Venice Day 4

Venice Day 4

Venice, Italy

April 16th 2011

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Today we walked the streets of Venice.  I think we may have actually walked EVERY SINGLE street in Venice, along with passing through a couple twice or three times.  I can safely say we have seen a lot.  A lot of Murano glass, a lot of Carnival Masks, a lot of people… oh and did I mention a lot of Murano glass?  If I could have purchased every piece of beautiful jewelry I wanted, I believe I would need a private airplane just to freight it all home!

This is my fourth time to this enchanting city.  I am trying to figure out how in the world I feel like I just saw much of it for the first time!  I believe it may be because with every corner turned, with every shoulder width alleyway explored, with every bridge crossed there is a new discovery of beauty, character, and charm to be embraced.

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Among the best sights of the day was the Rialto Fish Market, pictured above.  Rows of just caught seafood filled this market including Veneto specialties like inky cuttlefish, huge shrimp, and many mysterious specimens of fish with shapes and sizes I have only seen at this market.  It was fun to see all the locals filling their bags with fresh seafood to take home or to their restaurants for cooking that night.

This cracked us up.  We wonder what the Weber County Health Department would think of this lady smoking while handling her raw fish for sale to a local across the counter.  Hilarious!

We stopped for lunch at this café, solely because of this window display.  How can you go wrong with a display of Bruschetta like this?  Well, actually here’s how you can go wrong:  Put out a gorgeous display of your best “Special Toast” then only staff one server to serve the droves of guests you are sure to have!  After we sat at the only vacant table in the tiny place, we realized that there were thirteen full tables including those outside on the street, and there was only one server for everybody!  The bruschetta was sublime, piled with veggies and salami, and ….  a rock?  AJ chomped down on a half-inch boulder!  When we informed our server, he barely stopped running around long enough to explain that the rock must have been mixed in with the mushrooms… “Funghi”… then he continued on his sprint to another table.  So that was that.  We gingerly ate the remainder of our delicious “Special Toast” and hit the streets for more cobblestone and window shopping.

After lunch we took a Vaporetto to see the Peggy Guggenheim modern art collection.  We were pleasantly surprised that the museum housed five works from one of our favorite artists, Jackson Pollock. 

After the museum, we began the hunt for a good dinner spot.  We had four restaurants earmarked, but after an hour and a half of wrong turns we gave up on finding any of them.  This is Venice, folks.  If you have been here, you know EXACTLY what I am talking about!  Even with AJ speaking fluent Italian and a half-decent map, we decided the restaurants we had on our wish list for the evening had to have been wild goose chases and we settled into Taverna San Travaso for a bottle of Vernaccia Di San Gimignano, a nice white wine with flavors of yellow apple, celery, white pepper, and honey. For more information on the Vernaccia grape go to these links:

http://italianwinereview.blogspot.com/2009/09/varnaccia-di-san-gimignano-2008-vintage.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernaccia_di_San_Gimignano

 We ordered a nice cheese plate with Asiago, Creamy Blue, Fontina, and Parmesan.  We then shared a plate of a very nice Pesto Penne with green beans and Potatoes and a Wood Oven pizza with Mozzarella, tomato Tuna and onion.  When we inquired about the delicious house-made Pesto, the manager told us the key was basil grown on one of the local Venetian Lagoon islands.  When finished with dinner we hit the streets one more time to take the Vaporetto back to our Hotel.  My stomach was much happier than my feet!

Coming up next we have the Venice islands tommorrow!