Buongiorno Venezia!
We flew in to Venice and planned to only stay a day or two as we had heard that, in reality, Venice was stinky, polluted, and full of tourists. Which was true. Venice was more of a tourist trap than anywhere else that we visited in Italy... including Rome!
The main entrance/port for Venice was full of little gimmicky trinkets, gondolas, and tourists... however, the further into Venice we explored, the quieter it got. Josh and I walked between the canals for over an hour and only crossed paths with a handful of people, which was just the way we liked it. Tucked away between the canals there are little shops with quality handmade goods. We found a paper store that sold a variety of hand marbled papers and books/journals, and of course the Venetian glass shop.
More importantly, Venice was our first taste of Italy. We walked the cobble-stone streets in search of some authentic Italian pasta, famished from our travels earlier that day. The first restaurant we came across was exactly what you would expect of Italy. Red and white checkered table cloths, bread baskets, and a menu full of our Italian Pasta Dreams.
This first restaurant experience was a little daunting for Josh: he was going to order in Italian with an Italian local for the first time. This was one of our goals for Europe, I was responsible for the French, and Josh was responsible for the Italian. As the waiter returned for the third time, Josh asked him "premo avere un caffé e una cioccolato caldo, per favore"... 'can we please have one coffee and one hot chocolate'.
It wasn't perfect, but it was Italian... and the waiter understood him perfectly.
I had in my mind that Venice had only canals with no paved streets. But there are actually lots of paved streets with a few canals here and there. Much like blocks of houses separated by streets/canals in regular suburbs. It's definitely a spot that you can wonder around on foot. There were wo many tourists watching the people in the gondolas (us included) that we decided to walk instead. Sitting in a gondola with so many eyes on us seemed a little too much like a 'fish bowl' kind of experience.
I can't wait to explore the rest of Italy!
Tate x
