Venice

Traveling in style on Italotreno at 300 km/h.

On Monday, we checked out of our hotel in Rome, and jumped on a train to Venice. This Italotreno train zoomed along at up to 300 km/h in places, in a comfortable quiet cabin with free WiFi. On arrival, we find the main island of Venice rammed with tourists, not helped by an illusion of density; the “streets” are very narrow. There are no roads, only canals and pedestrian footpaths; no vehicles, save for hand-pulled carts for delivering goods, and of course the famous Venetian gondolas.

Our hotel room was teeny-tiny but manageable, in a Venetian house that had been converted into a hotel. We were to later learn this to be common; the only “locals” we saw were the business owners, tour guides, restaurant staff and the like. One guide told us that not many locals can afford to live on the main island any more due to the increasing costs of maintenance and insurance as the island subsides (and the sea level rises), and the sky-high rents, driven in part by highly lucrative tourism. Most apart from the mega-rich now live on the mainland, and if they still own property on the island, let it out through Airbnb; much of the housing in Venice is now hotels, or even empty.

After settling in we found what turned out to be an awful place for tea, Aciugheta. The service was terrible and they served tired, microwaved frozen seafood on chewy packet pasta.

The next day we found Magna Bevi Tasi, a lovely place to start the day with coffee and a panini in the morning, on the square next to the hotel. From there we embarked on a walking tour around San Marco, and a visit to St. Mark’s and the Doge’s Palace. In the afternoon we went on the Vaporetto (water bus) out to the island of Murano, with its glass factories that produce the famous and beautiful Venetian glass, and Burano, famous for its lace. By this point the relentless crowds of tourists everywhere drove me to escape down a quiet alleyway, where I found, only a hundred yards away, an oasis of quiet and colourful residential Venice, and managed a few idiot-free photographs.

That night we found Antica Osteria ai Tre Leone for tea, a lovely place right next to the Bridge Hotel with good pasta and wine list.

On Wednesday it was Bek’s birthday, and so we ventured out into the local countryside on a Prosecco tour. What better way to spend a birthday than drinking nice sparkling wine in the sun?

Prosecco vineyards near Valdobbiadene, Italy.

We went to three different Prosecco wineries, all producing Prosecco Superiore DOCG, which is sparkling wine made in a region around the towns of Conegliano and Valdobbiadene, from the Prosecco grape. The first was Toffoli, near Conegliano. They make a really good millesimato, extra dry. We mailed six magnums home to make use of the good NZ shipping rate. Happy birthday! These will come in handy for special occasions. We also got chatting to one of the staff who came to New Zealand for a couple of years and worked in Marlborough vineyards, and he very kindly gave us a couple of bottles of their sparkling rosƩ, made from the Marzemino grape.

A prosecco vending machine, in the middle of a vineyard.

On the way to the next vineyard in Valdobbiadene, where we had lunch, we stopped by a prosecco vending machine, out in the middle of the vineyard on a hill, with chairs and tables nearby. The whole thing runs as some sort of local honesty system. Just amazing!

Prosecco Superiore DOCG from Villa Sandi.

The third vineyard was Villa Sandi, which also had a lovely extra dry Prosecco Superiore.

After a hard day of drinking sparkling wine and being chauffeured around the Italian countryside, we went to the Tre Leone again for dinner. It’s a good restaurant, and it was very crowded and tiresome to try to find another good one.

The next day we decided to take it easy. The main island of Venice was relentlessly busy with tourists, so we emerged about midday and decided to bob along Canal Grande on the Vaporetto for about an hour and a half, until we ended up at the Lido.

Here we reclined on the beach for a while with Prosecco and spritz. Dear reader, if you want to visit Venice in the height of summer, go to the island of Lido – it is refreshingly free of tourist crowds and has good local cafĆ©s and restaurants. We went to a nice outdoor place for dinner on Gran Viale San Maria Elisabetta with good food and service.

Tomorrow we catch the train to Verona!