We stayed in Venice the longest and enough happened that my ranting on Venice warranted being split up.
Day three in Venice was a pretty lazy one. This was our "crap, we haven't bought anything for anyone yet" day. After waking up a little later than we'd hoped, grabbing breakfast before the Italian's could pack it up, we headed towards the Rialto.
The Rialto is like an outdoor mall in America except with a lot more history and a lot more graffiti. That's the strange thing about the graffiti too. In America, if you see graffiti, it usually means you're in a bad side of town and you need to go ahead and vacate. But in Italy, it's everywhere. It's on historical monuments like the Rialto bridge and Juliet's house! I just don't get it.
Anywho, I had read about this mask maker called La Bottega Dei Mascareri that supposedly had a shop among the plethora of crap stores (that's stores that sell crap) just passed the Rialto. We'd looked there for a solid hour the day before but couldn't find it. We had all but given up on finding that perfect mask (none of the others seems to really do it for me) until we were purchasing Steven's father a gift from one of the Rialto shops and asked the owners if they knew of this mask maker. To our luck, one of the owners was good buddies with the the owner, Boldrini, and took us straight to his store! It was truly meant to be. This guy had the tiniest store I've ever set foot in. I'm so glad that Venetian masks aren't fragile or I would have had to buy the whole damn store. After hemming and hawing over a couple masks and hearing his story about designing the masks for the orgy scene of Eyes Wide Shut, I decided on this guy:
So sorrowful and emotional. I lurv it. It will be hanging on our wall soon.
I haven't ranted much about the way Venice smelled yet so let me cover that now. Venice is rather dirty. You have the polluted green fish-stank canals and the thousands upon thousands of tourists who trample the streets and litter and the hundreds of animals who pee and poo on the streets. That all collects to form one unique, very powerful, aroma. It is constantly lingering, this odor of fish-poo-stank and then every once in a while you'll round a corner and it's as if a local has smacked you in the face with cod prepped for baccala'. The Hawns have told us that the day after we left the city did a mass clean sweep and everything smelled better. So maybe we were there at the butt end of their cycle and experienced the worst that it gets? Either way. Bleh. It was rather picturesque but I don't think I appreciated it quite as much as I would have if I wasn't plugging my nose. OK, maybe that was an exaggeration. I didn't actually plug my nose...
After dropping our goods off at the room we asked the Tallest Italian Ever Made where we could score a bottle of wine and some pastries; it was high time we utilize that balcony! We ended up with an assortment of mostly french style pastries and a chilled bottle of Proseco and parked ourselves in the (rather large) roof top balcony. We enjoyed relaxing up there for about an hour or so, finishing off our wine. We watched a mammoth sailboat style cruise ship leave Venice and listened to the bells ring over, and over and over again. There was one church bell that must have had a crack because you'd here "ring-a-ring-a-ling-CLANK! ... ring-a-ring-a-ling-CLANK!" Haha, makes me smile to remember that. We tried timing the bells to see what pattern they were on. But I think they caught on, because they'd change from 15 min intervals to 8 or 9 min intervals. And then someone's clock was running early and would start well before the others were. And all the while we heard "ring-a-ring-a-ling-CLANK!"
One thing you must do in Venice, and you'll hate me for saying this, but you must ride a Gondola. If you don't...it's like going to Rome and not seeing the Colosseum. It is a terribly touristy activity but there is no where else in the world that you can ride a real Gondola that is powered by a real Venetian...even if he's cranky. We eventually met back up with the Hawns, bought more wine and set off to find a Gondolier. We were dead set on talking them down from 100 Euro or an evening ride. We walked right up to one of them, asked his prices, he said 100 euro for 30 mins, we said 80 euro for 4? He said No....and he wasn't messing around. Well, we tried...cranky Gondolier... While we were figuring out how to split the Gondola ride up (we didn't have exact change) another American looking couple wandered up and looked from us to the Gondola, back to us, back to the Gondola, as if we were about to steal their bike. It was obvious they wanted to go on a Gondola ride, and we had already determined that the rate is a set rate for the ride and would not increase if we added people, so I asked them if they'd join us. I think they were more pleased that we were American than for the invitation. What was once an expensive tourist trap, became a much more reasonable experience. They ran to get some beers (and make change) and we all piled in to the Gondola.
Our last minute American add-ons were from Philly and were celebrating their honeymoon. They had already been to Rome and were heading to Athens after Venice. A 10 day long honeymoon with multiple European destinations. Nope...not jealous.....damn them.
Life Bucket List Item - Ride a Gondola in Venice: Check
It wasn't quite dinner time yet but we had heard about cichetti in Venice and wanted to give it a try. Let me give you a little piece of advice from me to you. Don't stop at the first place you see... At the first sign of cichetti, we sat our happy bums into a booth and enjoyed a couple unique dishes and an ok wine. We weren't impressed so we didn't stick around for long. We were kicking ourselves when we went a couple more streets and found a restaurant that had super yummy looking dishes and crowds of Italians. If only we had kept on walking.
Sometime between cichetti and dinner we wandered some more and happened upon a leaning tower of Italy! You really don't need to go to Pisa to see a leaning tower. Apparently foundations were not Italy's strong suite for a while.
Dinner is usually a late affair in Italy. If you sit down before 8pm, you'll look like an early bird. Even though we had been very nicely buzzed the night before, we remember this one restaurant distinctly. It was completely packed and had a crowd waiting. It was in one of the neighborhoods we wandered through on the way home the previous night. Somehow, Steven managed to find our way back to it. Seriously, an amazing skill. We walked up and asked for a table, "Un tavolo, per quattro?", (in Italian) "Do you have a reservation", "...No...But we'll wai..", "Sorry we're completely booked". And they were. They had reservations for the whole night. There was no waiting for a table to open. Insert sad face. Funny side note, we were talking to a Swede who was waiting for their table and he told us that that particular street and bridge in Venice used to be the "red light district". Where a certain type of working girl would hang about. Ha...
We wandered some more, I tried to follow my nose like the night before, and we eventually ended up in this hole in the wall pizzeria. This place was authentic. The pizza kitchen was epic. But the "ceiling" of the patio was the most impressive. It was a tree that had been trained to grow along a ceiling trellis. So the branches splayed out horizontally instead of vertically. The table we were seated had a border on two sides with a short fence that was completely covered in real ivy. Jess kinda blended in.
For an appetizer we grubbed on a cheese plate (I love that a plate of cheese is an appetizer, seriously, American restaurants, catch on) and then the 4 of us split two pizzas. So good. Best pizza we had in Italy. The weather was about to turn south and we had no umbrella so we didn't stick around to digest, we hurried off to our neighborhood. We went via the Rialto bridge and snagged a couple neat late night photos. And then we asked one of the water taxi's how much it cost to get a ride to Academia (a couple blocks away) and he said $50!!! Bahahaha we walked away about as fast as he had answered. This is why I say don't bother using public transportation, just walk.
That night we said our goodbyes to the Hawns since we were leaving Venice the next day.
Venice day four. On the fourth morning, the sky opened up and a furious storm blew in. The wind was blowing so hard that the rain was sideways. While we ate breakfast we watched countless umbrella's turn inside out. To top it off, it was freezing. I had planned on setting off early this morning to snag a photo of San Marco Square without all the crowds but the cold, windy rain kept me in. After I'd had my cup of macchiato, we grabbed a couple complementary umbrellas from the front desk and faced the weather. It turns out that the sandals I had been wearing the last few days are very slick to wear on wet rocks. Guess what Venice streets are made up on...rocks...and remember it was raining. I nearly busted my arse hundreds of times in the walk from Academia to San Marco Square. I ended up bear hugging Steven's arm to keep my balance. When we finally made it to the square we were perplexed to see a few massive groups of people all huddled around with umbrellas. It dawned on us afterwards that these were tour groups. They probably came from the cruise ships and they apparently operate rain or shine. Still, this was the least busy I think I'd ever get the square and so I got my pictures. I can say one thing positive about the rain. Venice smelled particularly nice.
Yet another leaning tower of Italy
By the time we were heading back to the hotel to pack up, the rain had stopped and walking was far less treacherous.
The ticket office for the water bus was closed at our station so we hopped on the next departure and hoped we weren't caught. It became painfully aware to us that we had wasted money on our first water bus ride. No one ever checked our tickets. There was no real way to tell if we had paid or not. I know it can be risky...if you're caught without a ticket, there's a nasty fine, but I can vouch for us when I say we got away with it and no one was the wiser.
This is really quite enough for one blog post. I'm going to have to try and wrap this up in Part 5.
Things we'd learned since the previous day:
- Never stop at the first place you find...for anything.
- Don't bother with water taxi's, just walk.
- Gondoliers are cranky.
- Venice smells so much better after a rain.
- Bring a bottle of wine on a Gondola ride.
- Follow your nose for dinner.
Liz
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