Ahhhh Venice, part 1
This grand Italian escapade of mine you have been reading culminates in Venice. Ahhhh Venice, it is a romantic city. It's also a very expensive city. I'll give you a few pointers, but I'll start with a couple of things I want to get out of the way with respect to Venice in general.I was in Venice for four days and I think it was a bit too much. I didn't hit a lot of museums and was basically just wandering aimlessly. I should have spent more time in Rome. The best food I had in Venice isn't on the island, but the mainland. I could probably do a few blog posts just on the food in Italy, the country is famous for food though. If you don't like walking -- stay the heck away from Venice.
My biggest tip for Venice is buy the daily pass for the Vaporetti and get your money's worth. One ride, one way on the water bus costs €7.50 ouch. A one-day all you can ride pass is €20 and a three-day pass is €40, if I remember right. I bought the three day and I rode those suckers anywhere from 50 meters to several dozen miles. The last day I didn't have a pass and I just walked all over the main island. If you want to see any of the other islands in Venice at all you're going to need to take some kind of boat. Swimming isn't an option I endorse.
Of course, the most romantic way to travel in Venice is via gondola. It's also hands down the most expensive. The rates are €60 or €80 per hour as far as prices of things in Europe go, I'm told you can buy sex for about the same price in some places. The photo you see above is of gondolas at the Bridge of Sighs; it got way more crowded under there as this is THE place to take a gondola ride.
Another slightly cheaper option is taking a water taxi. Many of them are beautiful boats and there are established stands all over the place. The taxi driver you see above is on the island of Torcello waiting for his customers to return. Torcello seems like as good a place to start as any, so let's do that.
Torcello is one of the oldest populated islands in Venice and used to have the most people, but now something like 75 people live there. There is not a ton of stuff to do, but it is quite peaceful. There is a cathedral.
Evidently the cathedral has some impressive mosaics inside. I didn't go see them and honestly didn't know about them until googling around for this post. I was just enjoying a place that wasn't crawling with tourists. There were some tourists, yes but not a whole lot of them.
The Torcello cathedral also has a tower, which makes sense. Admission to the museum at the cathedral also allows you to climb the tower, or I think you can just do the tower. I figured that since there really isn't a whole not to see on the island and the sky was a bit drab, that I would skip the hike to the top of the tower this time around. It looks like it's been there for a few hundred years, so I'm sure it will be there next time I visit.
There was some really good light while I was on the island though and I was able to get a few frames I liked. The one above is still in the cathedral, or the outside areas of it anyway. I wandered around on the island for maybe two hours and saw almost every building there is to see. I may have even accidentally trespassed into someone's field.
The photo above is still on Torcello and I liked the colors and the flowers in the statue's hand. There was a lady sitting on that bench for like 45 minutes though and I had to pass by several times waiting for her to move so I could take this photo. Trust me, it's much nicer without that lady in the ugly red tee shirt in the photo.
There were some other colorful, beautiful doors and such on Torcello. There was also a stone easy chair that was remarkably comfortable. I made myself quite the nuisance while taking a photo of myself in it. No, it wasn't a selfie, my camera has a timer. I was there for a while though and a nice Scottish couple waited patiently for me to leave.
A few hours on Torcello really is enough. Evidently one of the oldest restaurants in Venice is there. Restaurants on the main island are expensive. Restaurants on the outlying islands are ridiculous, no one wants to pay €20 for a crappy appetizer, so I hopped a Vaporetto back to the main island.
A few hours on Torcello really is enough. Evidently one of the oldest restaurants in Venice is there. Restaurants on the main island are expensive. Restaurants on the outlying islands are ridiculous, no one wants to pay €20 for a crappy appetizer, so I hopped a Vaporetto back to the main island.
Remember when I said swimming wasn't a good idea? The whole Ventian lagoon, and thusly canal system, is a yucky green color. I'm sure people fall in from time to time, but I'm sure they don't like it. I think if you want to go for a swim the best bet is to take the Vaporetto to the edge of the lagoon and hit the Adriatic.
Again food, and then I'll shut up about it. I was told by several people that my usual traveling style of wandering around and looking for something that looks good at random doesn't really work in Venice. A British friend of mine said, "there are a bunch of small places and they are all a rip off and they are ALL crap." Look, if anyone knows how to complain, it's a Brit but when you get the same basic story from several people, you listen. Also, don't eat pizza in Venice. They have had a ban on pizza ovens for like a century so the pizza isn't the best. That said, I made some plans and got super lucky a few times. I'll tell you about my luck.
You see those OG degos up there chilling around a barrel? This is what you want to look for. This place was right next to a fish market on the island of Murano and you'd have to look for it, but I got my self lost and lucked out. No one was speaking English in the place, another sign that things might be alright, and the lady behind the counter barely did. I pointed some cicchetti, these Italian version of tapas things, that looked good, asked for a capuccino and went out to sit near the Italian conference you see above. It was lunch time and these dudes were pounding prosecco.
Everything I had at this place was freaking amazing and it was like $15, which is insanely cheap for Venice. Look for the old school conference, you won't be disappointed. Another thing, if you're in the U.S. especially you haven't had coffee until you've had it in Italy. I kind of hate cappuccino, I was swilling the stuff like coke in Italy and it was delicious.
Again food, and then I'll shut up about it. I was told by several people that my usual traveling style of wandering around and looking for something that looks good at random doesn't really work in Venice. A British friend of mine said, "there are a bunch of small places and they are all a rip off and they are ALL crap." Look, if anyone knows how to complain, it's a Brit but when you get the same basic story from several people, you listen. Also, don't eat pizza in Venice. They have had a ban on pizza ovens for like a century so the pizza isn't the best. That said, I made some plans and got super lucky a few times. I'll tell you about my luck.
You see those OG degos up there chilling around a barrel? This is what you want to look for. This place was right next to a fish market on the island of Murano and you'd have to look for it, but I got my self lost and lucked out. No one was speaking English in the place, another sign that things might be alright, and the lady behind the counter barely did. I pointed some cicchetti, these Italian version of tapas things, that looked good, asked for a capuccino and went out to sit near the Italian conference you see above. It was lunch time and these dudes were pounding prosecco.
Everything I had at this place was freaking amazing and it was like $15, which is insanely cheap for Venice. Look for the old school conference, you won't be disappointed. Another thing, if you're in the U.S. especially you haven't had coffee until you've had it in Italy. I kind of hate cappuccino, I was swilling the stuff like coke in Italy and it was delicious.
I made a google map with restaurants that I researched beforehand and geotagged. I'm so smart. A word of warning, your GPS is going to suck in Venice, the buildings are too close together. The guy in the photo above was a worker at once of those places I tagged and I gorged myself on octopus and prosecco there, leaving fat and buzzed, don't let his tragically unItalian shoe choice make you think he's not authentic. So, the absolute, hands down, bar none best restaurant in Venice is a place called Macaco and is on the mainland in Mestre. I can't say enough good things about this place, get there early because it gets packed quickly. The owner even called the chef who made my food to ask about allergens, talk about service. This place is another cicchetti place so you get to eat a lot of different things. Another word of note about restaurants in Venice, you pay extra if you want to sit down. The food is cheaper if you just stand around the bar and eat.
Another place that was super cheap and had delicious food actually was a random find for me near the main food market on the main island in Venice. It was actually a small deli type shop for groceries etc. There was a sign stuck to some dish in the display fridge/counter that said, "it doesn't look like much but it's delicious." I figured that is an excellent endorsement so I went inside to check it out. The were two Italian guys stuffing their faces at the end of the counter and when I tried to ask the little old lady running the place I discovered she didn't speak English. The two nice Italian guys took time out from their feast to help me get this odd sun-dried tomato olive, ricotta vinaigrette something salad from the lady. I may have paid €4 for a huge portion. As the Italian guys said, "she's feeding us like we're her grandsons" and they were right, she was very generous. Look, if you know me you know that I think olives are some of the most disgusting things on Earth. To say I loathe olives would be the understatement of a lifetime, this really unappealing salad stuffed with olives was AMAZING. I couldn't stop eating it.
While the above photo may seem a bit random after chatting about food, it ties in well with this whole post. It's the tower my lead photo at the top was taken from, the San Marco Campanile. It's Venice so you know there is going to be more, so check back in two weeks and enjoy it while I panic a little bit about how I'm going to fill this space after all my Italian material is used up.
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