Venice
Romantic weekend in Venice!
Days at a Glance
| Date | Day at a Glance |
|---|---|
| Fri, 01Mar24 | Arrival |
| Sat, 02Mar24 | Vaporetto tour, Doge's Palace, St Mark's Basilica |
| Sun, 03Mar24 | Jewish quarter, Murano |
High-Low-Hero-Chow/Ciao*
| Ben | Maggie | |
|---|---|---|
| High | Upstairs of the church, including the horses and the balcony view | Exploring on Friday |
| Low | Boarding the fast boat when we wanted the slow one for the audio tour | Flight delay upon arrival |
| Hero | Rick Steves (even more than usual) | Rick Steves |
| Chow/Ciao | Bella | Focaccia breakfast sandwiches and tiramisu |
*A game I learned from Ben, who uses it with friends as a fun way to reflect on an experience
Journal
Friday 01Mar24
Our already late flight to Venice got delayed, so we landed at the Venice airport around 11:45PM. It was a quick bus ride from the mainland to the island, where our AirBNB host met us. Tucked away in a small street, he guided us to the AirBNB: old but charming, with lots of art on the walls and 3 different types of complimentary crackers and jam. Looking for something more substantial, as we usually do after a late flight, we asked our host for a recommendation for food open at 1AM. He looked genuinely shocked we were looking for food and not Aperol spritzes and cigarettes at this hour, and didn't really have any helpful recommendations.
Google showed an open pizza place, and when we walked the ten minutes to get there, we realized it was a doner place that also sold Italian food to tourists. We could choose between doner, falafel, doner pizza, and even regular pizza, calzones, 6 kinds of pasta, and cannolis. Another late night Europe experience built on the backs of doner. I asked for a full pizza, trusting that if it was freshly made it would taste alright. With no prices listed, the guy sized me up to see what I'd be willing to pay, knowing we had no other options. €16 later, we were munching on a surprisingly good cheese pizza back at the AirBNB! Mission successful, although we didn't end up getting to bed until ~2:30AM.
Saturday 02Mar24
We slept in until 9:30AM and finished the timberwolves game in bed before packing up for the day ahead. We headed to Boresso for breakfast, a small cafe with some Italian tourists starting their day right with 10:45AM Aperol spritzes. We opted for a pastry and focaccia sandwich, and they were both delicious. We nursed our cappuccino, enjoying the flow of working men coming in for their ombra, tiny glasses for 0.1L of wine.
After breakfast we headed towards the train station to catch a vaporetto. Rick Steves has a self-guided audio tour that explains the sites while you're on the vaporetto #1, a slow paced boat that stops at every station along the Grand Canal. A really lovely idea that we executed to only medium success. Our vaporetto was packed for the first half, and skipped a few stops, causing us to listen to the tour on 2x speed. While not as relaxed and romantic as I had envisioned, still a nice way to see the entire Grand Canal from the start to St Mark's Square.
Next we took in the beauty of St Mark's Square. Given that this was early March, there were plenty of tourists but it didn't feel too crowded. It was slightly raining, so we took cover, but it probably helped keep some of the crowds at bay. Rick Steves told us about the history and architecture of the square, and we enjoyed walking around exploring.
I booked us tickets for the 1PM "Secret Itineraries" guided tour at the Doge's Palace, which was a 1.5hr tour of portions of the palace you don't get with regular entry. This included multiple different prison areas, torture rooms and offices where they stored secret documents. Our tour guide shared stories of Casanova's prison escape and the inner workings of the Doge's Palace. A highlight was seeing the other side of the giant painted canvas ceiling below, so we could understand how the ceiling supported the weight. While interesting, we both started to drag a little after 1 hr, as the tour inherently is less visually interesting compared to the art and splendor of the traditional Doge's Palace.
After the tour wrapped up we checked out the traditional Doge's Palace area, with its huge, beautiful meeting rooms and elaborate art. The Italian painter Tintoretto really cooked with Il Paradiso, one of the largest canvases in the world. We both enjoyed learning about a (mostly) secular method of government, starting as early as ~700CE.
Hungry after the tour, we walked a bit away from the square for a take-away place making fresh pasta, hoping it would not be as blatantly overpriced for tourists. We ordered Bolognese and tiramisu and walked back to St Mark's square to eat, finding some makeshift seats on some temporary stacked tables. We later learned these tables are put in the square to become elevated walking platforms when the square gets flooded, a frequent occurrence in March.
The line to get into St Mark's was long, so Ben purchased us timed tickets for a few extra euros. We did (another) Rick Steves' self-guided tour, letting Rick's dulcet tones guide us through the Basilica. It really was amazing, with almost every inch covered in mosaics. With very few windows, the Basilica was dimly lit, making the gold of the mosaics shimmer. We ended with the Basilica museum, letting us see older mosaics up close, and a set of 4 horses estimated to be 2000 years old from Constantinople. Very cool! The museum also let us walk out onto a balcony and see the mosaics of the church exterior up close.
After a busy day of sightseeing, we meandered our way back to the AirBNB, stopping at the Rialto bridge for a while to people-watch. We always get a kick out of watching the posing and photo shoots from other tourists. We took a brief rest in the AirBNB and I found us a dinner reservation. Ben wanted something a bit nicer, given we only had one night for dinner, so I got us a reservation at the well-reviewed Ristorante La Piazza. We were greeted at the door with complimentary glasses of prosecco and then escorted to our table. The restaurant was huge and crammed with other tourists looking for some nice Italian food. Ben and I shared seafood pasta and squid ink pasta, both delicious, but a bit teeth-staining...We took our time and ate slowly, Ben pilfering the remaining bagged bread sticks, while the servers efficiently shuffled tourists through at a very quick pace.
We wanted to extend the night a bit more after dinner, so we walked around a bit, ending up at the point of Basilica di Santa maria della Salute (a mouthful!), enjoying the view of the water and historic buildings. We wandered home and slept well, tired from a busy day.
Sunday 03Mar24
We slept in then headed to a cafe/bakery for breakfast called Majer. We shared an open faced sandwich, arancini, and cappuccino and enjoyed people-watching. The food was so good, and we were not in a rush, so we ordered another round of food, this time a focaccia sandwich, chocolate cookie and espresso. Everything was delicious!
We headed out for a walk, ending up in the Cannaregio neighborhood to explore the Jewish ghetto. Forced to live in a small portion of Venice, there are 5 different synagogues all very close to each other, including German, Italian, Spanish and Sephardic.
Next we took a vaporetto to Murano, a different island not far from Venice. We enjoyed being on the open water and seeing Venice from afar on the ~40 minute boat trip.
Murano is known for its blown glass; many stores along the main canal were selling glass works and souvenirs (some made in Murano, some made in China). It still felt touristy, but slower-paced. We walked all the way to the tip, near some apartment buildings, and just enjoyed sitting in the sun. The sun is such a rarity in the Netherlands that after just a half an hour of sitting in the sun, Ben noted that some of my freckles popped out.
For lunch we shared pizza and pasta carbonara with a view of the canal. We enjoyed eavesdropping on the Brits next to us, and Ben pilfered more bagged breadsticks for snacks later.
Before we needed to head to the airport, we enjoyed some gelato. This was one of the rare occasions where Ben's flavor choice was better (his chocolate over my coffee). We both enjoyed the slower pace and different sights of Murano, and the sun certainly helped.
From Murano we boated directly to the airport for our 6:30PM flight to Amsterdam. We both remarked how this might be the only time we take a boat directly to an airport, pretty cool!
We had a really lovely weekend. Venice felt a bit grungier than I remembered from being there in 2018 with family, but the graffiti and dinge managed to feel charming. We did not struggle much with crowds, but it still felt like a city designed for tourists. We found pockets of locals, but the island population has been steadily declining and is now only ~50,000. We felt their absence on the island, as much of the infrastructure, restaurants, and prices felt targeted to tourists. While we did not fool ourselves into thinking every slice of pizza was the most authentic slice ever, Ben and I have never stressed too much about the authenticity of experiences during vacation. We are tourists, so what if the pasta we have near St Mark's Square is a bit overpriced and bland, it comes with a pretty unique view!
For the Record
| Details | |
|---|---|
| Arrival | EasyJet, Friday 01Mar24, 11:45PM VCE |
| Departure | EasyJet, Sunday 03Mar24, 6:45PM VCE |
| Accomodation | AirBNB, Calle del Pin |
| Saturday Brunch | Boresso |
| Saturday Dinner | Ristorante La Piazza |
| Sunday Brunch | Majer |
| Sunday Lunch | Pizzeria Marlin Ristorante, Murano |
| Maisy | With Hanna and Ray and their two corgis |
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