Vacay, part 6 - Floating through Venice

This blog post makes me sad because I'll officially be done with my Italy recaps. *tear*

Wednesday, Oct. 3
Brent slept the ENTIRE way on the trains from Cinque Terre to Pisa, then Pisa to Venice - a good four hours, at least. I found that quite amusing, especially since I'm the one who falls asleep so easily on car trips.

We arrived at the Venice train station and walked the short walk to our hotel, called Ca Dogaressa. It sits in the Cannaregio area of Venice, also known as The Ghetto. Actually, it's the area where the word "ghetto" originated. I kid you not. But in this case "ghetto" was definitely not an indication of any sort of bad neighborhood. This area wasn't touristy, but it was a nice, quiet place to stay, yet within reasonable walking distance to most places we wanted to go.

At this hotel, Brent booked us a beautiful suite on the third floor. It was Venetian through and through, filled with lots of yellow and gold, and an expansive marble bathroom. (No curtain around the tub, though, for showering, which was kinda strange.)

Best of all, it included three large windows that overlooked a canal.

After settling in, we grabbed some pizza for lunch and sat near a bridge. I later discovered that picnicking is technically "not allowed" in Venice, for whatever reason. Oops. We topped off our lunch with some gelato (pineapple and berry for me, melon for Brent).

We rested a bit and after the sun set, we walked through the city to the Rialto Bridge, a popular bridge lined with shops.

We chose a restaurant (can't remember the name) near the bridge, with an outdoor table to enjoy the view. We started with mixed raw fish, which was delicious.

My main dish was yummy cheese ravioli while Brent had a tasty dish of mushrooms and pasta.

We strolled back through the city toward our hotel and we stopped for more gelato - twice in one day - boo ya!

Thursday, Oct. 4
We had breakfast at our hotel, which was especially enjoyable because we ate at tables put out by our hotel near the canal.

To get a good sense and big picture of the city, we did the vaporetto (water bus) tour in Rick Steves' book. We started on the vaporetto near the train station and at each stop we looked to the book to find out more about the sites that we could see from the water bus.

The vaporetto tour ended at St. Mark's Square. Ah, St. Mark's. Where, oh where, do I start? Do you know about famous St. Mark's Square? No? Lemme show ya.

Yeah, talk about a nightmare. Birds! Ok, to be clear, we're not scared of birds; we just think they're really gross. Rats of the sky, I say! RATS OF THE SKY! And tourists at St. Mark's actually pay to get bird seed (infused with birth control by the City of Venice to control the "poopulation") to get these winged rats to come to them and incidentally peck all over them. Hell to the no!

We watched for as long as we could bear...

...then went into St. Mark's church. We didn't get past the lobby, though, because the actual church portion didn't open for another hour. (Thankfully we skipped the line via a tip we read in Rick Steves' tour book. Score!) So instead we toured the nearby Doge's Palace, a sparse but lavish former palace and political offices that also included a prison.

After the tour we walked back to our hotel, which was on the other side of the island, mind you. We got a little lost, but weren't too worried - we were on an island after all. We were tired, though.

Ok, and one of us might have gotten a little cranky.

But one of us also felt much better as soon as figured out where we were.

We rested a bit then went for the mandatory gondola ride. You can't go to Venice and not do a gondola ride, no matter how tourist-trap-y and expensive they may seem. We took one to the Rialto Bridge and through the back canals of Venice.

It was an amazing ride, so peaceful and calming. I can't imagine a more beautiful and romantic way to experience Venice at night. It truly is a magical place, especially after the sun has set.

We had reservations for dinner after the gondola ride. Before leaving our hotel we asked the owner the best way to find the restaurant. Turns out that he was friends with the restaurant owner, so he was very familiar with the location. His directions were very much like The Count from Sesame Street, "Go one bridge, two bridge, three bridge, yes! Four bridge? NO!" We laughed as we went over each bridge, finding our restaurant easily thanks to his directions.

The restaurant, Vini da Giggio, is the highest-rated restaurant in Venice, according to the European Zagat. We were very excited for our meal, which did not disappoint.

I started with fried cheese and polenta (good, but maybe just a little too much cheese for me) while Brent had mixed fish, which was delectable.

My main dish was taglioni pasta with truffles. It was unbelievable! Brent had lamb, which was also quite tasty.

Although we were stuffed, we were intrigued by the potential of the restaurant's desserts. Dinner, after all, was beyond amazing. We ordered the "three creamy desserts" platter and an almond nougat semifreddo. They were as delicious as they look.

As we left, Brent decided to tell the owners about their #1 Zagat rating. They were familiar with Zagat but had no idea that they were rated so highly. Brent totally made their night (or maybe even their week). He left them with the pages that rated their restaurant.

Friday, Oct. 5
Our last day in Italy started with breakfast at our hotel. Then we made a quick trip to the nearby shops and vendors, where I bought myself some mini-pashmina scarves (white and pink) and we picked up some treats for our office.

We also bought some sandwiches for the plane. We enjoyed them somewhere over the Atlantic, with Italy fresh in our minds and prosciutto and salami fresh on our tongues.

More pics and other tales can be found here.

"Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come." - Martini, Under the Tuscan Sun