The Wisteria - A painting of Campo San Provolo

This is the view I have when I am about to reach home in Venice. The delightful and quiet Campo San Provolo, just five minutes from Piazza San Marco. In an oil painting this Campo is depicted in the 1970s and it must have been very idyllic: Towards the sotoportego (Venetian for: covered archway) leading towards Fondamenta dell'Osmarin, a huge wisteria (glicine, as we call it) spread over the facades of several houses.

A view of Campo San Provolo in the 1970s, with the huge wisteria climbing up the walls and embracing several facades. 

My Venetian grandmother told me that it had been cut because insects who lived between the leaves kept creeping from the branches covering the facades into the rooms, hiding under window sills. Finally it was decided to cut the plant in the late 1970s. What a shame, I always thought. Even my grandmother had to admit that ever since, she had been missing the sweet scent the flowers sent all over the little campo in late April, when the plant consisted of nothing else but purple blossoms.

Our Pozzo, well in the midst of Campo San Provolo

For the rest, the tiny campo has not much changed, the pozzo is still there, and so is the Hotel Casa Fontana, the Trattoria San Provolo and Pizzeria da Roberto. On the other side, the Trattoria da Nino is half hidden under another sotoportego leading towards Campiello del Vin and Riva degli Schiavoni. So there is the possibility to enjoy a relaxing lunch or dinner and take in the atmosphere of Campo San Provolo (not really quiet, but lively and still relaxing - hard to describe. Still, it is not so quiet in the morning, when everyone is rushing through on its way to work or when produce and groceries are delivered ...

Here are a few pictures of Campo San Provolo I took in late summer.

From the Sottoportego dell'Osmarin (here the wisteria had been planted)  we enter into Campo San Provolo. To the left is the Trattoria San Provolo, with its red sun screens, the green sun screens belong to Pizzeria da Roberto.

Campo San Provolo, to the far left (see green sun shades) is Hotel Fontana, a former monastery. And, in the left corner, another archway is leading into Campo San Zaccaria.

Facades overlooking Campo San Provolo, embellished by a flowering balcony