ms_go

<b>Venice: staying away from the crowds</b>

On our last trip, we stayed on the Riva degli Schiavoni…in August…surrounded by crowds. In our walks around the city, we enjoyed the relative peace and quiet in the Dorsoduro, and I made a mental note to look into staying here when I returned to Venice.

For this trip, I didn’t spend too much time looking. I started with one of Venice’s most popular hotels and a Fodor’s favorite, Pensione La Calcina. I inquired about two rooms (double and single) and was offered a double with view and single without for 325&euro;. As an alternative, they offered one of the suites in a nearby building for about 100&euro; less. The suite is located a block off the Zattere, the waterfront along the Dorsoduro fronting the Giudecca canal. A waterfront location/view wasn’t important, and the suite looked nice from the photos. I decided to take it.

The Giglio suite is on the second floor (in US terms) of a small building in a residential area about three minutes’ walk from the hotel. I believe the other two units in the building belong to the hotel, as well. Access is down a very narrow walkway and through a small courtyard. Most of those we encountered in the immediate area were locals. The view is basically of nearby buildings and rooftops; no water—nevertheless, we were surprised to look out one morning and see the top three or four levels of a cruise ship over the top of the adjacent building as the ship made its way down the Giudecca canal.

The suite is very comfortable, with a double bed in the bedroom and a large fold-out couch (again, reasonably comfortable for that sort of thing) in the living room. Curtains can be pulled to close off the living room. The bathroom is reasonably sized. There’s a very small balcony with two chairs (although getting on to it requires opening a window and stepping up. Most importantly for us: air conditioning! There is no kitchen (although several of the other suites do have kitchens), but we squeezed a few things in the minibar refrigerator, and there’s a pot for making coffee. The suite has satellite TV but no Internet access. La Calcina does have free wifi in the lobby for its guests; I hauled my computer over a few times.

Breakfast is included at the hotel, beginning at 7 in the hotel or 8 in its open, waterfront restaurant. We opted for the latter. The breakfast buffet includes breads, cereal, yogurt, and fruit, as well as cheese/ham plates and omelettes by order at no cost. We found the blood orange juice especially refreshing in the muggy weather.

The suite feels more like an apartment than a hotel room. We found it very quiet and comfortable and were happy with the decision, location, everything. Add me to the legions here who love La Calcina.

Cost: 238&euro; for three, including breakfast
http://www.warmhospitality.com/app-en-giglio.html

Kavey

Fantastically informative and well-structured report! Thank you so much!

bobthenavigator

Grazie ! Glad to hear that apt. was good--looks like a keeper.

ms_go

Thanks kavey and bob.

<b>Doge’s Palace Secret Itineraries Tour</b>

We regretted not doing this last time in Venice and, in fact, we were unable to visit the “new” prisons and the Bridge of Sighs due to wet floors. So, I definitely put the Doge’s Palace and the Secret Itineraries tour on our agenda. Pre-booking the latter is essential. When we went, there was a line for regular admission to the palace, but we skirted right around it to pick up our tickets.

This tour visits the administrative offices, the secret chancellery (which once stored key documents), the torture room and the “old” jail cells, including the cell from which Casanova escaped—all using some secret passages and doorways (for example, one accessed through what appeared to be an armoire). Many of these rooms are in the upper floors of the palace, right under the roof, so it does get quite steamy in the summer. Along the way, our guide provided context about magistrates were chosen, how tortures were carried out and, of course, exactly how Casanova engineered his escape. The tour lasted about 75 minutes, and we stayed on after to walk through many other parts of the palace, including those we’d missed on the last visit.

According to my email, I booked in late May, about a month before the visit. I recall that some dates/times were already full or almost sold out. Highly recommended!

Cost: 48&euro; for 3 people
Note: I’m not sure how I ended up there but I booked through the Musei Civici Veneziani site, rather than a broker like Tickitaly and saved about 15&euro; in booking fees. The site is not as easy to use and some of the pages will be mostly in Italian, but my only problem came when Citibank blocked the transaction. I ended up having to call and pre-approve it and then re-book.
http://www.museiciviciveneziani.it/f...;tit=biglietti

ms_go

This is still a work in progress and I'm just starting to add some captions, but here are some photos from Venice.

http://onelittleworld.zenfolio.com/p401656663/

socaltraveler

ms_go, have we been taking similar trips? Last summer we stayed at La Calcina, but in the main building - breakfast on their canal front dock was one of the highlights of our trip. And since we had not done the Secret Tour either on our first trip, we made sure to do it last year as well. Your description is right on.

bobthenavigator

I am so jealous---you are getting better all the time.
Loved the Burano shots and the gondolier reading the paper. I may have to go back.

ms_go

socaltraveler--I was going to mention this when I get to the rest of my Venice report, but the only thing I liked better than breakfast on the water was early evening at the bar area in front of La Calcina with a glass of wine watching the traffic going up and down the Giudecca Canal.

Bob, we lucked out this time with a nice sunny day in Burano; last time, it was overcast. Yes, you should go back--but not in the middle of summer.

ms_go

<b>Burano and Torcello</b>

We took a day trip to Burano and Torcello the last time we were in Venice, and it was such an enjoyable trip that I decided to repeat it on this trip. This time, we had sunny blue skies (important for photographing Burano), whereas last time it was cloudy. This trip also got us away from the crowds for a few hours.

There are a few points from which you can set out; I chose to use San Zaccaria going and returning. We could have just as easily walked to Fondamenta Nuova; the distance wasn’t much farther, but the potential for getting lost along the way was probably greater, and mom gets nervous when we get lost. I bought 12-hour passes, and we set off. The ride takes about an hour with a stop at the Lido and one other outer location. The boat is bigger than those used right around the center of Venice; sitting in the open air part of the upper deck provides nice views and a nice breeze. This was a Saturday, and we passed many Venetian families taking their private boats out for a day on the water.

Burano is the small island in the north lagoon known for its brightly colored houses, lace-making tradition (although I think a lot of what is sold there is imported) and leaning bell tower. It must be a bit odd having your house constantly photographed, but I’m sure they’re used to it. There are many shops and a few restaurants. We opted for slices of pizza and gelato while walking. While Burano is small and there were several boatloads of people walking around, it is delightfully peaceful compared to the madness around Piazza San Marco.

From Burano, it is a very short ride over to Torcello on a smaller vaparetto. For many years, Torcello was home to 20,000+ people; however, little remains from that civilization today. The 12/13 Century mosaics in the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta are an absolute must-see (IMHO). This was one of the primary reasons I wanted to come out here again. Some have said the marble armchair across from the basilica is the throne of Attila the Hun, although it is more likely to have been for local church or governmental leaders. There were even fewer people on Torcello; most of them part of two local groups arriving for private events.

This makes for a very nice change of pace if you're spending a few days in Venice.

ms_go

<b>Venice transportation passes</b>

Venice transportation is expensive: for example, 6.50&euro; for a one-way ticket (more if luggage is large); 14&euro; for a 12-hour pass. It is helpful to consider this in advance and make the right decision up front based on your plans.

In hindsight, I made a mistake by not purchasing the 36-hour pass right away. My thinking was that we would take a vaparetto to our hotel upon arrival but from there we would more or less walk everywhere. I also assumed we'd take the separate (not covered by the pass) Alilaguna transport back to the airport. Burano/Torcello would be a day-of call depending on the weather (I didn’t want to go if it was cloudy), so I did not assume we were going for sure.

By the time we'd purchased one-way tickets to the hotel and a day-passes for Burano, however, we’d already spent 20&euro; per person for transportation. So, needless to say, I was hesitant to buy 14&euro; passes on the last day when I decided it might be nice to hop over to San Giorgio Maggiore or the Giudecca—so, we did not go, instead spending our time in areas we could reach on foot. Spending 21&euro; for the 36-hour passes would have been a much better idea.

bfrac

Your photos are great, we took some of the same shots on Burano. I'm re-living our trip and hate for yours to come to an end. We didn't make it to Torcello so one more reason to go back.

ms_go

Thanks, bfrac, I hated to see the trip come to an end, too. But since I didn't take very good notes, going through the process of writing this trip report is helping me remember and document some things.

<b>The rest of our time in Venice</b>

I really don’t have a lot more to report, really. We did quite a bit of walking through various areas of the city. Mom thinks she saw every street in Venice; not close, but &quot;most streets in the Dorsoduro&quot; might be accurate. We also spent some time in San Polo and Castello (another of my favorite areas). We peeked at the art in a few churches, such as San Zaccaria; it’s amazing how quiet Campo San Zaccaria can be, as close as it is to San Marco and the Riva degli Schiavoni. DD visited and enjoyed an exhibition of machinery based on Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings in San Barnaba, the deconsecrated church on Campo San Barnaba in the Dorsoduro. Of course, we did a bit of shopping for small glass items and gifts, but I’ve officially had my fill of seeing masks for awhile.

We took the elevator up the campanile one morning for nice views across the area. We spent a little bit of time in Piazza San Marco, but not much. There’s construction going on there to mix with the crowds of people. We didn’t even go into the basilica on this trip (we’ve all been before, and the lines were long).

On the subject of construction, Santa Maria della Salute was completely under scaffolding, and some additional construction means that you can’t walk around the tip of the island there. There was some scaffolding on the Doge’s Palace, but not a lot yet. The base of the campanile in Piazza San Marco was surrounded by construction fencing. But the view across to San Giorgio Maggiore was unobstructed; last time I was in Venice, it was covered in scaffolding. As always, there are various cranes across the skyline.

I had the Peggy Guggenheim museum on my list, but mom doesn’t much care for modern art, so I saved that for another time.

One thing I’d considered for this trip was the day trip on the Brenta Canal from Venice to Padua, visiting several of the Palladian mansions along the way. Not surprisingly, the heat and humidity was taking its toll, particularly for mom; walking to and fro in Venice was beginning to become a bit of a chore. I kind of wish I’d pursued the Brenta Canal trip. I think mom would have enjoyed it, and it wouldn’t have been as taxing.

As noted above, ultimately what I enjoyed the most was sitting at a table in front of La Calcina with a chilled glass of vino bianco or vino rosato and watching the endless and varied water traffic on the Giudecca canal.

<b>Venice and the cruise ships</b>

Our last trip to Venice was in August 2001 and I frankly don’t remember the influx of cruise ships. I remember large Greek ferries, but not the Royal Caribbean and Norwegian behemoths. I guess they must have been there, but I’m wondering if the numbers have increased since? There seemed to be at least three in port every day.

For one thing, they are taller than most everything in the city. From Burano, looking across the lagoon, they seem to tower over Venice. What was amazing is that one (RCI Brilliance of the Seas) just sidled right up to the edge of the lagoon, no more than a half mile down the waterfront from the Doge’s Palace. I didn’t realize the water was so deep there. Seeing them glide up the Giudecca Canal was a sight to behold; everyone (including the locals) seemed to stop what they were doing to watch.

ms_go

One small correction above: the pier from which the Burano boats depart is Fondamenta Nove (not Nuova). I should not be allowed to post before finishing my first cup of coffee in the morning.

ms_go

<b>Eating in Venice</b>

The first thing I should mention is that, aside from a couple of slices consumed while walking in Burano, we had no pizza in Venice. On the other hand, here I was in Venice with two non-seafood eaters. So, my challenge was finding places that satisfied my appetite and theirs.

By far, my favorite meal was at Ristorante Cantinone Storico at 166 Fondamente Bragadin. It has tables set along a quiet side canal, with ambience to match the food and wine. I did not have this on my list of recommendations; we just happened here because of its convenience to our flat, but now I’ve found various other positive comments. I’d have been tempted to go back on our last evening if we’d been up for a big meal.

We also had lunch at Trattoria Sempione. Now, I know it’s touristy, but it’s become a bit of a tradition. Mr_go and I stumbled in here in November 1991, cold, wet and tired and enjoyed our meal in the window seat. We’ve had a photo of the restaurant (it’s on a particularly popular photo spot) hanging in our living room ever since, through three moves. It is now double the size that it was in 1991, or on our last visit for that matter. On this particular day, it wasn’t too crowded, and we again got to enjoy the window seat. The food was quite serviceable and not any more expensive than other places around the area.

Our other regular meal worth noting was at the hotel restaurant, La Piscina, an open-air permanently moored restaurant on the Giudecca Canal. The setting is terrific. I thought my meal, fish ravioli in saffron sauce with peas, was good. DD was lukewarm on her pasta, but she’s pretty picky. Service was very good.

There was a nice bar just up the Zattere which has good sandwiches and gelato. This, along with some snacks from the Billi grocery nearby, filled our food gaps.

ms_go

<b>Livin’ large: the water taxi</b>

I had planned to take the convenient Alilaguna water bus from the Zattere to the airport, but unfortunately we found that it started a bit too late to be useful for our 9:40am flight. Our other options generally started with a vaparetto ride; for example, to Piazalle Roma where we could catch a bus. With our sweaty vaparetto arrival still fresh in mind and her difficulties handling her luggage, mom said “no.” She wanted to spring for the 100&euro; water taxi. Who was I to argue?

It almost makes you feel like royalty zipping through Venice, across the Grand Canal, through side canals and then across the lagoon at high speed in your own private boat. I may never do this again, so I just sat back and enjoyed the scenery. As we crossed the lagoon on the final approach to the airport, I could see the peaks of the Dolomites off in the distance… very possibly our next destination in Italy.

And on that high note, our trip was over. I have a few more things to recap here and will do that early in the week.

ms_go

<b>Flying Swiss</b>

We flew Swiss via Zurich in both directions. Economy is economy, but overall we found this to be a pretty decent experience. DD liked the food better than I did (although the ice cream on the way back was nice). As the airline of the host country of Euro 2008, football was a big deal; even the chocolates that they hand out at the conclusion of each flight were specially prepared round chocolate balls with “football” wrappers.

We were on A330s for the transatlantic segments. The movie selection is not as varied as on the A340s (and in June, the selections were pretty uninteresting; I watched nothing). But, the A330 has video games, and DD enjoyed many rounds of Tetris in both directions. Service was pretty good and wine is free. Notably, Swiss is one of the only European airlines that I’ve encountered that assigns seats for intra-European flights in advance (at least, for those in economy).

I’ve become a bit spoiled flying with decent legroom on United (Economy Plus exit rows or bulkheads for most of my flights), so a seat with 32” pitch for nine hours is a bit of a shock to the system. The seat, itself, wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was a bit of a struggle to get to anything in my bag on the floor.

My only gripe with Swiss is its proprietary reservation system. I prefer to book directly with the airline, and to book an open jaw itinerary with Swiss, you must do so through the call center. And, if you book through the call center, you can’t check your reservation on the Swiss site. Nor can you check it on sites such as Checkmytrip, Viewtrip, etc. (unless, for example, there’s a Lufthansa segment and you get the LH record locator number). I had to call periodically to make sure that seats were intact and that there were no schedule changes. I’ve read that Lufthansa will be integrating Swiss into its reservation system, which is probably a good thing.

I’ve been to the Zurich airport before, but I’d never connected there. I’ll rate it along with Munich as a good place to connect (with the key difference being immigration, since Switzerland has not yet implemented Schengen procedures). We had about 1:30 on the way over; I wouldn’t call it tons of time but it was a comfortable connection. We had two hours on the way back and that was plenty of time.

All in all, Swiss is a nice addition to the Star Alliance. I would fly with Swiss again.

atlatty

Bookmarking

Rasputin1

Hi Ms Go
We did the Brenta Canal trip from Padua to Venice two years ago. We did enjoy the slow pace and the opportunity to see some of the Palladio Villas. However, even though we only had 3 bags we found them difficult to manage at the first villa. The bus leaves you some distance from the entrance and you have to drag your bags with you to the entrance across loose pebbled surface for a long distance. This meant that we lagged behind the group considerably and missed the introduction to the villa. You then have to drag your bags through the villa to the back where there is a luggage storage and toilets.
We enjoyed our visit to the villa and the gardens - could have spent some more time there. Then you collect your bags and drag them out across the somewhat busy main road to the boat.
The cruise through the seven locks and viewing the towns as we passed was very pleasant. You need to pre book and pay for lunch at a restaurant on the canal or take your own or take pot luck in the town at the lunch stop, if you can find anything open. There are a few ice cream shops and cafes but nothing substantial. You do get one spritz drink on the cruise.
The mosquitos at the last place (Villa Malcontenta) were awful. So much so, that after looking round the grden and the villa (not much to see) everyone wanted to get back on the boat, but the management of the villa had locked us in and it took a long time (pulling on the bell) for someone to put down their mobile phone and come and open up the gate.
The cruise through the Venetian lagoon was also an experience. The boat arrives just before dusk, so you don't want to be dragging your bags too far or else you will be doing so in the dark (as we did). It is somewhat difficult to read a map in the dark.