Preparing the Dossier

My friend Deirdre expressed great surprise when I handed her a clear plastic file folder as she got into the car for an overnight trip up the Hudson to Storm King, Dia Beacon and the Fisher Center at Bard. "What's this?"  "Why, the dossier, of course!"  Mapquest directions, printouts from the websites of each organization, restaurant suggestions, a New York Times article on attractions of the Mid-Hudson ... you get the idea.  Well, freshly back from a weekend's business trip to Fort Lauderdale and having submitted a huge month-long project to a client to review, I found the deck finally cleared to start compiling the Venice dossier.

I opened the "Venice" file on my computer and started printing.  First the original Continental Airlines Mileage Plus confirmation for the trip.  Then the Delta confirmation for the actual flights.  Carlo's instructions on how to get to the apartment.  Linda Schrank's museum/gallery recommendations and her forwarded copy of Gael Greene's "How to Eat Like a Venetian."  The confirmation of our tickets to see "Barber of Seville" at La Fenice, and the Last Supper in Milano (although sadly I think we'll not get to use those).   A little article on Henry James in Venice.  

Having laid the groundwork for the dossier, I then went on line to flesh it out.  First visit, venicecard.com to check out the Venice Card:  an all-emcompassing pass for public transportation and museum visits.  Blue for transportation and museum discounts?  Or Orange for transportation and free museum entrance?  Buy, reserve, or just get info?  Get one 7-day pass then another if we need, or go for two back-to-back 7 day passes to cover our entire 10 day stay?  Went for the reservations for the two back-to-backs, although I may change my mind.  Then to the museums.  

The Accademia isn't on the pass, so I went to check out the entrance fee and found out they've extended the temporary exhibition "L'Ultimo Tiziano" through our visit. (I'm thinking this means "The Last Titians" but I'm not 100% sure.)  Yeah!  They sell entrance tickets in advance, but I just couldn't figure out yet when we'd want to go.  Funny that they only seem to have 25 tickets available for each half hour time slot.  Either it's a very small museum, or they're very careful of avoiding crowds or there's a supply of tickets set aside for walk-ins.  

Then to look at concert tickets.  Found a website -- ClassicTic - which had several nice-looking concerts each night.  Didn't buy any tickets, but felt reassured that we'd have music whenever we wanted it.   And just this minute Carl Pritzkat, just back from Venice himself, e-mailed me his hot-off-the-presses restaurant recommendations.  

OK ... the dossier is starting to shape up nicely!