Venice

There is little that I could say about Venice that hasn’t already been said. Beautiful? Check. Unique? Yup. Jam-packed with tourists? Everywhere. And as much as I loved the city for what it is, I couldn’t help being a little disappointed. I know, I know, how could I be disappointed with Venice? Well, I am aware that I’m being a little ridiculous here but at the same time it’s hard to love a city that feels so…well…fake.

Let me explain. It was just SO tourist-focused that it was hard to sniff out any whiffs of authenticity anywhere. I’m not saying I want to plop myself down in a working class Italian city so I can feel better than the cliché tourist…no not at all. I just wish that the overall experience in Venice wasn’t quite so kitsch.

Anyway, let me start at the beginning. We arrived in Venice on a Friday night, when the city was ripe with people and ambience. The sun was lowering in the sky and we hopped on a vaporetto to find our way to the hotel. This was by far the nicest hotel we would be staying at, not counting Paris of course. There were few other options on a weekend in July for this popular city, but in the end I’m glad we chose it – it was amazing. Tucked away in a tiny piazza not even on the map, the hotel was an oasis in the maddening rush of tourists.

We decided to do the gondola thing right away, since we heard its best to do it about an hour before the sun sets. We negotiated with our gondoliere (thank goodness I can speak Italian) and got a somewhat less extortionary price for a wonderful and relaxing trip through the back canals. We passed Marco Polo’s house and Cassanova’s house while I attempted to converse with Silvio, our gondeliere, about his upbringing as a young Venetian. Apparently, gondolas are passed down through families, as they’re so expensive and hard to make. He started learning the family trade when he was just four. As is, he was able to maneuver us through tiny little corners without ever touching a thing. We even passed another boat whose gondeliere was singing O Sole Mio. What a cliché, but what a hilarious one. I loved it.

That night we searched high and low for a place to eat that wasn’t rife with tourist menus and pictures of the food outside. I mean come on, do you NEED to serve French fries with everything? Where’s all the good Italian food, people? We ended up finding a place that was perfectly suitable in a tiny piazza. The waiters asked me where I was

from, and once I told them, they claimed to have known along that I had Neapolitan blood. Classic.

The next day we began in Piazza San Marco, bypassing the church to check out the Palazzo Ducale, where the Doges of Venice ruled during the city’s golden years. It was quite pretty, though my favorite room by far was the Map Room, which was adorned with laughably incorrect renderings of such places as Asia, the Americas, and the Middle East. We even passed over the Bridge of Sighs to see the prisons, followed by a stop in the largest ballroom in Europe, adorned with the largest oil painting in the world which was on one of the room’s walls.

Later we climbed the Bell Tower for a fabulous view of the city and its lagoon. We could see all the beautiful rooftops and the glittering canals from that vantage point. While up there, we met a family visiting from Massachussetts whom we chatted up while waiting in line to come back down to terra firma.

From there we stopped for lunch at a restaurant near our hotel, where Wes had a three course meal and I had a classic Venetian bellini to go with my homemade mushroom ravioli. At least we found one legitimate restaurant among

all the posers!

The afternoon we spent in Murano, taking in the classic island’s glassmaking past. We watched a demonstration at one of the glass factories, and watched one of the artisans blow a beautiful flower vase in just a few short minutes. We were impressed enough until he created a picture perfect horse in thirty seconds! Amazing. We had to resist the urge to buy the fruits of his labor only to have it all break in our bags.

That night we explored a few more parts of the city on foot as we searched for a place for dinner. We ended up in another beautiful piazza and enjoyed our last meal in the city. To cap it all off, we were making our way home and in a random darkened and relatively deserted side street we heard opera music coming from somewhere above us. We looked up and realized we were standing below the open windows of one of the city’s many famous opera houses! We must have stood there for half an hour enjoying the beautiful music before heading home. I will never forget it.

Until next time!