Venice, Italy
/(May 20th - May 22nd, 2015)
Venice didn't go quite how we planned. We were greeted with rain when we arrived at the train station and while we had been incredibly lucky with weather since Paris, we were still a little bummed. We initially struggled with how to buy tickets for the water taxi and there was a long line so we decided to walk…however Venice is a maze and we managed to make our already long walk even longer…with all our luggage in tow. By the time we arrived we were soaked, grumpy and very hungry. It was not a good start as both of us get “hangry” very quickly. Luckily, we found out that our apartment was a short walk from the famous fast food pasta restaurant, Alfredo's. We grabbed an umbrella and set off for lunch. The pastas at Alfredo's (now called Dal Moro's) were incredibly fresh and cooked al dente, just the way we like it. You can choose from multiple sauce options so I opted for the spicy marinara sauce with parmesan and Allen got the pesto. Everything was so good, we went back for a third pasta (this time choosing the pomodoro sauce) and enjoyed our Italian picnic just outside the tiny restaurant, hiding from the rain. We spent the rest of the day under an umbrella getting lost around Venice (which is how Rick Steves says you are supposed to do it anyways). We found a good gelato spot along the way and ended up at the Rialto bridge at one point and got some nice photos as it was getting dark. Unfortunately the bridge was undergoing renovations at the time so we tried to get some decent shots from some interesting angles. When looking for a dinner spot, for the first time on our trip we found restaurants that were booked out for several days. We had been incredibly lucky up until this point (and eating at odd hours definitely helped), but it seemed like we would have to come up with some back up plans while in Venice. We wandered around for awhile and decided to eat at a trattoria where we had some sea bream and pizza.
For our second day in Venice we decided to do more exploring on foot. We got lucky in the morning and early afternoon with no rain so we headed towards Saint Mark's square. We toured the Basilica de Saint Marco and got some beautiful views from the church's balcony. We admired the well preserved bones of San Pietro Orseolo's who died in 987 AD and was later proclaimed a Saint by the Catholic Church. We spent a good amount of time just standing inside the church admiring the massive mosaics and trying to imagine how long each one took. It was incredible!
Allen, who gets his hair cut on a pretty consistent bi-monthly schedule, was getting pretty annoyed with the length of his hair, so when the rain started up again, we set out to find him a barber. To do a little preliminary research, we walked into a few nice men's clothing stores and Allen asked the guy with the best haircut where he recommended going. Each person recommended Tony's...so that’s where we went. With only having to wait about thirty minutes, Allen was able to get his haircut by Tony himself! It was pretty impressive to watch. He did the entire haircut using scissors and a few combs instead of modern hair clippers. After Allen's haircut we got a late lunch at Dal Moro's again where I got the spicy marinara again and Allen got pasta with olive oil and chili flakes…which was amazing and he vowed to replicate it once we get back home.
After lunch we hung out in the apartment for a bit hiding from a hailstorm, thunder and lightning, and showers. After the storm had passed we headed out for dinner at L’Osteria di Santa Marina. I got a crab and vegetable pasta, Allen got a vegetable risotto, and we shared a fantastic sea bream entrée. For dessert we split their house tiramisu, which had the most amazing raspberry compote.
On our last day in Venice we took a water taxi to San Giorgio Maggiore and toured the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore. It was large yet simple compared to San Marco and had some pieces of art by Jaume Plensa displayed in the center. The art was very modern and interesting, but looked out of place in the 400+ year old church. We also climbed the bell tower and got some great shots of Venice and the entrance to the Grand Canal. We were catching a ferry to our next destination, but it didn’t leave until 5pm and we had to be out of our apartment by 10am so it could be cleaned for the next Airbnb guest. We packed up and dropped our bags off at our host’s hotel and then returned to Dal Moro’s for another delicious lunch. It started to rain again so we headed back to our host’s hotel and hung out in their lounge for a couple hours before heading to the ferry.
Our host's directions made the trek to the ferry terminal sound extremely easy. So we followed her directions, took the water taxi to the stop we were told and then asked someone at the tourist information kiosk where we needed to go to catch the ferry to Rovinj. When they had no idea…we knew we were in trouble. We started walking trying to find the ferry, asking many people along the way. Most people we asked had no idea and when we showed them the ferry company name, address, and port name they would shrug their shoulders and point in a general direction. When we were almost 100% sure we were going to miss the ferry (that only runs once a day), a taxi came out of nowhere and we ran after it like two crazy people trying to flag him down. Thankfully he saw us and we hopped in and explained where we needed to go (although I don’t think he even spoke English). Once we showed him the address he sped off and drove for a good five minutes in a direction with no signs or any indication that a ferry terminal was coming up. He managed to get us to the ferry terminal just in time (they literally closed check in right after we went through security). As he was driving Allen and I just looked at each other and agreed that even if we had two hours to spare, we would have never found the terminal on our own and the crazy taxi driver definitely saved our day. Talk about a close call! We took our seats on the ferry boat, had a few large sighs of relief and prepared for a four hour boat ride to our next stop: Rovinj, Croatia.
