Inside our apartment - starkly.

I'm sitting on the large white sofa, in our 18th century palazzo just five minutes from Rialto and San Marco.  We have four very tall windows that look out very closely onto four other pink walls opposite, the goings on within which fascinate us. The woman across the way, above the mask and photography shop, watches television from dawn till midnight, and at regular intervals stands up to stretch her arms and touch her toes.  We think we spies on us too, because we've seen her cleaning her windows more often than she should, wearing the clear plastic gloves the supermarket requires us to wear when we are choosing vegetables.

On the other wall, the inhabitant is a mystery.  This building is a stunning, although sadly rundown and ignored palazzo, with spectacular windows and a balconette.  Old, moulding books seem to line the floors as we can see them through the windows.  Through another window we can see piles of opaque plastic bottles.  Gaspare was wanting inspiration for paintings so we've had great fun inventing stories about the owner of the apartment and the books. Reno's theory is that the owner died a long time ago and is still sitting at a chair with a tome in his hand ... but I like to think that a book gets moved from one pile to another during the night ... he's still there reading ..  whatever we invent is still rather sad, for there is so much of Venice that is in the dark in so many ways.  You can live an arm's length from someone, and know nothing about them. 

"Famous" artworks line our walls.  Two sheets of medieval music behind glass.  A grim portrait of a depressed man on the bedroom landing.  There's a painting of what we think is the Venice La Fenice on fire, or the Texas chain saw massacre, or the opening scene of Pulp Fiction.  It's an enormous canvas of what looks like splashed blood with a few handprints.  Oh, of course, it's the dna evidence from In Cold Blood.  I've looked at this thing for weeks now, trying to figure it out.  It's so large that all I've realised is it would have had to come into this apartment in a roll, and the frame would have been made in situ.  The bed is on a glass mezzanine landing, without any form of railing on the side of the steps ... which look like an uneven pile of books. You have to walk down them with legs spread ... and if in a hurry to go to the loo after a big day out ... better to go downstairs. We mentioned to the landlord that we thought the steps were dangerous, and could we please have the name of a doctor in case of emergency. His retort was that the stairs were designed by a "very famous Italian architect" with the subtext that we wouldn't know art if we were to fall down it.   If Reno or I have to go downstairs at night, we often miss the steps and crash hands first into the wall of the "kitchen" ( which is the size of an ikea desk, with a two burner hotplate and a sink installed.  For bench space we've had to use a chair. ) A chair at the foot of our bed fell from the mezzanine down the stairs and I watched in horror as it headed towards the prize Murano glass displayed proudly on the shelves ... but wasn't brave enough to hop down the stairs to catch the chair on its descent.

The washing machine is on, scattering anything that was on top of it to the floor as it tries to shuffle around the room. Perfectly normal to have a washing machine going this time of night, you'd think. But when we arrived for our month's stay, we found to our astonishment that there was nowhere to do our laundry. Nor was there a hairdryer.  That the frying pans had handles so loose the pans swivelled around when we tried to use them so flipping an omelette was an oxymoron. The kitchen hotplate is partially tucked under a cupboard so that we have to back away to open the cupboards.   The top of the "desk" becomes a benchtop when it's lifted up to cook or wash up. The  heated towel rail doesn't work, the tap on the mezzanine comes off in our hands, and the shower rose dribbles a few drops of nervous sweat occasionally.  We were supplied with two sets of sheets and two sets of towels. A toaster which is really a grill, so slow that needs to be put on at midnight if you want toast with eggs in the morning. Our kettle is an enamel cup, which gets so hot that we have to use socks to hold it.

There are beams in the ceiling that so low there are dents where previous tenants have bumped heads.  Reno's head has been permanently marked at the high water level.  We put up our luggage labels to warn him to duck, but the maid who comes on Wednesdays complained to Giovanni, who told us to take them down because they were damaging the paint. I said rather luggage labels than brain damage, but he was more worried about paint removal.

After many emails and imploring requests about where we could find a laundromat or buy a hairdryer, Fosca the go-between arrived with :

1 Hairdryer
4 unmatched black plastic chairs
6 Placemats
2 Oven Mitts
1 set of saucepans and frypans, so light they bend in half  - I know because I accidentally closed the cupboard when the handle was sticking out and we now have an inadvertent omelette maker. A bonus is that food never needs to be stirred or shaken, as the pan rocks and rolls on the heat on its own.

Steps! Going up - and down.

The next day, three plumbers, two electricians, the maid, a handman and a person waltzing a washing machine through the door arrived.   The faulty towel rail was replaced, only to be discovered later that the old one worked perfectly : all that was needed was a bit of black electrical tape on the cord. But the unit was replaced anyway.  The washing machine was installed by dragging the outlet pipe through a hole in the chipboard under the sink in the kitchen, which is in the middle of the loungeroom.  Six men worked on their various jobs, chatted on their phones, discussed Italian football and their girlfriends, or their mama's pasta.  One man's job was to shrinkwrap all the packing that had accompanied the goods in, so that it could be trolleyed out again and be hoisted onto a barge to be removed from Venice.

We were thrilled, as it gave us extra bench space for our rocking and rolling saucepans.  But we were vaguely disappointed too, as we'd found a marvellous laundry, Lavanderia Gabriella, where we'd made friends with the mother and daughter who ran it, and who irons our precious t shirts while wearing her pearls and cashmere. They asked us to come by to show them my wedding dress when I wear it for Carnevale! Everyone is so eager to talk to Reno who is so affable and amenable,  that we're making friends daily.  We'd also asked the landlord for an extra set of sheets for when Pippo and Francine arrive, but were told it would cost E50.  And the maid took the extra ones in the cupboard away, just in case we decided to have guests ...

I'd had an awful backache for a few days - thinking that it was the mattress as it was very lumpy, but when my eyes turned yellow we went into the pharmacy to ask for a doctor, who turned up within the hour. Reno wanted to know how we'd recognise him, as he wanted us to wait outside the Farmacia,  and I suggested he'd be wearing the il dottore mask, the long nose stuffed with healing herbs that people wore during Medieval times to help stave off disease. Reno said he'd be wearing a stethoscope.  But this dottore arrived wearing a beret, a scarf, and skin-tight denim jeans. As soon as he reached the entrance to our apartment, he exclaimed that this was the one that had a lot of controversy when it was renovated a few years ago because it was a famous one in Venice - Palazzo Regina Vittoria.  He said he'd always wanted to look inside because he'd heard that only kings and queens could afford it. Well, he was right about the queens, because we know who owns our place!  As soon as he walked in he started with Italian expletives. Soulless. Empty. Cold.  Mama Mia! What have they done?  Then, once inside, and after he'd examined me on the Ikea sofa and diagnosed a stomach infection, taken his E170 for the examination and prescribed E70 of antibiotics, he saw the steps.

Karamba! he shouted. Molto, molto periculoso.  So, so dangerous!  He wanted to dob in the offending queen without taking a breath.  This place should be closed down!  If someone falls, they will be killed!  You should move out immediately!  I would like to tell the authorities! What kind of a kitchen is this? They are breaking all the rules! You can't just do anything in places like this! What's happened to the history of this building?  The Venetian council should be informed forthwith.

Our humble doctor then launched into a diatribe against the state, lawless landlords (did I get a receipt for all my money? because nobody is allowed to take more than E1000 in cash ever, for anything!) socialism, arts, the medical system, the illegal handbag sellers, the people of Mestre.  We loved him immediately and offered him a glass of Bellini, but he ruefully refused, saying he was, after all, working.  Then he offered to take us to the art gallery around the corner where his wife works! So we followed him, chatting about art and Venice and music as if we'd known him forever.

In two days my eyes were green again and my back was better.  We knew a little more about the workings inside Venice.  We tried to ask for a receipt for the balance of our rent money, paid in cash .... but suddenly my emails bounced back ...