Venice 2017

Earlier this term, our art pupils had the chance to visit Venice to take in some of the city’s world-renowned artworks, sights and culture. Eldmire pupil, Maddison, recounts the journey and some of her highlights.

Our amazing adventure started at 5.15am at Leeds Bradford Airport, and from there we journeyed to Marco Polo Airport, Venice. The trip on the Vaporetto from the airport to Venice across the waterways was truly incredible.

We then walked to find the hotel, only to drop our bags, before heading out to explore. A quick fuel stop at McDonalds and straight onto the first of our exhibitions – Damian Hirst’s Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable. There we found his magnificent mythical creations and were lucky enough to spend the afternoon studying them, whilst being captivated by the views of Venice, seen through the windows of the gallery.

To finish the day off, we enjoyed a lovely meal at the hotel’s very own restaurant. However, we didn’t realise how expensive one coke could be!

Day two and we were off again, this time to visit La Biennale, an exhibition dedicated to new and upcoming artists from around the world, representing their own country. We visited Great Britain’s gallery represented by the artist Phyllida Barlow. My favourite however was the Australian exhibition, being shown by artist Tracey Moffatt.

Later that day we returned to the hotel in order to get ready for a rather posh meal out. Our daily budget was certainly well spent that day.

Moving on to our last day on the beautiful island of Venice, we travelled to Peggy Guggenheim’s Collection. Here I fell in love with Salvador Dali’s work. After exploring this house of wonders, we took a short walk and a slight detour (as we got rather lost in the alleyways) to St Mark’s Square, where we found the elegant Doge’s Palace. Just from the look of the exterior you could see how much detail and effort was put into the building of this piece of great architecture.

Towards the end of the day, we took our final vaporetto over to one of the islands to sit on a step and sketch the stunning silhouette of Venice. In the background, we listened to the sounds of an English boys’ choir. We also got to enjoy the incredible views from up above in the great tower of the island, however, when the bell rang we all thought the tower would come tumbling down.

Our last evening meal on the island had to include a little silly dancing and embarrassing ourselves ever so slightly, and of course, enjoying some of the wonderful pizza. We finally went off to bed in order to get a couple of hours sleep before an early start to our journey home.

It is a trip I will never forget. Thank you to everyone who organised it and to all for the memories we made.