisteria plants (wisteria floribunda alba) in Venice, a Japanese variety blossoming a little later than the ever-present purple wisteria sinensis. A particularly beautiful example of white wisteria grows in the gardens of Hotel Gabrielli, climbing up a wrought iron veranda overlooking a canal. Its foliage and blossoms seem to lock out the noise on the water, and now and then, a pigeon or blackbird move behind the white blossoms, otherwise the garden seems completely still.
So from San Giacomo dall’Orio, we walk towards Rialto, past a couple of mighty wisteria plants (you won’t miss them!), and then onwards to our first breakfast stop, Pasticceria Ponte delle Paste. Paste means “little sweets and cakes” in Venice, and this pastry store offers some of the finest you can get for breakfast in Venice. Did you know that many pastry stores have extra menus for breakfast: Your favorite cornetto, filled with almond-blossom cream, will only be available until mid-morning – important to know so you can taste what breakfast in Venice is really like!
Standing at their bar counter, and looking back towards the door, you can enjoy the view and sometimes, even the scent of one of the most impressive wisteria plants in Venice. A very special early-morning experience, when there’s just the slightest warm breeze spreading the scent, and you’re wrapped in the sweet fragrance of wisteria blossoms while drinking coffee.
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