Venezia!

So once we actually GOT to Venice it was spectacular of course! We had a very nice meal the first night at Osteria Enoteca San Marco and the next day a fantastic lunch at Al Theatro next to La Fenice. But the most fun food wise was experiencing some of the cechetti bars! These, usually hole in the wall, bars are where the locals go for a small glass of wine and snack before dinner. The first one we went to was Do Mori- great atmosphere, cechetti and wine. They really take the "snack before dinner" seriously though as it closed right at 9pm! As with tapas we over ordered and were full of our snacks so dinner ended up being a bottle of wine and dessert at Florian in Piazza San Marco. It was a gorgeous night!


There was a really big storm one night and it left the canals spilling over onto the sidewalks. It was just a peak into what winter must be like for the locals with the flooding that happens, wow- I can't imagine dealing with that! some of the boats could not even get under the bridges because the water was so high!

Our last full day we spent over on the Dusadora area- it was very nice to be the only one's in most of the neighborhood.



We went to the Peggy Guggenheim museum which was fantastic and then ended up having to walk all the way back to our hotel as there was a vaporetta strike! On the way back we stopped in a wonderful deli and picked up some nice "happy hour" snacks to enjoy in our room.


Being our last night we headed out and took the obligatory gondola ride and then headed out to another cechetti bar- Botte which I think is quite well know and very popular.

We loved being in Venice, it's such a unique and gorgeous city! All photos of Venice can be seen here

A funny thing happened on the way to Venice...

Setting: a train platform in Bologna, one fine September afternoon. A train arrives at the appointed time on the expected platform. Two Americans board and find their first-class seats. They then proceed to the dining car and enjoy a pleasant [for a train] meal and a bottle of wine. The husband idly remarks that he's really interested in getting back to the seats and taking a look at the map to check out the route, because he didn't expect the mountainous geography they're seeing.


Such a scene might look something like this:


Unfortunately, the camera fails to capture the following scene, approximately 15 minutes later, when the train pulls into fabled (and previously visited) Florence. To establish context, picture this: Bologna (the origin) is in north-central Italy. The destination, Venice, is north and east of that. Florence, by contrast, is south and west. There are intervening mountains.

When I realized that we'd just traveled several hours in the wrong direction after somehow managing to board the wrong train (from the right platform at the right time...) we panicked a bit. The next stop was some unknown destination on the way to Rome, unlikely to be a major train hub. Yikes! We grabbed the luggage and heaved it off the train -- almost leaving a bag behind -- and found ourselves in the main station in Florence on a sticky-hot afternoon, further from Venice than we' d started the day, and without valid tickets.

Long story short [well, too late for that], we did eventually repurchase tickets and make it onto a train later in the day, bound for Venice. We were going to arrive late, miss our scheduled bar walk, and were in general just in a bad mood. At the same time, as I took pains to point out, we were still going to Venice and hadn't actually lost anything other than a little time.

Eventually, we got to our little tiny hotel (perched across the street from the Ferrari store!!) and made it to San Marco plaza for a chance to shed some stress.


We did get to [famous, tiny, overpriced] Harry's Bar that night, to be confronted with pre-made, super-chilled martinis:

But we still had a good time ;)


...and eventually found our way to a fantastic wine bar / restaurant for a meal as they closed the place down around us. All was good in the world, and Venice waited for us the next day.