Furnaces of Venice

July 6th-8th, 2015

We took the train in to Venice and arrived on another ridiculously hot day. The first sight of Venice is truly unique. It is hard to understand that it is a city practically being held up with stilts. After climbing the stairs of our first bridge with our duffel bags, we wound down a side street to find our hotel. The charm of Venice quickly disappeared when we saw our room for the next couple of nights. Aside from just being gross, the room was so humid that everything was slightly damp, including the bed that we would get to sleep in. We decided we didn’t want to spend any more time in the room than we had to so we ventured out to explore Venezia. We wandered around the winding streets, over canals, and onto the various islands, trying to grasp the layout of the city. We found a local restaurant for dinner and decided on fish, as that’s what they are known for. We tried a fish platter (sardines, cod, salmon) and a fish risotto. Our meal was fine, but nothing too exciting. After dinner we found our way to St. Mark’s Square and enjoyed the (slightly) cooler weather while people watching and taking in the action of the square. We took a vaporetto (like a bus, but a boat) back to our side of the island.

The next morning we decided to try to avoid the crowds a bit by taking a ferry to the islands of Murano and Burano. We arrived in Murano and were happy to find how quiet and peaceful it was. We walked around trying to find glass blowing to watch, which should have been as easy task. However, while there are tons of glass shops many seem to be cheap, knock-off items being sold in storefronts that are not actually made on the island. We found one that seemed promising and went in and asked if we could watch them make the glass. We were led to the back where the workers were working in extreme heat on some large items. Watching the process was mesmerizing!

We then headed to the island of Burano. The island is apparently known for lace making so all the shops here had doilies, doll outfits, and fans made of lace to sell-while different this isn’t quite our style so we decided to focus on the scenery instead. The island is full of brightly colored houses and buildings. It made it fun to wander the streets with our cold frappes and admire all the colors.

When we got back to Venice we decided to spend some time looking for a new hotel. No luck, so we found a place to eat to avoid going back a bit longer. We found a restaurant with high ratings and decided to check it out. We started with several vegetable starters, but they ended up being so delicious and filling that this made up our entire meal. We never would have planned on an all veggie dinner but we certainly enjoyed it! We ended up sitting next to another American couple, who told us that reservations here usually have to be booked months in advance so we got lucky! We ended up chatting with them throughout the dinner and got some great recommendations for our final day in Venice. We were reminded that although part of traveling is seeing all the sights, we also love getting to know new people and being open to talking to people in a way nobody really does back home.

On our final day in Venice, we took a tour of the Grand Canal in a vaporetto, starting near the train station and ending in St. Mark’s Square. We then took a walking tour (we obviously love our Rick Steves’ tours) of St. Mark’s Square and the Cathedral. The inside of the cathedral was covered in mosaics and gold which made it sparkle in the sun. Even the floor was covered in mosaic designs. The floors were also uneven making waves throughout because of how the building settled over the water. We spent the majority of the rest of the day just wandering the canals and streets and finding shady spots to sit by the canals and get splashed by the water. It was fun to watch all the different types of boats (gondolas, vaporettos, private boats, DHL boats, and even ambulance boats) all battling for the same tight turns into the canals. We came across another street market and were happy to find blood oranges here as they didn’t work out in Rome. However, once again this was a fail and it turned out to be just a regular orange.

We decided early on in the trip that a gondola ride was not worth the 80 euro for a half hour ride around the canals so we were very excited to discover (from the couple we met the previous night) that there were local gondolas (traghettos) that could be used to cross the canal for much cheaper. We decided we needed to find one and were excited to pay just 2 euro a person to cross the canal in one! The ride lasted just a couple minutes, but we rode in a gondola! After almost a week of weather nearly 100 degrees everyday, the skies starting becoming dark and the weather began to cool down pretty quickly, so we knew a storm was coming. We popped into a café to avoid it and within 5 minutes, there was an incredible down pour. It only lasted a few minutes but by the time it was over many of the building had crumbled façade all around them. We had our final dinner at Ai Promessi Sposi. Of course we were reminded of the how Italian time works when we tried to enter at 6:30 when they were scheduled to open to find the door locked. Shortly after another family went in who had a reservation at 6:30 and was told that they weren’t ready and should come back at 6:30. When the woman told him it was in fact 6:30 he checked his watch and said no, its 6:20, ignoring the church bells that were going off clearly indicating it was definitely not. It was a funny reminder of how time has worked for us over the last week.

We wandered around a bit longer and by the time we came back the place was nearly full but we found a table and enjoyed our final meal in Italy. We started with a tuna tartar and Chuck tried the pasta with veal ragu and Anna had orecchiette with a caper pesto. All were delicious and fresh as usual. We tried to order ice cream for dessert but it was too hot for it to be made so we ended with biscuits dipped in dessert wine and it was a pretty perfect end to our time in Italy.

Ciao and onto (hopefully) cooler weather in the north.