Buon Anno da Venezia!
Since our ship departed outside of Rome, we decided we should tack on a few more Italian cities to our itinerary before beginning this four month odyssey. We bounced through Venice, Florence, and Rome for a few days before boarding our ship.
There were many planes, trains, and foot traverses to get where we are now. The route went like this: San Francisco > Los Angeles > Chicago > Des Moines > Washington D.C. > New York > Lisbon > Venice Nothing like 7 flights over a span of 4 days to get your neck and should just right before your drag your 50 pound luggage through 3 European cobblestone covered cities. But we knew what we were signing up for, right?
When we arrived in the Venice airport finally, we both found it a little odd that we did not have to go through customs upon landing. We left the airport feeling like we had snuck past security somehow. The U.S. has ingrained in us that you’re not allowed to take anything anywhere without at least a brief frisk. We got on a bus to the island of Venice and needed to take a vaporetto (water taxi) to meet our airbnb contact at the vaporetto stop, because good luck finding a specific address in Venice. Navigation is futile when you’re in a plaza and all four roads leading out of it are called the same thing. How does that happen? Luckily we were able to use data through Ashely’s phone, and the GPS has proved most useful in Venice.
We hovered around what we thought was the vaporetto stop for about 10 minutes and did not see any boats stopping. Finally we saw one that said “taxi” on it so I flagged it down, and I broke a rule that I should have known - don’t get in a taxi without negotiating the price of where you’re going first. 8 minutes and 60 Euros later we ended up at our stop. I’ll chalk that one up to jet lag. But we did have a delightful private boat ride through the canals under the stars. When we pulled up to our stop, the driver was helping us lift our luggage out of the boat and on to the dock while also keeping the boat positioned against the dock. As we were hopping out of the boat and wrangling our other luggage one of the rolling bags started to do what it does best, roll - toward the canal. Thankfully we snagged it and averted that crisis. Wouldn’t that have been a nice way to begin the trip? Mmm is that eau du canal fish you’re wearing?
We met our Airbnb person as planned and he walked us the 10 minutes to the apartment we had rented. He looked at our luggage and said, “you know we will be crossing many bridges, yes?” “Yes. Let’s get this over with.” We had been traveling for about 36 hours at this point. As we were walking he explained that we would owe him the city tax that is collected in person, and there was also a fee for late check in after nine o’clock. The city tax was clearly explained in the Airbnb description, and I was expecting it. The ‘late check-in fee’ was not agreed upon and the host knew exactly when we’d be arriving, and it was never an issue before. After being swindled by the taxi boat driver I wasn’t about to be fooled twice. As we were huffing and puffing carrying our luggage up and over the 4th bridge - which in Venice the bridges are all stairs - I was kindly but firmly telling this man that I would not be paying any additional fees due to the hour of our arrival. Our accommodations were just as pictured, which was a relief. It was a charming ancient building with old frescos painted on the ceiling. He showed us around the apartment and pointed out some resources including a guide book that he said was in Italian. We explained to him that unfortunately we don’t speak or read Italian, but he continued to tell us how great this book was and how it was full of small details to discover around Venice and that we really should make time to read it even thought we couldn’t read it.
With only a day and a half in Venice we stuck to the main attractions and focused on food. We wandered through the narrow alleys and over bridges appreciating the unique maze-like nature of the city and wondering where all the urine came from. We finally realized it was the dogs of Venice - not the citizens - peeing all over it. Maybe it was both? We also understood why the locals aren’t bothered by the aqua alta where parts of the city are briefly flooded for hours at a time due to the tide. It’s a necessary bath for the streets to wash down the dog pee and pigeon poo.
We walked over the iconic white stone Rialto bridge and to Piazzala San Marco past Doge Palace. If you’re wondering what a doge is, it’s the mayor of the town. We went up in the Campanile, or bell tower, at sunset for a beautiful view of the crowded plaza and the coastline of the island. We grabbed some gnocchi with boar ragu off a street vendor, got some ciocolate caldo to warm us up, and of course we sampled some cannolis both the chocolate and pistachio varieties. We washed it all down with some vin brulé (hot mulled wine).
On New Years Eve we made a reservation at a cozy little trattoria near our apartment. It was a prix fixe menu so I didn’t get or order squid ink pasta like I had wanted. But it was a fairly adventurous culinary experience. For the first course Ashley started with sous-vide eggs with whipped potato foam and fresh truffles, and I had tuna tartare. The next course was fois gras in a white bean sauce with peppardelle noodles for me, and Ashley had risotto with pumpkin and scallops. We exercised some restraint by splitting the final course of Chateaubriand filet and purple fingerling potatoes. We came to Italy to eat, and I think we succeeded. We wandered back down to Piazza San Marco for the midnight fireworks. We stood in front of Hotel Danieli with our personal sized bottles of prosecco and popped our corks along with the thousands of other people celebrating the coming of 2019! Buon Anno!
We wanted to checkout one of the other islands around Venice, and we didn’t know if we should go to Murano - known for the glass blowing, or Burano - known for the colorful houses and lace that is made there. Due to time constraints we we went to Murano since it’s closer. We were hoping to to see some artists in their workshops blowing glass and to find some Venetian lanterns to buy. However, it was New Years day and the majority of the stores and workshops were closed. It was a cute little town to wander around, but it’s not much different than the main island when the glass blowing shops are closed. We did find some pretty blown glass Christmas ornaments, our first souvenir! We finally figured out the vaporetto water taxi system just in time to leave. Stay tuned for adventures in Florence and Rome next!
