The first thing we noticed upon our arrival was the change in weather. The temperature was in the upper 30s, so we gave our official goodbyes to the warm weather (we were spoiled in Spain). We stayed at a comfortable hotel on Lido, a small island about 2 km southeast of central Venice. Lido was quiet in comparison to Venice and there were hardly any tourists staying on the island. This turned out to be really nice for us.
Our first day in Venice started at San Marco Square. The square was packed with tourists from all around the world. And you wouldn’t believe how many pigeons were in and around the square! It was unbelievable – thousands of fat pigeons on statues, walking around, on buildings, always eating, fighting other pigeons for territory, standing on tourists’ arms and heads. You name it, a pigeon was on it. We enjoyed seeing the cafes that lined sections of the square with live bands playing relaxing music for the clientele – very unique! We ventured away from San Marco and had a great time getting lost on the different islands that comprise of Venice. We enjoyed crossing the many canals and bridges as well as running into little piazzas here and there.
We ended the evening at the Rialto Bridge where we had a lovely view of the canal at dusk. For dinner, we headed back to Lido to eat at a pizzeria, a favorite among the Lido locals. To start, we both had glasses of the house wine and prosecco with our caprese salad (arugula was used instead of basil). For the main course, Ben ordered the Sicilian pizza because it sounded exotic, tasty and different from anything he’s had before. He obviously couldn’t read the ingredients in Italian because to his surprise, the toppings included anchovies, big capers, onions, and olives. The anchovies and capers were overpowering, but the taste was quickly acquired! Liya had the house lasagna which was good but not spectacular. We are still waiting to be ‘WOW-ed’ with Italian food. Good thing we have a few more weeks in Italy!
For our last day in Venice, we spent an hour floating through the Grand Canal on the vaporetto. We really admired the old and colorful buildings along the canal. We got off at Rialto and had some fun window shopping and bargaining with the local market vendors. It was amazing to see all the Murano glass being sold in hundreds of stores. All of the tents sold pretty much the same items – talk about competition! Unfortunately, we didn’t make it out to Murano to see the live glass blowing. Liya bought a bag of large-sized spicy corn nuts and boy were they delicious! They were about three-times the size of regular corn nuts from back in The States. For lunch, we ate at a local pizzeria. The pizza slice we had there was amazing – feta cheese, roasted tomatoes and spinach on thick foccacia bread – YUM! For a post-lunch treat, we had nice big scoops of gelato. Ben stuck to his two flavors, nocciola (hazelnut) and pistachio, and was satisfied. Liya wanted to taste something new so she ordered blueberry and strawberry; however, the gelato tasted really sugary and it just wasn’t the right consistency for her. Better luck next time! We ended the evening by having dinner at a trattoria near our new favorite vaporetto stop - Rialto. To start we shared a delicious caprese salad. Liya had spaghetti con vongale (with clams – the taste was really fishy) and Ben and had spaghetti Bolognese (tasted like Chef Bouradee). We still weren’t impressed with the Italian food so far.
Hopefully we will have better luck at our next stop, Firenze (Florence)!
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