A Long Weekend in Venice
 

Well Bikerscott and I spent the May long weekend in Venice...we managed to avoid the big ash cloud and enoyed the sun, a bit of rain, and lots of wine! Bikerscott will be writing a trip report this weekend, but here is a sneak preview of my pics from lovely Venice (and Burano and Murano):

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...eat=directlink

Ciao!!!

Jamikins

Sorry, this is the right link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jamie.a....eat=directlink

Thank you for bringing back such lovely memories of my trip to Venice with your album:)

You have a good eye--nicely done !

Hi Jamikins,

Two years ago today I was flying home from Venice. I still miss it. Your pictures brought back wonderful memories for me. Thanks for posting.

Johanna

Wonderful, wonderful pictures! Where was the romantic looking restaurant on the canal in picture #8?

We leave tormorrow morning for 5 days in Venice and I don't care whether it rains or shines! Tomorrow looks like the best weather of the week...so unless the ash cloud suddenly descends upon us...will have to catch your "report" section when we get back

Ciao!

Thanks so much everyone, hubby and I love taking photos (I pruned down from over 500!!!) So glad you are enjoying them!

Klondike - you cant miss this restaurant. Its right beside Rialto Bridge on the west side (San Polo side). Its pretty touristy, we just had a bottle of wine there. My best advice to find food is to just wander away from Rialto and San Marco and find more authentic places. The closer to the tourist areas they are, the worse we found them!

There is a really good pizza place in Piazza San Polo!

Enjoy!!

beautiful Jamie. I fly there 2 weeks from tomorrow for the first time. Can't wait. I look forward to Scott's report.

Venice, May 1st – 4th 2010

Day One

For some reason, we had decided to book just about the earliest possible flight to Venice from Gatwick Airport. This seemed like a really good idea when we were booking it – more time in Venice, an early start to the day – but was a bit more painful than expected at 3:30am on Saturday morning. The trains don’t run early enough in the morning for us to get to the airport, so we booked an airport transfer taxi to take us. Despite our flat not being on any sat-nav’s the driver managed to find us and picked us up on time. We got to the airport, checked in, and went through security without incident. A few hours wait and we were off.

As usual, I managed to fall asleep fairly quickly on the plane, and before I knew it we were descending towards Marco Polo airport in Venice. We’d found seats on the right-hand side of the plane and so had a nice view over the lagoon and the islands as we came into land – it’s amazing how flat it all is; barely above sea-level.

After collecting our bag and going through passport control, we bought Alilaguna tickets and walked down to the docks to board the boat. The Alilaguna isn’t necessarily the fastest way to get to Venice from the airport, but at €25 per person for a return ticket, it’s probably one of the cheapest. The ride takes about an hour, and winds through Lido and Murano before getting to Venice itself. The sun was shining (sort of) and we enjoyed the scenery on our way to the San Zaccaria stop where our B&B owner was going to meet us. (http://www.aitagliapietra.com/)

The B&B was a short but very convoluted walk from San Zaccaria through a maze of twisting and turning alleys, as all walks in Venice are. The place was actually fairly conveniently located a 5 minute walk from either St Marks or San Zaccaria. Our room was pretty big by European hotel room standards with a full sized bed, small tv, two windows, and a full bathroom.

After dropping off the bags and getting a brief rundown of the sights in the city from the guy from the B&B (I forget his name), we headed out for lunch. We decided that pizza was the way to go for our first day in Venice – fortunately it’s not hard to find a place that sells pizza in Italy.
We managed to pick a place in a little piazza with loads of people-watching opportunities. After being sternly instructed by the waiter that we weren’t allowed to share a pizza and had to each order our own drinks (I think they get a lot of tourists there), we spent a good hour or so eating excellent pizza and drinking sort of decent wine.

We decided that no first day in Venice would be complete without seeing St Marks, so we walked over to see the sights. Unfortunately, it seemed that all the tourists in all of Venice had the same idea, because they were all there. One thing Jamie and I can’t stand is crowds. I think St Marks is not the place to be if crowds are not your thing. We took a few pictures, bumped into a few people, and headed towards the Rialto Bridge.

We realized on the way that we were wrong – all the tourists in Venice weren’t in fact in St Marks, they were in the alleys between St Marks and the Rialto Bridge. The rest of them were on Rialto Bridge itself. It was as amazing as we remembered from our last trip. We took some time looking at the sights of the Grand Canal. After all those sights and crowds, we felt parched, so we found a conveniently located restaurant on the Riva del Vin with a great view of the bridge and settled in for a bottle of wine.

After our wine and relaxation, we went for a walk (also known as getting slightly lost – a theme for the rest of our time in Venice). We eventually ended up at another wine bar in the Campo Something-or-other (did I mention we were lost?) for another glass of wine before heading off to dinner.
Our Top Ten guide for Venice had a recommendation for a restaurant right on a canal called Al Ponte on Calle Larga San Giacomo dell’Orio (possibly the longest street name in Europe). We stopped by fairly early in the evening, hoping that by being a bit early we would be able to get a table despite not having a reservation. We were lucky and got a table right on the canal and had an excellent meal, mostly of fresh fish from the lagoon.

We finished dinner and realized that we didn’t really have any idea how to get back to our B&B, especially as every time we walked more than 10 metres we got lost. We followed the signs backs to Rialto and then San Marco. From there, we figured that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to walk along the waterfront to San Zaccaria. We hoped from there we could find our way back. We were in luck – it turned out not to be as bad as we’d thought! No wrong turns, no getting lost, and a backpack full of wine (we’d stopped on the way for essential supplies).

These are *gorgeous* photos!

Thanks annw :)

Part 2 from Bikerscott:

Day Two
We had a great sleep and got up feeling well rested and looking forward to the day ahead. Breakfast at the B&B included unbelievably good apricot-jam filled croissants, buns, coffee, and orange juice.

We hit the alley (no real roads in Venice, alley is the best you can get), heading in the general direction of Arsenale, getting almost completely lost about 30 metres from our front door. We stopped at a little cafe for a latte for me and a hot chocolate for Jamie – turned out to be a good coffee as you would expect for Italy, and a hot chocolate that was basically a little cup of chocolate, which was hot (subtly but vastly different than hot chocolate from North America).
We spent some time taking photos around Arsenale and headed back into the maze. Fortunately there are almost no crowds away from San Marco and the Rialto, so we weren’t feeling like we could kill anyone.

A few hours of wandering and photo-taking later we were feeling a bit peckish. Based on the quality recommendation from the previous day we decided to go to a square recommended in the book. We sat at one of the restaurants in the piazza in Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo – I had a very tasty carbonara and Jamie had another different kind of pasta which was also good (I wasn’t really paying much attention to hers, all my focus was on mine).

After lunch we decided that we should go over to the other side of Venice, the Dorsoduro. We’d spent most of our time on our previous vacation in Venice in that part of town, and wanted to see it again. The threatening rain continued to threaten, with a few random drops falling here and there. We took a whole bunch of pictures before deciding that a snack and possibly a drop of wine were in order. We found a tiny little cafe tucked away on a side alley – almost packed full but with one table left. We sat down to enjoy a glass of very tasty wine or two and a plate of Italian charcuterie – so tasty.

Jamie had read about a shop not too far away that sold Christmas ornaments – one of our traditions is to buy something for the tree whenever we go on a trip. We got more lost than usual this time, and had to ask a little old lady how to get to Campo San Barnaba – turned out we’d turned left instead of right and were heading in completely the wrong direction. She happened to be heading in the right direction and took us all the way there. The Christmas shop was nowhere to be found, so we had gelato instead to make us feel better.

All the not finding of Christmas shops made us thirsty so we walked to Campo Santa Margherita for another glass of wine. It started to rain so we sat for quite a while looking at the people in the campo, and even more entertainingly, two dogs running around and playing. It’s amazing how much time we spend while on vacation sitting over a glass (or bottle of wine) watching people. We then headed to Campo San Polo to try Campari...I don’t think we will be giving that a second time! Must be an acquired taste!

It didn’t really let up much so we braved the rain and headed back to the neighbourhood our B&B was in for dinner. The guy at the B&B (still can’t remember his name, really annoying us) had recommended the restaurant across the alley as a good local restaurant. We got there a bit early for dinner and got a seat right away in the covered garden out back. The menu looked good, and so we ordered a full three-course meal.
Dinner was even better than I’d expected it to be. By the time we were finished we were both pretty tired from all the walking and getting lost, so we went back across the alley and turned in (after another glass of wine).

Great photos as usual! Sure Venice is "touristy" but it's so beautiful. This really captures all that. Love the dog with the lipstick too. I always seem to get those kind of shots.

Can't believe you don't like Campari. You must be crazy!

Looking forward to more...

Thanks Leely2! Hahaha - I didnt mind the sweet Campari, the red one was a bit on the bitter side!!

It took me sec to figure out what you meant by lipstick HAHAHA! I hadnt noticed that!

love the pics! Can't wait to take some myself!

You might want to try Aperol instead of the Campari. Nice bright color, but not bitter! Aperol Spritz seems to be popular in Venice (and in our house ;) ).

I second the aversion to Campari. Way too bitter for me; and I want to like it because it looks so beautiful. I do notice an aversion to more bitter tasting foods and drinks. So, I love the Aperol suggestion.

It's been 15 yrs since I have been to Venice. Love the report.