Nov 1-3: Venice

I was in Venice briefly (and jet-laggedly) some 20 years ago and wasn’t particularly struck by the city, so I really wasn’t sure what I’d make of it this time. It seemed a shame not to give it another try, especially in the semi-off-season, and I found a hotel facing the canal with a room for just under $100/night, so reserved it for two nights. 

Goodness am I glad I chose to stay 2 nights! I found Venice much more charming (if still completely disorienting) and spent 2 full days wandering about at will. I also squeezed in a food tour, a walking tour, a museum, and two free Rick Steves audio tours. 

Venice’s train station connects to the mainland, but faces on the canals you’ll then use for all transportation. 

That boat is exactly like the one I’m taking pictures from.

As soon as I arrived at the train station, I bought a two-day pass for the vaporetti - the motorized boats that serve as public transportation in a town that’s all on canals. Rick Steves has an audio tour that follows one of those routes, so I settled in on the boat and took the tour through all the stops. Then I got off and meandered/mapped my way back to my hotel (ah the joys of not dragging a suitcase!).

My hotel was tucked into a warren of streets and bridges - I guess that’s true of pretty much everything in Venice - and it faced right onto the main canal. They upgraded me to a room with a bigger bed, but unfortunately there was scaffolding along the side of the building, so I couldn’t really open the shutter or windows, and I faced a skinny alley anyway, so there wasn’t any kind of view. But it served me well.

I spent the next 2 days lost - pretty much all the time. Even on my final day when it was time to head to the train station, I promptly went the wrong way! I preferred to check my map, close it, walk a few blocks, and check my progress. It led to some u-turns but helped me start to get a feel for the place. 

I took a food tour - which I love doing when traveling solo. It’s a good way to interact with other travelers, learn something about the regional food, and get to try a bunch of things that I would otherwise miss. I don’t love going to full-on sit-down dinners when I’m traveling solo, so I had a couple in Italy but mostly grabbed sandwiches and other easy (and delicious!) food. A big thing in Venice culture is a snack and glass of wine - what we’d call happy hour, and what Spain would call tapas. The terms for the snacks vary across Italy, but in Venice they’re called cicchetti. My first night in Venice I had a dinner from cicchetti and some wine, and on our food tour we sampled pasta, seafood, cicchetti, meat and cheese from the last salumeria in Venice (Roby & Giusy, if you go), some baked goods, AND gelato. 

My walking tour was good, but I probably got the most benefit from the audio tours I downloaded, because I could pause and resume at my own pace. I also squeezed in an actual museum - the Peggy Guggenheim - and I enjoyed it but it was a LOT on top of all the wandering.

All this art is mosaic tile.

Stumblestones - they are outside homes where residents were wrongfully arrested, then murdered by Nazis/fascists. 

I saw them in Venice and Amsterdam, and apparently they’re in many places in Europe. 

The square drainage plate to the left lets rain seep underground; then it’s filtered by sand, then absorbed through brick walls 

to be available via the well. This cistern system delivered fresh clean water to Venice’s residents for years; it’s no longer used but the water still tests clean. 

Mostly Venice is a city that rewards a meandering course. It was quite quite full of tourists in the main areas, but it was a pretty easy to make a turn and circle around the more densely-packed areas, and just enjoy the views. 

It’s also not a good idea to be in a hurry, because you’ll definitely get lost!