Around Venice

There isn’t enough I can say about how much we love Venice. You can immediately forget all the things you hear about the smelly canals, the only time we encountered a strong smell was when near the fish market, and sometimes when around the Grand Canal, but not often.

Getting around Venice is easier than you think. Since you’re walking among buildings you can’t trust landmarks to guide you but Venice gives you some help. At intersections, there will be arrows painted up on the walls with 1 of 3 destinations on them. Per S Marco (Piazza San Marco), Per Rialto (Rialto Bridge), or Per Accademia (Accademia Bridge).

We picked a nice hotel in the NW away from all the crowds and what a choice it was. We were just 5 minutes North of the Rialto Bridge so all we had to do in the evening was find the bridge and then head back to the hotel. The Hotel Giorgione was a great starting point for the day, and in the evening they had a wonderful patio to relax on in a courtyard out back that buffered all the noise away.

In the morning it was a short walk to the pastry shop, Rizzo, for breakfast. As I’d pick out our pastries, I could watch them making the days paninis and flatbreads. Next visit, we’ll definitely stop here for lunch. The one day we did have lunch in the area we went into Ristorante A Beccafico Arte for bellinis and pizza and were not disappointed. It was late so we had the place to ourselves and sat at a table right by the glassed-in slope for the canal where they get their deliveries and watched the boats go by.

Our first night we headed towards the Accademia bridge to cross and have dinner at Taverna San Trovaso. The bridge is one of two wooden bridges in Venice and offers one of the best views of the grand canal from either direction. It may be worth seeing if there is a concert at Chiesa di San Vidal since you’ll pass it on the way to or from the bridge as well.

We spent 4 days in Venice as we planned to relax after our non-stop running in Rome. On the second day we took the Vaporetto over to Lido and headed down to the Excelsior Hotel where we had rented a cabana for the day on the beach. If you want to multi-task you may want to look into Circolo Golf Venezia for a round of golf in the morning before hitting the beach. Murano to see the glass factory is another worthy day trip from Venice. That will be on our next visit as well.

One of the best things about Venice is you can’t get lost. We headed North from the hotel one day with no planes and found Chiesa I Gesuiti, a church that had just been restored and for 2 Euros each, we could enter and walk around on our own. We ended up on the grand canal with a view of San Michele in Isola.

There many things to do in Venice and we hardly scratched the surface. My list for our next visit, besides what I mentioned above, is to visit Harry’s Bar, near Piazza San Marco, where Bellinis were invented and Ernest Hemingway visited. Across the Accademia Bridge, there are several museums, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, and the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, an octagonal domed church containing some of the works of Titian. There’s also Giardini della Biennale, a park on the eastern tip with exhibitions and cultural pavilions.

After our next trip, I’ll have more details for you about all of these places and hopefully even more.