NeoPatrick in Venice
Aug 11th, 2007, 01:44 PM
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NeoPatrick in Venice
The train trip (1st class Eurostar) from Rome couldn't have been nicer. I hadn't booked in advance due to problems with the website, and I couldn't find any specials anyway. I hate doing advance tickets at the Rome train stations and standing in lines for ages to do so, but went to a smallish travel agency with a Trenitalia sticker in the window. This place faces Torre Argentina and is great. Not only did they happily book and reserve our seats, but they found some sort of special price for us -- two traveling together -- which I didn't see on the internet. The train was surpisingly uncrowded from Rome to Florence, but then it became jam packed the rest of the way.
On arrival we bought three day tickets (I screwed up waiting too long to buy those "blue" one week passes that would have saved us a few euro. By the time I remembered about them and I brought them up on a website I saw that you hav to do it three days before your arrival in Venice. No big deal. Two sets of 72 hour tickets with the better part of a non transport day between them covered our full week for a grand total of 120 euros. Seems like a lot and those passes keep going up and up every year, but we do ride the vaparettos a lot and do some fairly major trips on them (as you'll see).
We got off the #1 at San Angelo and the owner had given us good and easy directions to the apartment -- with only one very small bridge to go over. We loved the apartment. It's in an old house on a tiny little street. You enter the door, and you are in about a 30 foot long "tunnel" sort of arched brick hallway that leads you back to a lovely and quiet garden. You enter the "drawing room" of the house, a sort of public area for guests, and our apartment was up one flight. I was not prepared for a canal view, but two nice windows opened right onto a lovely canal. Across it, at a slight angle was the back of the La Fenice opera house. This canal is a very popular one with the late afternoon gondola serenades. I'd sit in the deep window and watch them go by. There is another apartment similar to ours on the ground level that opens to the garden, but not the canal. And the owner lives there herself (I'm not sure if it is just her, if she's a widow or what). After showing us the apartment she informed us she was going to her country house for the week, so we were really on our own.
http://www.homelidays.com/venezia/ap...at40927en1.htm
Like our other one week stays this summer we really didn't do a lot except absorb the ambiance. It was our fifth stay in Venice -- our third week long one in apartments.
We did a wonderful day trip to Bassano del Grappa and wondered around the pretty town and the gorgeous bridge and had a great meal on a pretty patio.
We spent a full day at the Biennale -- the huge international modern art exposition that takes place every two years. It's funny that with all our trips to Venice, the others must have been on the off years. Very interesting.
We also spent the better part of a day going to Chioggia at the south end of the lagoon. We've done this before. Getting there is half the fun -- vaparetto to Lido, then combinations of bus, ferry, and bus ON a ferry. And it's all free on the vaparetto pass from Venice.
We headed up to Burano one day for lunch and I must say I get less enchanted with it each trip. I remember when it seemed the "special" getaway to avoid all the tourists in Venice. But on the day we went there must have been 50 different tour groups from the cruise ships all on Burano. It was sort of wall to wall people.
When we departed, we flew TransAvia from the Treviso airport to Amsterdam in the late afternoon. I loved going out of Treviso. We took the train to the town of Treviso in the mid morning and used the left luggage check at the train station for our baggage. I couldn't believe when we got to the town that I had forgotten we had spent a couple hours there last year on our way to Asolo. Still it's a nice town. We sat for ages sipping coffee (and hot chocolate) in the morning on a lovely and lively square, and had nice pizzas for lunch at Pino on the civic square. Afterwards we picked up our luggage and took the bus to the airport. What a wonderful change for an airport. The nearest departure before us and the nearest one after us were both more than a hour from us. There was no crowd. Check in and security were instant. The flight out was great and right on time.
So as usual -- the big question -- where did we eat?
La Piscina at Zattere right on the Guideca -- rather cool and quite windy -- but an excellent meal.
Trattoria Al Campanile at San Polo for great pizzas at lunch.
DaMario -- a real odd ball place. Tiny, no menu, "grandma" type owner waiting on everyone. She says "Bianco or Rosso" and then brings a bottle of wine she sits on your table. "tagliatelle -- tortellini -- gnocci?" You pick one and she brings it. "pork chop -- steak -- chicken?" Again you pick one and she brings it. There is normally no dessert.
There were a couple of locals next to us bringing business friends, so we got the scoop on her "funny" running monolog she was doing in Italian during the whole evening. Much of it was not pleasant -- like "those stupid Germans wouldn't know good food if it bit them" said while she's smiling at them. I found it more than a little offensive. But the people next to us who were just getting started with their pasta were suprised to see the cook leaving -- obviously quite drunk. He stopped and chatted with them a couple minutes and left. The locals were laughing, but the bottom line was the cook had gone home so they couldn't get a main course. They were done. "Grandma" brought out a store bought cake in a box, tossed it on the table and told these people it was to share with all of us. (Communal tables -- and at this point only about 8 people in the restaurant). Anyway, it was an experience.
Remigio -- a favorite with great seafood. They apologized because they had no half bottles of wine, so he asked us what kind of wine we liked, he opened a full bottle and charged us half since we'd only drink half.
Had a surprisingly good lunch at Al Vaparetto, a self service cafeteria type place.
San Stefano in the square of that name. Excellent meal.
Al Porta in Chioggia -- more fresh seafood than any two people should be allowed to eat in one seating!
Do Mori across the Guideca right next to the vaparetto stop. Great food while sitting right on the edge of the canal. We loved this place out in the open air and started to go there another night as well, but while waiting for the vaparetto, it started raining lightly so we decided to stay on the other side of the canal and ate at:
Ristorante Gianni. This looks like one of those very touristy places built on a platform over the water, but we found the food surprisingly good. Lee's carpaccio then spaghetti with clams and my pappardelle with tons of fresh porcini followed by a huge and wonderful mixed grilled seafood!
Masaniello on Campo Stefano. Really nice meal. Portions are to share. We shared a huge caprese on a bed of arugula that should have served an army, yet still had huge platters of fusilli with shimps, swordfish, olives, capers, and tomatoes. Excellent food.
And Galuppi on Burano -- clearly the WORST meal of our stay.
We did a "daily menu" and both chose spaghetti with clams for the first course. So went out came a little plate of spaghetti with a tablespoon of red sauce on it I said that wasn't the spaghetti with clams. "Yes, it is --our style". I guess I could taste a few canned minced clams in the out of a can tomato sauce. This in VENICE? The also only had small bottles of water -- we drank 3 of them -- at 4 euro each!!!
We also did laundry at the usual laundramat near Guglio bridge.
But I got a machine that got stuck on wash. While my other machine long finished, this one went on and on. Finally I had to get the guy to come cancel the cycle, I had to transfer the clothes, and then start all over again in another machine -- so our morning at the laundry stretched to three hours. However, we made the most of it by camping out outside at a little bar next door sipping wine. By the time we left I didn't care if my clothes were clean or dry or not.
Once again Venice thrilled us. Surprisingly at the end of our week we realized we had never sat out at St. Marks at night for the music -- one of our favorite things. That was partially because three nights the square was all closed off with a huge concert. And usually after dinner we'd just walk and then hop on a vaparetto for a while -- I still love crusing up the Grand Canal at night -- such a special place.
On arrival we bought three day tickets (I screwed up waiting too long to buy those "blue" one week passes that would have saved us a few euro. By the time I remembered about them and I brought them up on a website I saw that you hav to do it three days before your arrival in Venice. No big deal. Two sets of 72 hour tickets with the better part of a non transport day between them covered our full week for a grand total of 120 euros. Seems like a lot and those passes keep going up and up every year, but we do ride the vaparettos a lot and do some fairly major trips on them (as you'll see).
We got off the #1 at San Angelo and the owner had given us good and easy directions to the apartment -- with only one very small bridge to go over. We loved the apartment. It's in an old house on a tiny little street. You enter the door, and you are in about a 30 foot long "tunnel" sort of arched brick hallway that leads you back to a lovely and quiet garden. You enter the "drawing room" of the house, a sort of public area for guests, and our apartment was up one flight. I was not prepared for a canal view, but two nice windows opened right onto a lovely canal. Across it, at a slight angle was the back of the La Fenice opera house. This canal is a very popular one with the late afternoon gondola serenades. I'd sit in the deep window and watch them go by. There is another apartment similar to ours on the ground level that opens to the garden, but not the canal. And the owner lives there herself (I'm not sure if it is just her, if she's a widow or what). After showing us the apartment she informed us she was going to her country house for the week, so we were really on our own.
http://www.homelidays.com/venezia/ap...at40927en1.htm
Like our other one week stays this summer we really didn't do a lot except absorb the ambiance. It was our fifth stay in Venice -- our third week long one in apartments.
We did a wonderful day trip to Bassano del Grappa and wondered around the pretty town and the gorgeous bridge and had a great meal on a pretty patio.
We spent a full day at the Biennale -- the huge international modern art exposition that takes place every two years. It's funny that with all our trips to Venice, the others must have been on the off years. Very interesting.
We also spent the better part of a day going to Chioggia at the south end of the lagoon. We've done this before. Getting there is half the fun -- vaparetto to Lido, then combinations of bus, ferry, and bus ON a ferry. And it's all free on the vaparetto pass from Venice.
We headed up to Burano one day for lunch and I must say I get less enchanted with it each trip. I remember when it seemed the "special" getaway to avoid all the tourists in Venice. But on the day we went there must have been 50 different tour groups from the cruise ships all on Burano. It was sort of wall to wall people.
When we departed, we flew TransAvia from the Treviso airport to Amsterdam in the late afternoon. I loved going out of Treviso. We took the train to the town of Treviso in the mid morning and used the left luggage check at the train station for our baggage. I couldn't believe when we got to the town that I had forgotten we had spent a couple hours there last year on our way to Asolo. Still it's a nice town. We sat for ages sipping coffee (and hot chocolate) in the morning on a lovely and lively square, and had nice pizzas for lunch at Pino on the civic square. Afterwards we picked up our luggage and took the bus to the airport. What a wonderful change for an airport. The nearest departure before us and the nearest one after us were both more than a hour from us. There was no crowd. Check in and security were instant. The flight out was great and right on time.
So as usual -- the big question -- where did we eat?
La Piscina at Zattere right on the Guideca -- rather cool and quite windy -- but an excellent meal.
Trattoria Al Campanile at San Polo for great pizzas at lunch.
DaMario -- a real odd ball place. Tiny, no menu, "grandma" type owner waiting on everyone. She says "Bianco or Rosso" and then brings a bottle of wine she sits on your table. "tagliatelle -- tortellini -- gnocci?" You pick one and she brings it. "pork chop -- steak -- chicken?" Again you pick one and she brings it. There is normally no dessert.
There were a couple of locals next to us bringing business friends, so we got the scoop on her "funny" running monolog she was doing in Italian during the whole evening. Much of it was not pleasant -- like "those stupid Germans wouldn't know good food if it bit them" said while she's smiling at them. I found it more than a little offensive. But the people next to us who were just getting started with their pasta were suprised to see the cook leaving -- obviously quite drunk. He stopped and chatted with them a couple minutes and left. The locals were laughing, but the bottom line was the cook had gone home so they couldn't get a main course. They were done. "Grandma" brought out a store bought cake in a box, tossed it on the table and told these people it was to share with all of us. (Communal tables -- and at this point only about 8 people in the restaurant). Anyway, it was an experience.
Remigio -- a favorite with great seafood. They apologized because they had no half bottles of wine, so he asked us what kind of wine we liked, he opened a full bottle and charged us half since we'd only drink half.
Had a surprisingly good lunch at Al Vaparetto, a self service cafeteria type place.
San Stefano in the square of that name. Excellent meal.
Al Porta in Chioggia -- more fresh seafood than any two people should be allowed to eat in one seating!
Do Mori across the Guideca right next to the vaparetto stop. Great food while sitting right on the edge of the canal. We loved this place out in the open air and started to go there another night as well, but while waiting for the vaparetto, it started raining lightly so we decided to stay on the other side of the canal and ate at:
Ristorante Gianni. This looks like one of those very touristy places built on a platform over the water, but we found the food surprisingly good. Lee's carpaccio then spaghetti with clams and my pappardelle with tons of fresh porcini followed by a huge and wonderful mixed grilled seafood!
Masaniello on Campo Stefano. Really nice meal. Portions are to share. We shared a huge caprese on a bed of arugula that should have served an army, yet still had huge platters of fusilli with shimps, swordfish, olives, capers, and tomatoes. Excellent food.
And Galuppi on Burano -- clearly the WORST meal of our stay.
We did a "daily menu" and both chose spaghetti with clams for the first course. So went out came a little plate of spaghetti with a tablespoon of red sauce on it I said that wasn't the spaghetti with clams. "Yes, it is --our style". I guess I could taste a few canned minced clams in the out of a can tomato sauce. This in VENICE? The also only had small bottles of water -- we drank 3 of them -- at 4 euro each!!!
We also did laundry at the usual laundramat near Guglio bridge.
But I got a machine that got stuck on wash. While my other machine long finished, this one went on and on. Finally I had to get the guy to come cancel the cycle, I had to transfer the clothes, and then start all over again in another machine -- so our morning at the laundry stretched to three hours. However, we made the most of it by camping out outside at a little bar next door sipping wine. By the time we left I didn't care if my clothes were clean or dry or not.
Once again Venice thrilled us. Surprisingly at the end of our week we realized we had never sat out at St. Marks at night for the music -- one of our favorite things. That was partially because three nights the square was all closed off with a huge concert. And usually after dinner we'd just walk and then hop on a vaparetto for a while -- I still love crusing up the Grand Canal at night -- such a special place.
Aug 11th, 2007, 07:27 PM
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hmmm. Very close to the back of La Fenice. I could walk you there, but not sure what "street" it's on, right along a small canal on a narrow walkway.
By the way, anyone looking for my laundramat might get lost. I have no idea why I said near Guglio; I meant Ponte Guglie -- it's on San Leonardo. I think I confused the name with the Giglio stop -- nowhere near there.
And the weather really varied in Venice. We had a couple of really hot days just before we left. Sunday was sweltering so we were glad we had AC in the apartment. But most evenings we were wearing sweaters, and the one evening we were about to go to St. Marks Square late at night, we decided not to or we'd freeze! Had a very short and light rain a couple of times. But overall good weather, and much nicer than all hot.
By the way, anyone looking for my laundramat might get lost. I have no idea why I said near Guglio; I meant Ponte Guglie -- it's on San Leonardo. I think I confused the name with the Giglio stop -- nowhere near there.
And the weather really varied in Venice. We had a couple of really hot days just before we left. Sunday was sweltering so we were glad we had AC in the apartment. But most evenings we were wearing sweaters, and the one evening we were about to go to St. Marks Square late at night, we decided not to or we'd freeze! Had a very short and light rain a couple of times. But overall good weather, and much nicer than all hot.
Aug 12th, 2007, 05:03 AM
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A further story about DaMario. We had no idea what it would cost except we had been told it was inexpensive. And since there's no menu you have no idea what the food will cost. But near the end of our meal this group of four Germans got up to go and I heard "grandma" charge them 100 euros so I figured it was 25 euro per person. But when we got ready to pay she said it was 40 for the two of us. I mentioned this to the local by us and he responded -- oh yes, she hates Germans -- she always charges them more. So my guess is since we're American and paid 20 each, the locals must only pay about 15. Although I have no idea what she charged this group since they never got an actual meal as the cook went home drunk. Wasn't there a post about that sort of random charging on Fodors this past week?
Aug 12th, 2007, 06:12 AM
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Thanks for the restaurant info. We'll be in Venice in September and this will be helpful. I have seen mixed reviews on La Piscina and haven't made up my mind about trying it, so I might since you had a great meal.
Aug 15th, 2007, 12:35 PM
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bfrac, LaPiscina is a sort of funny place. We sat against the actual building rather than out on the deck built over the water. That was fine with us as it was so cold and windy.
But we were given a couple of different menus. One seemed simpler and less expensive. Yet some dishes were listed on both menus at the same price. As I recall we ordered things from both menus. I'm unclear if one was generally for inside and one was generally for outside or what the difference was. And service was very slow -- especially at first since it seemed we were being totally ignored. But then this is Italy -- and we certainly don't dine in a "hurry". And we did have a very good meal.
But we were given a couple of different menus. One seemed simpler and less expensive. Yet some dishes were listed on both menus at the same price. As I recall we ordered things from both menus. I'm unclear if one was generally for inside and one was generally for outside or what the difference was. And service was very slow -- especially at first since it seemed we were being totally ignored. But then this is Italy -- and we certainly don't dine in a "hurry". And we did have a very good meal.
Aug 15th, 2007, 01:45 PM
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Thanks for the report, Patrick. My husband spent much time hanging out at DaLuca and Fred (next door to the laundry)) while I was on the internet and doing laundry myself. They had some of the best appetizers in their cases inside. 
Aug 16th, 2007, 03:46 AM
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NeoPatrick, thank you for the additional information. We may still try it. We aren't in a hurry either, we are mainly interested in good food and a pleasant spot to pass the time while we enjoy it. I'll let you know after we return.
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