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A NeoFodorite’s Trip Report—Adventures (and Misadventures) in Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome, and Madrid

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A NeoFodorite’s Trip Report—Adventures (and Misadventures) in Paris, Venice, Florence, Rome, and Madrid

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Old Apr 25th, 2006, 12:44 PM
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missypie--
You were a real trooper to do that with 3 kids! I think you deserve to splurge on a water taxi after your valiant efforts on the last trip.
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Old Apr 25th, 2006, 12:53 PM
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The time I came closest to losing it on the Paris trip was after we had taken the train from the airport into Paris and were attempting to get to street level. One of the escalators was broken, and my husband just walked up the stairs with his bag...leaving me to help the three kids up the stairs with THEIR bags! That experience (plus breaking the wheels off of one side of my bag on the cobblesones) makes it easier to part with the money for a shuttle.

Of course, when we arrive in Venice by train, I still think we'll take the vaporetto to the Rialto Bridge and HOPEFULLY find our hotel without too much pain and suffering! There is no way to dress well enough to look chic while partipating in a parade of 5 Americans rolling their luggage down the streets of Venice.
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Old Apr 25th, 2006, 12:54 PM
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I remember I posted before you left that I was afraid your Venice hotel would not have reception by the time you arrived! But I'm glad you got the key anyway. And it is too easy to get a bad meal in Venice (I know it's quite possible to get a good one too, but the bad meals are easiest to find when under stress).
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Old Apr 25th, 2006, 01:20 PM
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What a great report. Sorry you had so much difficulty upon arrival in Venice. We arrived late and had no problem but then our hotel was just off St. Marks Square and we did take a water taxi which was not expensive at all, this was Sept of 2004.

Looking forward to more on your trip
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Old Apr 25th, 2006, 06:00 PM
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Love your trip report! Wonderfully entertaining and fun.
More, please!
Paule
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Old Apr 25th, 2006, 07:29 PM
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Thanks for the continued encouragement, everyone! Here's the next installment:

To wind down after such a trying day, we snuggled up in bed and watched some of the PBS special “Empires—The Medici” and then fell into a deep sleep.

We slept so well that we missed our 10 am breakfast cut off, and 11 am housekeeping cut off (we woke at about 10:30, but couldn’t get out of the room by 11). We were a little miffed at there being a housekeeping cutoff as that had not been advertised.

But, what Locanda Barbarigo lacked in openness after 8 pm and housekeeping after 11 am, they made up for in helpfulness between 8 am and 8 pm. Armed with my list of Fodor’s Europe Forum recommended restaurants, I went downstairs to the front desk and asked the lady to help me find them on a map. She was a young lady, so she was quick on the internet, looking up the restaurants and quickly marking them on a map for me. Since it was already after 11, we headed out into the sunshine and over to a restaurant near the Accademia Bridge called Cantinone Storica. DH had the Seafood Soup and I had the Spaghetti and Shrimp. The shrimp still had the heads on! And we shared a mixed salad. The food was much better than Baccaro.

Satisfied, we wandered over to the Accademia. And what do you know—there was no line and admission was free! We wandered through all the rooms and finished in probably one hour.

Then we headed over to Piazza San Marco on the vaporetto where we saw two of the ugliest famous buildings we’d ever seen in our lives—Saint Mark’s Basilica and the Doge’s Palace. Although there were tons of Italian kids loitering all around the front of the Basilica, there wasn’t actually a line and we walked right in without paying or anything (we did pay a little to go upstairs though). What we were most interested in seeing were the bronze horse statues, as our Fat Tire Bike Tour guide had mentioned that the horses on the Paris obelisk were copies of the originals that the French had stolen from Venice, but had later returned. We like knowing the juicy gossip about museum treasures. But, museums are always sweeping those tawdry details under the carpet.

Lured by the live music from the Piazza cafes, we headed out on the square. My crazy husband bought some birdseed and posed with the pigeons. I took pictures, but kept a wide berth, as I had an emotionally scarring bird poop grenade experience when I was 10. Then we ate a snack at the famous Caffe Florian while we listened to a surprisingly good string quartet. Our guidebook had forewarned us of the music surcharge on the drinks, but still we couldn’t help laughing out loud at the 11 euro music fee! We were glad that we had taken our sweet old time listening to the music and people watching in the spring sunshine.

We did a little souvenir shopping, relaxed at the hotel and then we had dinner at Trattoria Alla Madonna. We panicked when we saw a group of twelve pile in right before us, but it is a large restaurant, so we were seated quickly. Even though there is a lot of seating, most of it was taken. It is a popular restaurant! The food is very simple. The mixed veggies are steamed and not al dente at all, but not disgustingly soft either. We also had the mixed salad, which was a typical Italian mixed salad—fresh mixed greens with carrots and tomatoes. My husband had the lasagna which had peas in it, of all things. He liked it, though I thought it was a little plain. I had the roast chicken which was much too salty and dry. My husband said that as soon as I ordered the chicken he wanted to write on a piece of paper, “Krysti’s not going to like this,” and hide it to show me after I tasted it. I guess I’m pretty predictable. All in all, it seemed like banquet food to me, pretty good quality, but made in too large of quantities to be great. The best part of the night was the dessert—gelato in a shop on the vaporetto stop side of the Rialto Bridge, not the one perpendicular to the bridge (we didn’t try that one) but the one in a street parallel to the bridge. I think this was my favorite gelato shop out of all the ones I went to in Italy.
Of course, it was my first gelato in Italy, and you never forget that first creamy taste! My favorite flavor was melone (cantaloupe).
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Old Apr 26th, 2006, 07:21 AM
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LoL I did the bird seed thing too first time in Venice and actually bought a pix from a guy with a camera.
Standing by for the rest.
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Old Apr 26th, 2006, 10:56 AM
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Very enjoyable trip report! Looking forward to more . . .
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Old Apr 26th, 2006, 10:59 AM
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I have to beg you to cut back on the carry-on luggage. It might be more convienent for you, but it's really not enjoyable for everyone else. Maybe you've never experienced not having enough room for your one crummy little bag because others brought on more than their allowance? I know a lot of people on Fodors like to make the trip with everything in one carry-on, but personally I'm a fan of checking my bag and boarding the plane with one small bag of plane necessities and a change of undies. It's so much more enjoyable for me to not struggle with my baggage. Totally worth the extra time at bagage claim. But that's just me.

“French-looking” (and smelling!) people. Was that really necessary? Would your new friend, Daniel, who treated you with such kindness appreciate hearing that? I could have completely misunderstood though and you really meant they all smelled of Chanel. Which would be cool.

I'm sorry you missed the fountains at Versailles. They are spectacular and nothing at all like Las Vegas. The history of the place just comes alive for a bit when they turn those fountains on. It's one of our favorite memories of France. But different strokes for different folks...

I'll be reading the rest of your report! I hope things got better as the trip went along--it sounds like a lot didn't turn out too well.
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Old Apr 26th, 2006, 11:24 AM
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I love your trip report...all the details both successes and challenges! It helps me in planning...I've already cut and pasted two hints. Please keep it coming!
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Old Apr 26th, 2006, 02:35 PM
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Thanks Zydecoqueen! I didn't want to sugar coat any of the details of my trip, so I'm glad that my learning experiences are helping you to plan your trip.
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Old Apr 29th, 2006, 11:07 AM
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The next morning, with the help of a wake up call, we woke up on time for our breakfast! That’s when my love affair with nutella on packaged toast began. It was the simple Italian breakfast that I expected thanks to everyone’s reports, but the orange juice was good, the coffee made to order, and the yogurt had a good flavor selection. We didn’t see any other guests at the hotel the whole time, so they were either very quiet early risers or we were the only guests.

We decided to take the vaporetto a couple of stops to the Santa Maria della Salute. We took our time exploring the beautiful church. As we were headed back to the vaporetto, I saw signs pointing us to the Peggy Guggenheim museum. We got there just in time to listen to a brief introduction to Peggy Guggenheim’s background by an intern. It was a nice change of pace to look at modern art after all the religious art we’d been staring at the past few days. While we were sitting in the patio overlooking the canal my husband exasperated me by saying he could easily make silly sculptures like the ones we were looking at. Shortly thereafter a retired couple stood by the same sculpture and we overheard the husband saying, “When I worked in the railroad we always had scrap metal just like this—I could’ve made this myself!” His wife and I exchanged knowing glances about our husbands, who could easily copy modern art, but would never bother to dream up their own creations.

We had worked up an appetite trying to figure out all the amazing modern art in the Peggy Guggenheim collection, so we headed over to Acqua Pazza for lunch. I remember someone on Fodor’s saying it was the best pizza in Venice, so we ordered a mixed salad, a pizza with smoked ham, mozzarella and arugula, and some ricotta filled pasta shells with fresh tomato sauce. They gave us some free bruschetta, which was delicious with fresh sweet cherry tomato halves. They also gave us some kind of free fruit wine, but we don’t drink alcohol at all, so I can’t say whether it was good or not. The pizza was very simple with tomatoes as a base, herb greens, mozzarella and the smoked ham. The pasta shells were also very simple, just pasta shells boiled and then filled with ricotta with some plain fresh tomato sauce and fresh basil. Also, they charge a 5 euro/person coperta. I would definitely go again, but I probably would not order the filled pasta, as I only like homemade pasta for filled pasta dishes. The service was wonderful and the food very fresh.

Then we headed over to San Marco and checked out the Palazzo Ducano. When we got there it was about 4:30 and overcast, so we couldn’t see the art on the walls and ceiling that well. It was interesting to check out the prison cells and the bridge of sighs, but we were kind of bored there. Maybe a tour would have made it more interesting.

On our way back to our hotel for some downtime we stopped at an internet café. Edgar had complained about my underwhelming restaurant choices thus far (he was harshing my tour planning gig the whole time we were in Venice. We were in Paris for such a short amount of time, and still could have seen so many amazing things, so he was disappointed by the simple charm of Venice. To him it seemed like a Hollywood movie set, and he was constantly asking me “So how many days are we staying here?....” which made it a little stressful for me to try to keep him happy.) so I looked on Fodor’s for something more exciting for dinner that night. I found a recommendation for Alle Testiere that cross referenced chowhound.com, so I decided this had to be a good one. We went back to the hotel and asked the older lady at the desk to help us, she wasn’t internet savvy like her younger associate, so she couldn’t find it at first, but by searching the phone book using different beginnings (ristorante, etc.) we found it under “trattoria alle testiere.” Phew! She made a reservation for us two hours in advance. It’s good thing that she did, because it is a very small restaurant, and it’s popular. It was wonderful. There were no menus, the waiters just told you the menu of the day. We got a penne pasta with tomatoes and shrimp which was yummy and not too fishy tasting. We also got a gnocchi dish with asparagus, which was amazing with a subtly delicious sauce. I had the seared tuna with a balsamic vinaigrette sauce and Edgar had the monkfish. Edgar’s fish was seasoned very well and much tastier than the monkfish I’d had at Bofinger in Paris. For dessert Edgar had a wonderful chocolate mousse and I had a green apple ice cream dish. Everything was great from start to finish. We also had one coffee and two medium bottles of sparkling water and the total came to 92 euro. They didn’t charge a coperto or servizio. The service was very efficient, and the waiters spoke English. I highly recommend this place for eating in Venice. It is the only place that really stood out. Make sure to get reservations, even if it’s the day of.
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Old May 9th, 2006, 03:55 PM
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I absolutely love this travel log. Your info is great and very amusing. I am so glad you aren't sugar coating it as I have gotten some not so great suggestions from people who I assume might have been doing just that. Where's the report from Madrid? I got to the end of Venice and I couldn't find Madrid.
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Old May 9th, 2006, 04:07 PM
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youngandrestless - I'm thoroughly enjoying your travel tale - keep it up!
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Old May 10th, 2006, 01:51 PM
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Artgirl and dorkforcemom:

*In Eyores Voice*: Thanks for noticin' me.
I'll finish my report, I promise. I just wasn't sure if the Fodor's community was ready for more of my first-trip-to-Europe shenanigans yet.
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Old May 10th, 2006, 02:22 PM
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On our last full day in Venice we overslept our breakfast again. Shucks! When we walked outside around 11 it was raining cats and dogs and freezing. But we were starving, so we headed over to a restaurant recommended on Fodor’s: Casin dei Nobili. We were the first customers there for lunch, but by the time we left 20 more people had trickled in. The waitress didn’t speak English, so we struggled a little. Our Rick Steve’s Italian phrasebook didn’t have a translation for “we need a few more minutes to decide” so under pressure I order some spaghetti with tuna in the Amalfi style. It was very fishy tasting. I like fish, but I don’t like things that are too fishy. So, I didn’t even eat a quarter of my dish. DH ordered the pork tenderloin with bacon and a lovely sauce. He noticed I didn’t like mine (neither did he) so he shared some of his pork with me. What a sweetie! We got a chocolate crepe for dessert which had a very rich sauce. Yum. After that we went back out in the cold miserable day. I was leaning toward going back to the hotel room to watch our PBS Medici Empire DVD, but DH wanted to go to Murano.

We jumped on the vaporetto to the San Marco stop, and almost took the Serenissima tour which was next to the canal at San Marco, but we ran right past it and caught the Murano vaporetto. It was free with our 72 hour pass, after all. We were a little nervous about giving ourselves a self guided tour, but the island is so tiny that it was no sweat. We wandered around, stopped at a café for something hot to drink, browsed in some shops. We walked by the glass museum, but didn’t feel like shelling out for a tour. We even managed to find a free glass making demonstration. It was neat to see how the glass is made. The reason the demonstration is free is because the glass at the demonstration shop is extremely overpriced. For a similar item the price was 4 times as much at the shop where we watched the demonstration. That convinced me to go back to the shop where I’d first seen a really interesting piece for what I now realized was a reasonable price. I applied all my public transportation savings toward a lovely teardrop-shaped, Caledonia style glass. The store owner wrapped it really well, and although it took up Ľ of the room in my 22 inch roller, I was able to squeeze it in. Good thing I brought a folded up duffel bag in my suitcase!

After that it was getting dark, so we headed back to our hotel to relax before dinner. I wanted to go back to Alle Testiere, but my husband wanted to go back to Trattoria Ala Madonna. I’d been calling all the shots thus far, so I let him have his way. It was a very busy night at Ala Madonna and we had not made a reservation, so we had to wait for about 15 minutes to be seated. This restaurant is very popular with large groups of people! We probably saw about 5 groups of eight or more people being seated while we were waiting. We assumed they had reservations. We were seated right next to some friendly British ladies we’d been waiting next to in the foyer, so we continued to chat with them throughout our meal. I ended up liking the food better this time. I think I ordered spaghetti with meat sauce.

We then headed back to our hotel to pack our bags for Florence.
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Old May 10th, 2006, 02:51 PM
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Oh, and I forgot one detail about our last night in Venice. We wanted to take a gondola ride, but it was $150 for a 10 minute ride! We tried to get him down to $60, and we would have spent $80, but he was firm on his price. We walked away to get a gelato and 15 minutes later he was still standing there waiting for a $150 fare. That stubborn guy could've made $80 off of us during that time!
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Old May 18th, 2006, 08:38 AM
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Just finished your latest installment. Thank you for sharing. where's Florence? I'll check back.
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