Venice - the Rest of the Story

Ciao! (Hello!)

Venice was che bella (beautiful).

Italy is the land of beautiful, flowing language. I feel sure that a person could say almost anything in Italian and it could be interpreted as crooning words of love. Our gondola ride was a perfect example. We shared a gondola with two new friends we made on the Bar Tour (or Pub Crawl), depending on who you ask), just as it was getting dark. A romantic time of day. And we asked our gondolier to go down the small canals instead of the Grand Canal. Again, romantic. And soon, we heard our gondolier singing!  How delightful!  How romantic! After listening for a few minutes, sharing a kiss or two and snuggling in to each other, we asked him what he was singing about. His answer? Football!  LOL!  That's what we get for asking!

water bus stop. They gather inside and wait for the boat to arrive

The people who live in Venice seem to be a little indignant about being called "Italians." They are "Venetian," thank you very much. And we learned that they do not speak Italian, but Venetian, which is apparently a distinctive dialect. And HOW- as our Bar Tour guide so pointedly exclaimed - is it that Americans pronounce 'Venice' as 'ven-is'?  The American language - pff. It is pronounce "Veen een zeeah." In Italy, they pronounce all the vowels, and they are consistent. So, there you have it. Now you should be able to read Italian like a real foreigner.

I was asked a few times these past few days what my favorite things were about Venice. One is this picture I took of the canal beside the house where we stayed. A thunder and lightning storm had passed through earlier and the sun was setting. As we crossed over the bridge, I looked out - and voila! (presto!)  That picture captures for me the essence of my experience. the lighting expresses exactly what I feel when I think of Venice.

My second favorite thing was where we stayed. We stayed in an Italian home. Excuse me. We stayed in the home of a Venetian woman. Her name is Yvonne (not an Italian name, but a French name) and she spoke very little English.  I would love to have heard stories about her life there, but we managed to communicate the things that were needed, like when we would have breakfast and would we like Italian coffee?

  I would love to describe her house, but I won’t because there is so much else I would like to share. I will just say that it was like being in Mike’s mother’s house (Addie). It felt like Addie was everywhere in that house. In the furniture style, in the paintings with gold frames that covered the walls, in the marble floor and the kitchen decorations. Even Yvonne, our hostess, made me think strongly of Addie. She wore the same kind of loose sun dress and patted Mike’s arm lightly and lovingly, just as Addie did. Mike says he saw his Grandma Tonna in her. But I did not know Grandma Tonna, so I saw Addie. Every morning Yvonne fed us a light, Italian breakfast of salami and toast and fresh mozzarella and beautiful, ripe tomatoes. And Italian coffee.

One of the first things we did was take a Free Walking Tour with Mary. ‘Mary’ is the short version of her long Italian name. She took us around the city via the back ‘streets’ and told us how to keep the Venetians from being annoyed at us as tourists. Also – and very importantly - how to determine if a shop or restaurant is ‘local’ or ‘tourist.’  So, I will pass this secret information on to you, for the next time you find yourself in Venetia wanting to experience life as a Venetian. And here is the secret. Are you ready for it?  Locals don’t need pictures to show what the food is. They can read Italian. (gasp!) So, there is also the second point. The menus are in Italian. And that’s how you know. J

After the first afternoon there and completing the walking tour at noon on Sunday, I seriously wondered what else we were going to do. I really had not scheduled anything else besides the bar tour the next evening. We had spent time going through the ‘streets’ of Venetia, feeling very much like I was in that movie “Maze Runner.” The walls are very high. There are names on the corners of the walls, but that really was not all that helpful, since the names on the walls did not necessarily match the names on GPS. Or on maps.

And, as Mike has already told you, the GPS signal kept getting ‘lost’ and the arrow we were following would suddenly turn the opposite direction and show that we were really 3 bridges over from where we thought we were. It was crazy. But the crazy funny things - after the first 2 days –  were, 1. trying to find our BnB and 2. trying to get to the Free Walking Tour on time. 

The Walking Tour. Mike looked at his map and looked at his phone instructions. Easy peasy, Mike said. It’s only a 5 minute walk he said. So instead of leaving half an hour early to make sure we arrived on time (because they warned us that the tour was full and if we were late, they could give our spot away), we left only 15 minutes early. Because it was only going to take us 5 minutes. You can see what’s coming, right? And you can feel the stress already, huh? So, yes, the inevitable happened, just as described above. We finally arrived in the correct place – with 2 minutes to spare.   And yes, it was funny in a way (but only later in the telling of it). And did I tell you how hot it was there? It was HOT. And HUMID. About 94 degrees with about a thousand percent humidity. So, going back and forth and back and forth was not as amusing as it could have been.

However, the amusement finally came when we got to sit back and watch others do this GPS dance. Everywhere we looked there were (mostly) men, with families sometimes, but often with at least another person, walking along the street looking at their cell phone. They would walk a ways, while looking at their phones. Stop. Look up. Look down. Look up and around. Look down. Sometimes they turned around and went back. Sometimes they continued on. But it was hilarious (unless it was us. Then it was stressful).

I know you are dying to hear about all the things we did and saw. But you might be surprised. 

 Yes, we saw the Basilica. And the Doge's Palace. And the Biennali art park. All from the outside. It felt kind of like when we took our family to see Washington DC in a day about 13 years ago. That day was HOT. And it was HUMID. And we were all tired from walking so that by the end of the day, when we finally got to the White House, we pointed at it and said, “Look kids, that’s the White House.” click. The throngs of people in DC and at San Marco’s Square felt like Disneyland in August. If you’ve been there, you know what I am talking about. 

So we tried to stick to the back roads and go where the locals would go. And we found some great places that way.

But it was really about the food. And the people. 

We arranged to go on a Bar Tour (or Pub Crawl, depending on who talks about it) on Monday night. My friend Nancy told me about it. And I’m glad she did. We arranged to meet Allesandro and the others in our ‘party’ in the middle of a large square near the Rialto Bridge. The idea was to go with a local Venetian to local pubs and drink local wine and talk about living in Venetia, and/or other Italian things.

filling water bottles at the public fountains

Now, an interesting thing we learned about Venetia from Mary on the Walking Tour, was that everywhere you go for food or drink, you are asked immediately if you want to stay or take away.  If you stay, you are charged a surcharge. Plus a tip that goes to the owner. But the restaurants do not tell you this. Yes, it’s a real thing and they just add it to your bill. So, if you walk away, the food and drink costs you less. However, you will have to stand to eat and or drink. On the pavement, in the sun (and because it was so humid, even being in the shade was not much better).   Now, in the US, it would be just like Mike and I to order our ice cream (or in this case, gelato) ‘to go’ or take-away. And after taking a few licks, it would be like us to notice the tables outside the restaurant and the fact that they are in the shade because of the tarp overhead and decide to sit to eat the rest of the ice cream/gelato.   Thankfully we did not do this. Thankfully, we were told before we made this terrible mistake. It would have been embarrassing to have someone come out and tell us to leave or ask us for more money when we did not understand 'the system.'

So, armed with this knowledge, sometimes it was worth paying the extra money just to sit in air conditioning. How much, you want to know, did it cost to eat in?  About 3 or 4 Euros.  But when you only paid 3.40 for 2 scoops of gelato, it seemed high.  Unless there was air conditioning. 

Back to the bar tour. We went to a local bar and were served a local red wine with a little finger food. Now the tour would take us to 3 bars, but we would only sit at the first one. Remember the surcharge? So, at the next two bars, we all stood around together outside. In Venetia, it is legal to buy alcohol and drink it outside and even walk around with it. 

The second bar we had more red wine and finger food. And at the third bar, we had a lovely, light local white wine. And a little finger food.

And it was enjoyable. But I think the really best part of it was meeting the people. It was worth the money paid to just get together with other people. We met a brother and sister (Joey and Elizabeth) who were traveling around several countries for about a month. We shared a gondola after the bar tour. Joey is a programmer and lives and works in Seattle (!)

We also met a family of 5. They had just arrived to Venetia two hours before and their kids (25, 23 and 18) were all tired and looking like they would much rather be somewhere else (like maybe sleeping). And the looks on the boys’ faces when they saw the little finger food going around was priceless. They were hungry. But get this – the girl, Paige, is a senior at Whitman University in Walla Walla(!!) Whaaat?

Another fun thing was dropping into a restaurant for dinner on Monday night. As we were seated, I noticed the young couple at the next table, their suitcases beside them and the bouquet on top. I asked, are you newly married? They said yes, and that is how we met Mohammad and Brenda from Florida. They got married in northern Italy – just because they could. 

They had tried to check into their AirBnB, but it turned out badly when they arrived that day, so they contacted AirBnB (I did not know you could do that!) and spoke to a live person (good to know) who helped them find another BnB. So while they waited to get in, they had dinner. Next to us. 

The next day, as we were standing on the bridge next to our house, taking a picture for a family, who should be letting themselves into OUR house but Mohammad and Brenda!!  Now, how funny is that?

People. I think that is what made this trip fun. Interacting with people. So, one more set. On Sunday, after the Walking Tour, Mike and I rode the water bus around the islands and then walked past the Doge's Palace and the throngs of people with cameras and lines and people and heat and humidity and people. Did I mention there were a lot of people?  

trying the local fare - squid with black ink sauce and polenta

So we saw the things you should see and then we moved on. Away from the people. Down some ‘streets’ and into a courtyard, where we saw some benches to sit on while we enjoyed yet another gelato. 

When suddenly we heard music. And not just any music, but an accordion player. Playing Italian music. Delightful! So we wandered over to him, tossed money into his case, and sat down on the ground against the wall to listen to him. I said to Mike, “I didn’t know it until just now when I heard it, but this is what was missing. Being serenaded by accordion music.” Don’t you just have that in your head when you think of Italy?

So, as we sat there finishing our gelato, we looked up and saw two people from the Walking Tour that morning!! Are you kidding me?  So, we spent the next hour or so with them over a cool drink by the river.  Bart is from Belgium. Tracy is from Boston, but has lived in Germany for the last 2 years, and lived in Seattle for 14 years before that!  Another Washingtonian!

I can honestly say that after we had only been in Venice for 24 hours, I was a little concerned about how we would spend the rest of our days there. But we kept walking. And eating. And meeting people.

One of the stops on the water bus is Lido. On the third day, I learned that the word “Lido” means ‘beach.’ Beach? Venice has a beach?  So, Tuesday we decided to check it out. And it was wonderful!  The sun was bright – the storm on Sunday evening had dropped the humidity significantly for 2 days – and the sky was clear. We walked all along the beach and back in our bare feet. 

And afterwards, we enjoyed the BEST gelato we had had – Black Cherry. And an iced coffee (which had no ice at all, but was made with an espresso shot, poured over ice and shaken, then poured into a glass.)

This is not a picture of either. This is a picture of the caffe gelato I had on the first day. YUM!

That was Venice. In a nutshell. And even though I did not go with an actual list of things to see and do, I did everything I wanted to do and all I could have wanted to do while in Venice. We

1. Lived with and sort of like a local for a few days.
2. Saw beautiful old buildings.
3. Ate gelato. Every day. And tiramisu (twice) And cannoli (twice). And pasta. And fresh fish. And drank Italian coffee.
4. Had a lovely gondola ride with a singing gondolier.
5. Heard Italian accordion music (twice – one showed up at our restaurant the last night)
6. Met interesting people
7. Walked on the beach
   
   
   

   NOTE: Pizza. EVERYONE ate pizza there. I think it was the most-served food. And each one was like 14”. But I would not recommend it.  It was not as flavorful as we enjoy it being in the US. (I learned from a local that pizza is really good in Naples) So, skip it here and get fresh fish. Or pasta pompodoro. 
   
   
   There was only one place that we finally had ‘pizza’ the way we imagined it would/should taste in Italy. And we almost missed it. It was our last afternoon and we were wanting something tasty. We wandered into a little place that was thick with the crowds – mostly because it had air conditioning. And we ordered what they called bruschetta (not the way I have had bruschetta in the past), and we were rewarded with oohs and aaahs from our taste buds as we devoured it. So THAT place we highly recommend. But don’t bother with the others. Gelato. Definitely. Every day!  Even twice a day, if you can figure out how to make that work. We didn’t, but I believe it to be possible if you really tried.

So we are returning from our lovely stay in Venice. I am writing this at the airport as we wait for our flight. (I still cannot believe we were there.) And when I start to question it, I will have the pictures to prove it and remind myself of that very special city with streets of water. 

Gratia (graw tzee uh)   thank you

Prego.(Pray go)   you’re welcome

Arrivederci!!  (goodbye)