January 17, 2013

Learned a bit about Chinese food that I didn't know (from Chinese class of course).  One of our favorite topics in class is food and we are currently learning a lot of words about it, and I was curious what Cha Su Bao translated into (meat stick wrap), and the topic turned to different types of Chinese cuisine.  I like it spicy and have always leaned towards Szechuan, but have been unable to find it here so far.  The teacher said it was very popular years ago when the economy was bad as it is considered low brow and cheap, coming from an impoverished inland province, but as the economy turned around, they fell out of favor and she knows of only a couple left (which we will be trying soon).  As the economy recovered, they were replaced in trend by Cantonese style with their (hard to find/more expensive) delicacies like shark fin and bird's nest soups.  With the recent unfavorable economic environment, those are falling out of favor/going out of business.  A current trend for the Taiwanese is pizza and you see these hole in the wall places everywhere.  Pretty similar currents of trends as in the US, and I am happy about the pizza trend as our neighborhood joint (Maya Pizza) serves up some of my favorite pie of all time.  In fact, of all the wonderful food we ate in Italy, the only disappointment was the pizza.  Good, sure, but we never hit one that blew us away.  And it's a bummer when you learn a food that you love is considered plebeian.  As mentioned earlier, I love a good wiener schnitzel.  During my school year in Melbourne in '83, we would go many days to the Frankston Hotel for counter tea (and a pint), and the schnitzel they served made an impression on me that is still visible when I look in the mirror.   Whenever talk would turn to schnitzel with our friend that was born and raised in Germany, she would dismiss it as being the food for poor people.  Probably says a lot about both of us.

So I wrote all about Venice in one posting below, and it's a long one.  So you know.

So after our 6 nights in Rome, it was time to head to our next destination...Venice.  We went their via train.  Train station was a 15 minute walk from our hotel, so we left at 8:20 to catch a 9:05 departing train.  After a smooth 3.5 hour ride (during which I dominated the Uno tournament), we pulled into the Venice train station.  Big thumbs up on the public transport system in all respects.  We took buses, subways and this train, and all were timely, clean and reasonably priced.  I would not hesitate to lean on them in the future.

Venice is not Rome.  You walk out of the train station and up to the Grand Canal where we purchased a 3 day pass on the Vaporetto.  The vaporetto is the water bus system that courses through the Grand Canal and the lagoon islands.   After a 5 minute ride, we found the stop for our hotel.  You don't need to ride the Vaporetto if you are staying in town  cause it's such a compact city, but each ride is a fun and beautiful tour.

 

That last snap is looking into Piazza San Marcos, which is the center of town.  While Rome had site after site all over town to see, most of the buildings that you "have" to enter are in San Marcos.  St. Marks Church, Doge's Palace and the Campanile line the piazza.  But it is the city of Venice itself that is the thing to see.  With all of the canals and buildings all from the 12th to 15th centuries, walking around (no cars) constantly transports you back in time.

There are some wider "streets", but most of them are similar in size to the one where our hotel was located.

Our hotel itself , Pensione Guerrato, was originally built in 1288. 

 

The hotel was right by the Rialto Bridge (one of two that cross the Grand Canal and is one of the main shopping and connection points in the city).  Right next to our hotel was the Rialto Mercato, which is the fresh produce and fish market in the city where the locals buy their food.  The selection of seafood was impressive, far out pacing the great Pike Place Market in terms of quantity and variety of fresh fish.

Do you see that gal with the mink coat in the last snap?  There were A LOT of mink coats in Venice.   One day we even saw a little doggie wearing one and damned if I didn't have the camera ready for that one. 

We did take a few hours one morning to do laundry...self service.

On one of our strolls, we crossed the other bridge (Accademia)that spans the Grand Canal and saw all these padlocks attached to the railings.  They all had love notes painted on them, like Luigi loves Laura.  Very neat.

The weather in Rome ranged from upper 40's at night, to mid-60's during the day, but Venice is further north and on the water, so it was definitely chillier.  On our first stroll around town, it was obvious that the article of clothing everyone was wearing was a scarf and I immediately purchased one...I see it in nearly every picture of me for the rest of the trip.

One of the days there, we used our Vaporetto passes and cruised through the main lagoon islands.  We visited and had lunch on the Lido, which is the 8km long island that borders the Mediterranean and keeps the waters of the Lagoon calm from storms.  It's the beach destination in the summer so was sleepy in December, but we were able to skip stones and write our names in the sand.

We also visited Murano island (home of their fine glass making industry for generations and through today).  There were a lot of glass items to buy, although I don't remember getting any, but I do remember a sign in one shop that said that while their prices might seem higher than other shops, theirs were guaranteed to contain only locally made products and not those imported from China.

Our final stop that day was Burano island, which was/is the home of a fine lace industry.  Smaller than Murano, its buildings were all painted in pastels, which gave it a unique feeling.

Then it was time for the 45 minute vaporetto ride home at sunset.  So pretty and tranquil.

We did the touristy gondola ride of course, as I'm sure you did or will when you visit.  Our gondolier had been on the job 14 years and said he had only fallen off once.  He showed us the birthplace of Cassanova, the family home of Marco Polo, and the mansion of Vivaldi...all Venetians.  He also explained that there were 400 gondoliers in town and that all were of Venetian birth and that most learned their trade from their fathers.  He did not sing O Sole Mio unfortunately.

While it is a traditional job, they do make way for modern technology

The food in Venice was also quite good, and by this point we had the rhythm down...grab street food for lunch and then sit down somewhere for dinner.  The street food across Italy was similar and uniformly good...they have these little walk up windows or small cafes where you can grab a slice or sandwich.  I mentioned them before, but found a couple of snaps of them in the Venice pile.  So great.

Another must do is having a drink at Harry's Bar.  Will let you click that link for the full story if its colorful origins, but is the bar that was Venician watering hole for the ex-pats Hemmingway, Bogart, Chaplin, Hitchkock, Capote, etc.  They are also the originators of the Bellini cocktail and carpaccio, so we had to have a drink (and 80 Euro tab) there one afternoon.

We paid to go into the Doge's Palace.  The Doge was the elected head of the city state of Venice and this was his home and the center of Venetian government.  I read a history book on Venice prior to the trip, and while I knew some about the Italian city states during the Renaissance, I was surprised at how much power and wealth they controlled, especially Venice, for centuries.  They truly were masters of all they surveyed for several hundred years.  The religious accoutrement that we had been bombarded by in Rome was far more subtle and subdued here.  While religious, they resisted any control by the Papacy.  We did not have a guide, but The Doge's Palace was a walking tour of how they lived.  In the Palace, you saw the Doge's residences, many of the rooms where their government met and the rooms where criminals were tried...all in exquisite condition.  My favorite room in the Palace was the Atlas Room where they had paintings from the 1600's of all the coasts of the world, including those with an incomplete knowledge of China and the coasts of the Americas.  The tour then took you through rooms that held their weapons.  The kids (and I) grooved on seeing suits of armor and all the unique weapons.  Some favorites of ours were the maces, spike filled hammers, and crossbows (Paul has been bugging me for one ever since) .

If one was tried and found guilty in the Palace, the prisoner would walk over the Bridge of Sighs into the prison.  I had heard of the Bridge of Sighs and had always assumed that you would sigh when you saw the beauty of it, but it is actually named that as the prisoners would look out its window at beautiful Venice and sigh that they knew they were leaving it and going into a cold dungeon...here is what they would have seen. 

Of course the kids loved walking through a jail cell.

I thought that the Doge Palace set-up was one of the best laid out from an interest perspective of any historical site I've visited.  Not too much of anything and it flowed various aspects of the palace ergonomically where it kept every one's interest...the two hours we were inside felt like 30 minutes.

The other cool building we went into was the Campaniele, which is the large bell tower that dominates San Marcos Square.

It was rebuilt in 1912 after collapsing unexpectedly...the collapse only killed the caretaker and his cat amazingly.  Not a lot to see building wise, but the views at the top are unmatched...we fortunately had a bright sunny day.

That last picture is of the stage in Piazza San Marcos where the city would party later that night for New Year's Eve.  We had a lovely NY Eve dinner at a family restaurant called Il Bepi (I had lobster lasagna).  There was this teenage kid working as a busboy and the poor kid had two left feet.  Couldn't do anything right...like taking the food to the wrong tables, dropping stuff, and we were all entertained by watching him make mistakes and then the dad and grandmother admonish him in Italian all throughout our meal.  We were calling him Jake from Two and a Half Men.

We then hit the Square for New Years and it was packed.  We all had on masks and just hung out while the band played songs while counting down for New Years.  Here's my mask...very Funkadelic

  All the songs they played were English or American...my favorite (and most curious selection) was the theme song to The Jefferson's.  Counted down with the crowd and rang in the New Year Venetian style.  Will share Paul's montage...

They put on a decent fireworks display after midnight and then it was time to head back to the hotel as we had an early wake-up call to leave town the next morning.  I mentioned that the streets are really small including those that feed the Piazza, so everyone in the jammed square having the same idea as us created this enormous traffic jam trying to get out of there.  We were literally sardined for a good 20 minutes...felt like a really crowded rock and roll show up at the front, which I have a decent amount of experience in, but as Sophie commented, it was her first mob scene.  Seriously, it could have been dangerous if the back end of the crowd started to stampede, but we survived and the kids got an experience they should never forget. 

One last observation on Venice...the people gave off such a different vibe than those of Rome that it felt like a different country.  I wouldn't call them rude, and no one was impolite to us, but they were definitely not friendly.  No smiles, chit chat or anything resembling a desire to interact with you more than the absolute minimum.  While the heart of Rome exists exclusively for tourists, Venice is a city with a local population, community and industry, so it felt as if there was a certain unspoken resentment that the tourists were there...like a necessary evil.  I also think a bit of it has to do with the fact that Venetians were one of the word's biggest powers for several centuries.  I think there is a feeling of lost glory and that they are truly a different and superior culture and a breed apart (and better) from other Italians, rather than just another city in Italy.  And don't get me wrong, once you got used to their nature, eliminating the little unnecessary pleasantries was quite liberating.  I know that's a big leap of judgement for being somewhere for 4 days, but there you go.

Next stop...Firenze.