Venice – Riveted

Venice to Florence Video Tour

Laura Domela — Thu, 29 May 2014 03:05:00 +0000

Kevin made us a cool YouTube channel playlist that has all the videos he put together of our bike tour from Venice to Florence (including the first couple days in Venice mostly on boats, but it sets a nice mood for the rest of the bike tour and it's one of my favorite, actually, even though there are no bikes). I thought I'd put a link to it here in case you wanted a convenient place to get to the videos (and also so I can find it later, because this blog is like my own personal notebook sometimes. I forget things and need to look them up. Whatever. Shut up.)

These videos are quite nice (and I plan to watch them all over again from the start the minute we get home, or maybe right now).

Coolest trip I've ever done. Honestly.

Oh yeah, also: All of these were shot on an iPhone, mostly while riding a bike!

Venice to Chioggia by Bike and Ferries (Ride Day 1)

Laura Domela — Sun, 11 May 2014 18:33:58 +0000

We got up this morning to meet our Eurobike guy Jozef (who, by the way, is completely adorable) downstairs for the initial meeting before he sent us all off into the Italian countryside to get lost have an incredible journey to Florence by bike. There were maybe a dozen people doing this tour, but the cool thing about this kind of tour is that you don't have to stick with the group. You can if you want to, but it's not required. (This is the tour we're doing, if you want to know more about it.)

Bikes on the ferry from Venice to Lido:

These bikes are a HUGE hit in Italy. Here I thought we'd fit right in, but they get so much attention — maybe even more than in the states, which is interesting. It makes sense though I guess…the way we've outfitted them feels very stylish, and therefore: Italian.

Passing the San Giorgio Maggiore:

While we were waiting for the Lido ferry we chatted with a couple of cool women from the UK (doing a different tour that loops back to Venice so they're only with us the first leg to Chioggia) and we rode with them part of the time on Lido. The four of us stopped at a cafe for espresso and a snack before catching the second ferry to the island of Pellestrina.

Bikes on Lido sea wall, with sailboats in the background:

On the ferry to Pellestrina:

(There was a guy on that bus there who got out and stood staring all over our bikes for most of the ride on this ferry.)

Pellestrina is 7 miles long and, well, amazing. Less words, more photos. This was our ride:

There are so many bicycles everywhere we've been so far, and the number of Dutch bikes was a bit of a surprise. It feels a lot like the way people use bikes for transport in Holland…mostly city bikes or Dutch bikes, no lycra or helmets, and so far a really good system of bike lanes (both on regular streets with cars as well as dedicated separate bike lanes). And I've seen no sign of those "crazy Italian drivers who have no regard for bikes" at all so far. Really. Okay, more photos:

We got to the end of Pellestrina and the ferry landing and I said to Kevin I kinda wanted to turn around and ride back through it all again. It was incredible — charming, colorful, smelled of the ocean and home cooking and fresh seafood and it was just the most perfect ride.

Ciao Pellestrina!

My bike on the vaporetto:

So, here we were, coming to our stop for the day, and we were both kind of disappointed to be finished. The riding felt like nothing. It wasn't that long a ride (about 35 kilometers or 22 miles) but the scenery and that "We're on our bikes! In Italy!" feeling was just so amazing and I could have done today twice. Good thing we have tomorrow!

On the ferry approaching Chioggia:

Chioggia. That white building central in the photo is our hotel for tonight: Hotel Grande Italia. It's lovely.

We were the first ones in our loose group to arrive in Chioggia, but we thought we might want to ride around more so we opted to stop for lunch before checking in. Right across the square from our hotel was the Ristorante Mano Amica and it was busy and looked great, so we parked our bikes and ourselves at a table outside and had some prosecco and some seafood.

View of our hotel from lunch:

For lunch we had an antipasto crudo sample plate — tuna, shrimp, oysters, clams, branzino, and a delicious cheese and tartar thing there garnished with dill, also known as "Degustazione di crudità (carpaccio di tonno, carpaccio di branzino, scampi e ostriche):

We had prawns and tuna as our mains and they were both fantastic.

Gamberi imperiali al radicchio di Chioggia con aceto balsamico:

Filetto di tonno (tuna over greens, and those are tomatoes and onions I think…it was so amazing):

Oh yeah, and some regionally local prosecco:

After lunch (which turned out to also be dinner) we checked into our hotel. Eurobike gets an assigned parking area for the bikes, but since we were the last ones to officially check in, the area was fairly full. We opted to fold our bikes into their carry bags and take them up to our room. It hadn't rained at all today, but it looked like it could and it would be a bummer to have wet bikes in the morning. (Good call in the end, because there was a crazy thunder and lightning storm this evening with some serious rain!)

After we checked in we did a little work and then headed out to explore. We walked all around Chioggia, and then headed across a few bridges over to Sottomarina.

Sottomarina:

Here's Chioggia:

Chioggia silhouettes:

Tomorrow morning we're headed to Adria! Here's hoping that storm was just passing through!

Last Day in Venice (really this time)

Laura Domela — Sun, 11 May 2014 15:53:10 +0000

We spent our last day in Venice doing what we've been doing every other day: walking, riding on boats, and eating. We had lunch at All'Arco. Tucked down a small alleyway on a corner this place is teeming with locals and tourists (mostly locals). There are a couple small tables outside but mostly it's standing room only. Happy, chatting customers fill the tiny counters inside and spill out into the street as they greet friends and sip prosecco. Inside where you order there are plates of cicheti on display at the bar – langostines, squid, prosciutto, asparagus, prawns, bacalao, all served on slices of bread and garnished beautifully. We ordered a plate with a good variety, for two, and asked the guy behind the counter to choose for us (also, a prosecco and a spritz). We lucked out and got a table outside and had a lovely lunch and people-watching session. Here's lunch:

Afterwards we walked and walked and walked, and then took another vaporetto around the outside of the island, and then over to Lido. We walked around a bit there, then thought we'd stop and have an espresso at the place not too far from the vaporetto landing (something Laguna, I can't remember now) that had this view back towards the lagoon:

Also, there were chairs. (Note: Just because the sandals are really comfortable to wear running errands all day in Portland does not mean they'll be comfortable to wear walking even half a mile on the streets of Venice, even after two prior days of walking around the streets of Venice in tennies.)

Everyone else seemed to be having The Venice Drink, so we caved and ordered a couple of spritzes. Here's my still life entitled Spritz with Cruise Ship and Pigeon:

And here's just the cruise ship (oh, with a flying bird there, didn't see that):

We took the boat back to Venice and then hopped the bus back to our hotel in Mestre. I changed shoes and we wandered up the road a bit to explore Mestre and it turns out there's a hoppin' little area not far from the hotel. I bought a cool aluminum ring from a jewelry artist who had a booth up in the square among many other craft and food booths, and we ended up at a place called Gino something or other for dinner. It was good…not amazing, but good — meat, cheese, pasta, wine. We went to bed early (meaning, before midnight for once!) and full.

In the morning we begin the bike trip to Florence!!

Venice, Italy – Day 2

Laura Domela — Sat, 10 May 2014 07:34:45 +0000

Yesterday we used the heck out of our 36-hour Tourist pass (the one that gets you unlimited public transport). We left our hotel in Mestre in the morning and didn't get back until after midnight!

We rode the No. 2 vaporetto through the Grand Canal and got off near the Rialto Bridge. We had a rough plan for the day: Rialto Fish Market, exploring, gelato, more exploring, lunch at a spot I found while researching online (maybe lunch before gelato), maybe more boat time, maybe an apertif, maybe going inside the Basilica at San Marco or catching the Irving Penn exhibit at the Grassi Palace, and then heading out to the Trattoria dai Tosi for dinner as recommended by our friend Barry Yeoman.

The weather was gorgeous and the island felt much more crowded than it did the previous day. (We arrived earlier in the day, too…that could have been some of it.) The Rialto Bridge (and surrounding area) is popular and crowded with tourists, lined with souvenier shops and photo ops.

The shot from the bridge…the one everyone takes. Check!

We headed over to the Rialto Market and wandered through the stalls filled with fresh fish and produce, and we wished we had a kitchen to go back to.

Oh yeah…there was live music for your market soundtrack, provided by these three friendly musicians:

Rialto Square, behind the market:

We walked up towards Piazza San Marco and this time we looked left as we headed up the waterfront and saw the Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs). We'd missed it when we passed by yesterday.

The Ponti dei Sospiri is an enclosed bridge made of limestone. It bridges the Rio di Palazzo and connects the New Prison to the interrogation rooms in the Doge's Palace. It was designed by Antonio Contino (whose uncle, Antonio da Ponte, designed the Rialto Bridge) and was built in 1600.

From Wikipedia: The view from the Bridge of Sighs was the last view of Venice that convicts saw before their imprisonment. The bridge name, given by Lord Byron in the 19th century, comes from the suggestion that prisoners would sigh at their final view of beautiful Venice through the window before being taken down to their cells. In reality, the days of inquisitions and summary executions were over by the time the bridge was built and the cells under the palace roof were occupied mostly by small-time criminals. In addition, little could be seen from inside the Bridge due to the stone grills covering the windows.

A local legend says that lovers will be granted eternal love and bliss if they kiss on a gondola at sunset under the Bridge of Sighs as the bells of St Mark's Campanile toll.

This tower has a bit of a tilt:

We continued up the waterfront on our way to the restaurant I found for lunch: Corte Sconta. Here's a map for reference:

Corte Sconta, on the right where the metal sign hangs:

We walked inside and were warmly greeted and asked if we wanted sun or shade. We opted for shade and were seated out in this gorgeous courtyard:

Our waiter Alessandro took fantastic care of us and the entire meal was spectacular. We had a half bottle of prosecco, and started with the antipasto tasting. This sampling consisted of fresh clams, baby ocotopus, shrimp, softshell crab salad, a few different kinds of fish, sardines, and carpaccio of tuna and a white fish I forgot (because OMG, the tuna!)

Alessandro recomended a first course for us: a squid ink pasta with prawns, squid, mussels, and tomato and it was incredible.

For the main dish (I know! Another one!) we shared a small whole sea bass that was meticulously deboned tableside and served by Alessandro. Alessandro's recommendations at first seemed like it might be far too much food, but it was just perfect.

We left Corte Sconta and headed back in the direction of Rialto for some gelato at La Boutique del Gelato (according to some, the best gelato in Venice). We have not enough experience to judge this "bestness" but it was some darn fine gelato!

More wandering. This building is the Scuola Grande di San Marco — the hospital in Venice:

Check out the perspective relief in the archways on either side of the front door!

Our wandering ended up at water, as usual, and there was a ferry landing there, so we hopped on a different line to do a lap around the outside of Venice (since we'd still mainly just seen the Grand Canal running through the middle). We had intentions of going inside some stuff, but exploring outside on a beautiful day just felt like thing thing to do. We lapped around Venice and ended up getting off on another island: Giudecca.

This area is much quieter than Venice proper and we just had a nice stroll up and down the waterfront and past the Fortuny factory.

The Fortuny factory is the fabric factory of Mariano Fortuny (1871- 1949). This Spanish artist, painter, designer and stylist, lived in Venice during his last years and here created an exclusive fabric factory in 1919 and which is still in use today (using Fortuny's secret methods of 100 years ago).

We thought we'd hop back on a vaporetto and head over to San Giorgio Maggiore, but we got on the one going the wrong way and just flowed with it.

Look at all this traffic!

We continued on (lots of boat time today!) over toward Piazza San Marco and wandered some more.

We walked from there out toward the Trattoria dai Tosi, our proposed dinner spot. Here's another map for some perspective:

This area of Venice is much quieter and has far fewer tourists.

Side street erotic pottery, 10 Euros each:

Looking down the street towards Trattoria dai Tosi:

I'd sent an email earlier in the day to Jackie (one of the owners) asking if there was availability for tonight, that our friend Barry recommended we stop in. I said if I didn't hear back we would probably just stop in regardless and take our chances. Once there, we saw the sign out front indicating they were full for the evening, but we were able meet Jackie and convey Barry's warm wishes and see what the place was like. The food looked and smelled wonderful and it was too bad this was our last night in Venice!

Jackie was warm and gracious and apologized she couldn't get us in, but insisted we sit at the bar and have an apertif on the house, which we eventually accepted (but stood outside so as not to take up valuable space in the small restaurant). We had a spritz, which is aparently THE drink to have in Venice. A sprintz consists of white wine, fizzy water, red orange Aperol (sweeter), SanBitter or Campari (dryer) or Select which is the in between of the sweeter and the dryer (ours was made with Select). It was great! (Here's a recipe.)

We finished up our apertif (it was about 8:30pm) and now we were in the mood for pizza, so we headed for another recommended spot we had not yet tried: Da Mamo. Hey, another boat ride (I could ride around Venice indefinitely at this point!)

Water bus stops:

Passing Piazzo San Marco again:

We arrived back at Rialto and headed over a few streets toward Da Mamo. The place was packed (it was between 9 and 9:30pm) and we did not have a reservation but we were seated immediately. We ordered a bottle of a Valpolicella Ripasso, a salad, and two small pizzas (one with prosciutto and gorgonzola, and one with a white sauce, mushrooms, and truffle oil). Both were fantastic! (Thanks for the recommendation Doug Trout!)

We happened to be seated next to two women from Seattle who we eventually ended up chatting with quite a bit (Hi Janice and Nicole!). It was a blast and we stayed until quite a bit after the restaurant closed — partially because the waiters kept bringing us stuff (extra desserts, grappa, some kind of melon liqueur…). They were mainly bringing stuff to the women next to us, and we were side-benefitting from the "waiter flirting with pretty girls" phenomenon. It was a super fun evening. We said goodnight to our dinner friends and headed back toward Rialto.

Several people told us that we really only needed one day or so in Venice, and I guess I could see that if we spent most of our time in the heavily touristed spots we might feel that way. But we don't feel that way. We both said last night we really could use another couple of days here. The smells, the water, the history, the architecture, the food…it's just so much to take in (and we haven't even gone into any buildings besides restaurants yet!)

We got back to our hotel and packed up our suitcases to get ready for the bike trip, which (we believed) started with a meeting at 8:30am on Saturday morning, and then heading south to Chioggia. When we went downstairs there was a sign up saying Eurobike Meeting 8:30am on Sunday. Today was Saturday. Ummmm? We spoke with the gentleman at the front desk and yes, this was the plan. After breakfast and a bit of confusion, we picked up the packet of information (maps, hotel vouchers, luggage tags, train tickets for the part over the Apennine Mountains) and went back to our room. We carefully went through the schedule and I realized I'd been a day off. The list of hotels started out:

8 May – 10 May Hotel President, Venezia (and a whole lot of other information)
10 May – 11 May Hotel President, Venezia
11 May – 12 May Hotel Grande Italia, Chioggia
…and so on

In the long list of hotels, I'd seen the first entry for Hotel President and had read it as if those were our two nights total. I originally booked two extra nights in Venice, not one, and the bike trip was always supposed to start on Sunday and not Saturday.

So you know how I said I could use a few more days in Venice? Well, I got one of 'em without even trying! Sweet!

Venice, Italy – Day 1 (video)

Laura Domela — Fri, 09 May 2014 04:18:09 +0000

Kevin made a gorgeous video from the iPhone clips he took yesterday as we explored Venice. I love it!!

Venice, Italy – Day 1

Laura Domela — Thu, 08 May 2014 20:21:58 +0000

On Tuesday night we attempted to get our suitcases all nicely packed with (1) stuff to wear cycling while in Italy, (2) stuff to wear sightseeing and hiking around and touring while in Italy, and (3) some fancy duds to wear to our friends Tad & Kate's wedding festivities at the end of the month in Florence. We also took apart our bikes and packed them up in their individual suitcases (so cool!) It turns out, however, that trying to pack three different sets/types of clothing, plus a bicycle and all its accessories into two suitcases that have to be under 50 lbs each is no small feat. Good thing those Kryptonite U-locks we're bringing are pretty light, right?

After quite a bit of removing, repacking, weighing, and reweighing, we worked it out!

We rejiggered many of the smaller heavier things into Kevin's regular (smaller than mine) suitcase (locks, some bike tools, etc.) and then took everything else that pushed the bags over 50 lbs and put it all into a giant computer bag I used a few times for my 17" Macbook pro (before I realized it was too heavy a computer to carry as a shoulder bag) and carried that on as one of my "personal items." So now, I totally look like one of those old ladies who carries a handbag the size of a suitcase as her "purse." And it's heavier than my big laptop, by far. Oh well.

We'd had such grand ideas of stuffing all our cycling-related clothing items around our bikes in their suitcases as padding and storage, therefore freeing up our regular bags for other clothes, but it turns out that the bike plus all of its accessories plus heavy-duty suitcases weighs in at about 52 lbs. Oops.

We left our house with more bags than we've ever traveled with, ever (but cool! a bike is part of that!!) on Wednesday to catch our flight (Portland-Amsterdam-Venice). Our friend Kyle (Where is Kyle Now?) is having his Airstream worked on in Portland and hanging out at our house while we're in Italy and his home is in the shop. He's soaking up some super-fast Wi-Fi, cable television, and an address to ship things to! Kyle was sweet enough to also give us a ride to the airport.

Here's Kevin, with two bikes in hard-sided heavy-duty Samsonite suitcases, two regular suitcases, two laptop bags, and one GIGANTIC old lady purse:

The flights were easy and the bikes arrived intact and we're now in Venice! Oh yeah, here's our stop in Amsterdam. We plan to come back here with our bikes next time and stay a bit longer than 2 hours:

Okay, so back to Venice. We took a taxi to our hotel (Hotel President, on the mainland in Mestre), checked in, and took two trips up the tiny elevator to our room (one person/one bike suitcase/one regular suitcase per elevator ride) and then decided to put our bikes together to make sure everything traveled nicely. No issues at all!

We cleaned up a little and headed out to explore. The island of Venice is about 6km from our hotel, so we hopped on a bus and were on the island in about 15 minutes. We purchased a couple of 36-hour tourist passes so that while we're here we can hop on and off all busses and vaporettos (water taxis) as often as we please (25 euros each).

We got on the #2 vaporetto that travels up and down the Grand Canal and headed toward San Marco and wow! A lot of people say "Oh, Venice, yeah, it's cool, but it's touristy and you really can just see it in a day" but we loved it, and had such a wonderful afternoon and evening just wandering by boat and on foot exploring this magical place. So, I have a TON of photos for you guys (and this is after paring it down…and I'm usually such a good editor!) But you said you wanted photos, so here they are:

We got off here at the Piazza San Marco and explored the square and took photos of cool stuff. The Basilica was closed so we'll try to pop inside tomorrow when we go back by there.

I can't tell you how many times I saw photos of this building (the Palazzo Ducale, or Doge's Palace) in art history classes:

After San Marco we opted to just get lost a bit. You can't get too lost though on an island. Some shots from the wanderings:

Texting gondolier:

Follow the signs to get back to the vaporetto:

Fancy gondolas:

We stopped for wine and snacks at a bacaro called Bancogiro. The back door opens to outside seating on the Grand Canal, and it had this view:

A glass of wine, some prosciutto, several kinds of cheese, smoked tuna carpaccio, and some gnocchi with duck and greens — it was all good but the atmosphere was incredible, and that's just fine because that's what we're in Venice for: the atmosphere. After what ended up being dinner, we explored a bit more before hopping on a vaporetto headed back toward the start of the Grand Canal.

From the Rialto Bridge:

These dark shots are some of my favorites!

Here's where we ate dinner (outside there, on the left):

The Rialto Fish Market at night, all closed up:

Festive restaurants on the canal:

We're back at our hotel, working, looking at photos, and preparing for one more day in Venice. Here's our hotel:

Yeah, it's kinda boring, a little hot and at full blast the AC doesn't do much at all, but so what. We won't be in it much at all. (Plus, free Wi-Fi!)

A presto!

(p.s. Told you there were a lot of pictures!)

Also, I meant to post a link in this post to this article by our friend Barry Yeoman. Barry's writing is such a pleasure to read and this essay captures such a rich and authentic view of Venice.