Venice: Prosecco, Gelato and la Giudecca

Highlights:
We hadn’t had much time beforehand to read up on Venice but in terms of sights, shops and restaurants we knew we would be spoilt for choice.

Arriving into Piazzale Roma reveals very little of what Venice has in store. As the bus flies across the Ponta della Liberta towards Venice, the lagoon on either side was dead calm and shrouded in a light mist. Small boats skimmed the surface of the water and you become aware of the fact that you’re now leaving dry land.

On our very first evening we made our way to Osteria Alla Bifora on Campo Santa Margherita. Bifora came recommended by the representative who met us at our apartment and we couldn’t have asked for a nicer welcome into Venice. Here we discovered great Prosecco and a cheese and meat platter the size of Venice’s Piazza San Marco.

Over the next four days we were blessed with warm, dry weather, meaning that we could sit out in many of Venice’s plazas to enjoy a cup of espresso or a glass of wine. We rated highly piazzas such as Campo Santa Maria Margherita, Campo Santo Stefano, S. Giacomo Dell’Orio and Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo. I also indulged in a few too many gelatos but with so many flavours on offer and at 1 euro a scoop, it seemed foolish not too.

Over the next few days we put on the miles, taking in the streets of la Giudecca, Dorsoduro, Santa Croce, San Polo, San Marco and Murano. I especially enjoyed Dorsoduro and the little we saw of the Castello area. They have some wonderful back streets and corner cafes where you can really escape the tourist groups and sit with a latte and a pastry (or gelato) and contemplate the pigeons and the shabby architecture.

Another place for quiet contemplation is the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. This unfinished palace has the benefit of the Grand Canal on one side and a tranquil courtyard on the other, allowing visitors to stop and sit before, during and after their tour of the exhibition.

Slightly less peaceful and almost as spiritual is a trip to Basilica di San Marco, which is impressive for its mosaic work if nothing else.

Finally I would really recommend the ultimate tourist cliché in Venice, a Gondola ride. Despite the cost, it really is the best way to see the Grand Canal.

Quick Tips / Suggestions:
If you’re making your own itinerary, you must invest in a good map because Venice is an unforgiving maze. If you take your eye off your map for even a second, don’t be surprised if it takes a while to orient yourself again. Being a small city, Venice is great to walk around and depending less on the vaporetti will save you a lot of money.

If you arrive into Venice by bus or train, you would be advised to pack quite light and bring a backpack rather than a suitcase as crossing bridges and walking up and down narrow stone streets can become a challenge.

Unless you want a decadent experience, I wouldn’t recommend the cafes in Piazza San Marco, where a latte will set you 9-10 euros, about 2-3 times the price in the smaller piazzas.

One last tip is that there is a free shuttle boat for Hilton guests (but really anyone can use it). It stops at Zattere and San Marco and is indispensable if you’re staying on la Giudecca as we were.

Best Way to Get Around:
Shuttle buses from Treviso Airport run to and from the airport to coincide with scheduled arrivals and departures. Tickets cost 10 Euro return to Piazza Roma (about 40-45 minutes journey time) and are valid for 7 days. I assume that a similar service runs from Marco Polo airport as well.

You also have the option of taking a water taxi. They’re expensive but if you can afford it I have heard that it’s quite a spectacular introduction to the city.

Arriving by shuttle bus into Piazzale Roma, we hopped on board our first vaporetti (water bus) to Palanca on the south island of La Giudecca, which was to be our home for the next four days. The vaporetti make regular stops and run on many different lines around Venice, going out to Murano, Burano, Lido, La Giudecca and the Cimitero.

Staying next to the Hilton hotel, we took full advantage of their free shuttle boat, which departs on the hour (to Zattere and San Marco) and 40 minutes past the hour (to Zattere only). Coming back, they run until 0:20 from San Marco and 0:50 from Zattere.

As there were three of us traveling together, we had decided to stay in self-catering accommodation as it looked like it would be a cheaper option for our four nights away.

We found Truly Venice through an online search and the price seemed quite reasonable (490 Euros for 4 nights) in a city that’s notoriously expensive. The apartment we booked was located in the Stucky building on the island of La Giudecca. Molino Stucky was built as a mill in the late 1800s. It once churned out 125 tonnes of flour a day but by 1955, it had closed. The majority of the development is now a vast Hilton Hotel but there are also a number of adjoining apartments.

Our fifth floor apartment was clean, spacious and very well equipped. There was a TV, an inordinate amount of cutlery, plates, cups, glasses, a microwave, dishwasher and plenty of spare blankets and towels in the bedroom. The only items that were lacking were pillows (there were only two for the three of us), a hairdryer and rather inconveniently, there was barely any soap or toilet paper in the bathroom.

Minor gripes aside, it was a very peaceful location although you are at the mercy of the Hilton shuttle boat. There are two other nearby stops on the Vaporetti route but at 6.5 Euros the free shuttle is obviously a more attractive option. If you’re only in Venice for a short while I’d recommend trying to stay within Venice proper rather than la Giudecca as it was slightly inconvenient at times having to rely quite so heavily on the Hilton boat.

The apartment was entirely self-catered. There was a Coop shop on Calle dell’Olio 484 (about 15 minute walk) for groceries so we stocked up on fruit, coffee, yogurts and croissants for breakfast.

The place had one bedroom with two single beds in it and the living room had space for three more people with a double sofa-bed and a wide single chair-bed. The bathroom was almost entirely clad in chunky salmon-coloured marble tiles. Generally the rooms were very clean but over the next few days we discovered an alarming number of mosquitos in the place and consequently realized that a few splodges on the walls were in fact mosquitoes executed by previous guests.

A representative from Truly Venice met us at Palanca water bus stop and walked with us to the apartment. Once there, he sat with us for about thirty minutes and directed us to some of his favourite cafes and restaurants in Venice, including Osteria Alla Bifora and Muro Pizza (see dining reviews).

Asides from the shuttle boat, another advantage to being next to the Hilton Hotel is that you can visit their Skyline Bar. The drinks don’t come cheap (a beer will set you back 8 Euros) but for the view it’s almost worth it. Plus if you’re going to have a Bellini anywhere, it should be at the Skyline.

info@truly-venice.com
www.truly-venice.com

If you want to get off the tourist trail and settle into somewhere comfortable and welcoming then a visit to Bifora is mandatory. From the outside, this Osteria looks like fairly unremarkable with its dated red and gold awning and dirty white paint job. One step inside though and you’ve arrived into a small medieval banquet hall.

Osteria Alla Bifora’s owner is Franco Bernardi, an ebullient Philippe Noiret look-a-like who conveniently, is a capable English and Spanish speaker. He has only been running the bar since 2006 but the way he inhabits it you would think he’s been there all his life. The ‘Truly Venice’ agent had given us Franco’s name and if he’s in, it’s worth asking for him personally. We visited on our first and last nights in Venice and he remembered us when we went back. I’m not implying that we were treated any better than the other customers on those nights but it did somehow make us feel a bit more connected.

We arrived early by Italian standards on the first night and the bar was almost empty, save a couple of old women and small resident dogs. Tired after our journey, we enquired about coffee but they don’t serve it. We asked Franco what he would recommend and before we knew it we had been talked into ordering a bottle of Prosecco and some tapas. The Prosecco, produced in the Veneto region (of which Venice is the capital), was light, bubbly, fruity, crisp and so delicious that any more thoughts of coffee were banished from our minds.

We made the mistake of ordering a ‘tagliere’, which is a platter of cold meats and cheeses. The ‘mistake’ part being that we ordered a large platter when a small one would have sufficed. We were presented with a lazy-susan sized plate of meats, which I suspect would have adequately fed a group of six or more. Representing the dairy corner was a small Jenga-tower of cheese, which looked like an afterthought rather than a legitimate part of the tagliere.

Not realising how vast the tagliere would be, we had also ordered some Baccala Mantecato (salt cod spread) and some sardines. The second time we went I made sure that we ordered a plate of fresh grilled vegetables to combat the first night meat overdose. All the food at Bifora was substantial and delicious but I particularly enjoyed the seafood. There is always something quite satisfying about eating food that’s been caught locally.

Franco works very diligently behind the bar, slicing meats for tagliere plates and pouring glasses of wine for the tides of patrons. Many of the locals stood at the bar under glowing Murano chandeliers that provide scant illumination to the dark stone walls.

Outside on Campo Santa Margherita, children ran around and locals walk more small dogs. Franco shared a round of grappa with us at the end of our last night. It was a bit rough on the palate after the Prosecco but when in Venice…

No visit to Venice would be complete without a peak inside its crown jewel, the Basilica di San Marco. Its many golden spires, arches, columns and splendid mosaics dominate the eastern side of the Piazza San Marco by day. By night it sits in its corner looking a little sinister, faintly illuminated by the rows of lights along the Sestiere San Marco.

Obviously the Basilica is a busy place and while you have to resign yourself to some crowd jostling the lines tend to move at an even pace. For any adult with a camera, being inside St. Mark’s is akin to a kid in a candy shop. Photo opportunities are infinite and everyone, myself included, ignores the ‘no photos’ signs, which are dotted around inside. Staff positioned along the way remind people of the rule but it’s a hard one to enforce, especially with today’s digital technology making it fairly easy to be a surreptitious snapper. The heart of the Basilica’s ceiling is almost entirely covered with gold mosaic frescoes (some 8000m2) so if that isn’t reason enough to turn you into a rule breaker I don’t know what is. It’s little wonder that it earned the nickname Chiesa d’Oro (Church of gold) in the 11th century.

The first St Mark's was a temporary structure built in 828 and the story goes that Venetian merchants stole the relics of St. Mark from Alexandria. The church was rebuilt in 978 and again in 1063 in a form closer to the present day basilica. Previously the private chapel of the doge (ruler) of Venice, it became a Cathedral in 1807, ten years after the fall of the Venetian Republic.

After a cursory walk around the ground floor, we went up to the museum, which is a 4 euro entry fee and allows access to the upper outside gallery with fantastic views over the piazza. It also gives you a closer look at the stunning detail of the stonework and mosaic frescos within the exterior arches.

The museum sits above the north-west atrium and houses various artifacts, including the original Horses of St. Mark, which were installed in about 1243. The horses outside are replicas and replaced the originals in the 1990s. The labyrinthine museum also displays manuscripts and ancient mosaics. At the end of the exhibition is a hall of exquisite Persian carpets, produced in Isfahan in the sixteenth century. They were offered as gifts to European rulers and given the general grandeur of St. Mark’s, you would think that the curators would have seen fit to display them in a more attractive manner.

The museum and Basilica are open daily from 9.45am-5.00pm (4.45pm for the museum), except for Sundays and holidays when the Basilica opens from 2pm-4pm. We didn’t visit the treasury or the pala d’oro but they’re open for an additional fee. It’s probably worth the time and money visiting all four but I think we felt that we had already got our moneys worth in the Basilica and museum.

www.basilicasanmarco.it

In a small corner of the Dorsoduro district sits a small oasis that provides a cocoon to a beautiful collection of 20th century art. As the museum’s name suggests, it was founded by Peggy Guggenheim, a champion of modern art and resident of the unfinished Palazzo Venier. The Palazzo dates from the 1750s but the reasons for it remaining unfinished are unclear. Peggy Guggenheim purchased the palace in 1949 and lived there for the next thirty years up until her death in 1979. In the early 1950s she decided to open up her home and art collection to the public, so it seems a fitting tribute that her family’s foundation opened it up as a full time art museum after her death.

The core collection presents Peggy Guggenheim’s personal collection, including works by Picasso, Braque, Mondrian, Kandinsky and Calder. Black and white photos in each room provide fascinating illustration of how the same artwork was displayed when Ms Guggenheim was alive. You do get a wonderful sense of this being less of a museum and more of a home. A home where this artwork was both treasured and admired.

The cool white walls and pale, speckled marble floors provide a perfect neutral backdrop for the artwork. Light pours in through large windows, delivering lovely natural illumination to the masterpieces on the walls. The serenity and creativity extend outside where sculptures provide ornament to the already pretty gardens. Here you will find remembrance plaques to Peggy Guggenheim and her beloved dogs, which she had buried in her garden. The garden is a leafy retreat from the museum and you can wander around at leisure and take a break from the inside exhibitions. Alternatively, you can exit on the canal side and sit and watch the boat traffic go by on the Grand Canal. Either way, it’s a lovely way to wile away the time.

The museum also has two small but well stocked gift shops and a café that overlooks the central garden and serves lunch and snacks. The museum is open daily from 10am-6pm except for Tuesdays and Christmas day.

http://www.guggenheim-venice.it/

Arriving on the island of la Giudecca as we did at the start of our trip meant we had a very sedate introduction to Venice. It’s a sleepy neighbourhood at any time of day, with only the well-heeled guests of the Hilton Hotel, and the even more well-heeled guests at the Cipriani at the opposite end of the island offering sporadic injections of energy (and cash).

In Southern Italy, "la Giudecca" referred to a district inhabited by Jewish families and businesses. However Venice’s counterpart was apparently named for the "giudicato", or condemned nobles, sent into exile here in the 19th century. Walking around la Giudecca today, you will see that asides from the transient tourists, the island is home to mainly working class families. La Giudecca is separated from Venice proper by the broad Canal della Giudecca but you still get a good view across the water to the Zattere promenade.

The apartment we rented was on the back side of the Molino Stucky building, a red brick behemoth mostly occupied by the Hilton Hotel. We took advantage of the Internet facilities at the Hilton and paid a visit to the beautiful Skyline Bar, which, as the name hints, is on the roof of the hotel. Drinks aren’t cheap but you get an unrivalled view over the Canal della Giudecca and if you’re looking for a romantic spot, this must be in the top ten of places to go in Venice.

On our final day in Venice, we wandered east along the waterfront paths. We passed a short row of restaurants (including Osteria ae Botti) and shops. In a well stocked hardware store, we purchased a Bialetti espresso maker. Our apartment came with no less than three of these espresso makers, an effective product endorsement if ever I’ve seen one.

Shortly after, we reached Andrea Palladio’s Church of the Redentore. The church was built in the late 1500s to give thanks for deliverance from the plague, which claimed the lives of about a quarter of Venice’s population between 1575 and 1577. We wanted to poke our heads inside but there was an entry fee. I can’t remember how much but as we hadn’t intended on being there for long we found it a bit objectionable.

Continuing along Sestiere Giudecca takes you to Fondamenta de la Crosa and Fondamenta della Zitelle. Eventually the path dead ends and you can go no further. Before we turned back though we did sneak into the grounds of the Cipriani Hotel. Here you can see how the other half live. I felt distinctively like an intruder but no one questioned us as we marveled at the beautiful gardens. With all the water around, you start to forget how green grass is. Inside the hotel we window shopped at the luxury boutiques and glanced at the restaurant menus. I made a mental note of what I would order in case I happen to win the lottery one day.

We re-emerged into the real world, stopping at a waterside café for yet more Italian coffee and to watch island cats pad around the flagstones as if they own the place.

Friends of ours who stayed at the nearby Ca’Gottardi hotel a few months prior to our visit suggested La Cantina. They warned us that the service is far from fast but if you’re happy to sit and watch the world go by then you won’t notice the wait (well not too much).

Our madcap waiter (who may well have been the owner) kept us all entertained in a way the Marx brothers may have done. A couple of girls sat next to us asked him to take a photo and he promptly turned the camera on himself, posing with a big smile. He did oblige them though before handing back the camera.

We ordered a beer and a couple of glasses of prosecco and three ham and cheese panini. The drinks arrived in good time and to be fair, the food wasn’t too far behind. We perched on high stools under their awning on a very mild October afternoon. There was ample outdoor seating around some tall barrels as well as at other, regular height tables. Shoppers shuttled to and from Strada Nova with carrier bags in hand. We visited a few glass boutiques next to La Cantina and bought some postcards and over-priced Murano beads.

The paninis were excellent and it made for a tasty late lunch stop. I think we would all have liked to have made a return visit but the Cannaregio district is in the north of Venice and being that we were staying in the south it was sadly a bit too far for us to come again.

Arriving back on La Giudecca very tired and hungry one evening, we decided to check out one of the few restaurants on the island. Mistra (off Fondamenta San Giacomo) had been recommended to us but the menu looked quite pricey and with an above average cover charge (2.50 euro) we felt it wasn’t really a risk worth taking.

We walked back along the waterfront and stopped instead at the quaint Osteria ae Botti. On a lovely sunny day I imagine there’s nothing nicer than dining on their terrace, which looks over the Canale della Giudecca. On a calm but chilly evening though everyone was sitting inside the osteria. With wooden beams and booths lining the long, narrow room, Botti had more the appearance of an alpine canteen than an Italian waterfront restaurant but its modest décor instantly made us feel at home. The south-American lady serving us that night turned out to be one of the owners (she runs it with her husband) so we chatted in Spanish for a while.

Looking at the menu, the emphasis is on seafood where pasta concoctions are married with cuttlefish, crab, shrimp and octopus. I decided to try the squid in ink with polenta. It’s not something I’d usually have but then I don’t often have the opportunity. That all said I’m not sure it’s something I would order again though. The polenta was warm, fresh and far superior to any I’ve tasted outside of Italy but the ink made the lukewarm squid taste a little like smoky rubber. It’s an acquired taste I think.

We didn’t have much to drink that night but at $76 for three meals it was pretty good value. It’s also a very relaxed place to be, where locals stopped in for a drink at the bar before slinking back out onto Fondamenta San Giacomo. It also felt a world away from the tourist frenzy (and price gouging) at Piazza San Marco.

http://www.osteriaaebotti.com/eng/inglese.htm

Venice apparently isn’t renowned for its pizza but Muro came recommended again by the friendly agent from Truly Venice (who we rented the apartment from) so we thought it was worth checking out. Plus being in Italy we felt compelled to try out as many national dishes as we could.

Although it was a pleasantly warm evening, a rather sour aroma forced us to an indoor table. I don’t know if the smell was coming from the canal but it was suspect enough that we knew we wouldn’t enjoy our meal very much if we sat outside. Also the patio area around the restaurant isn’t as expansive as it is at some of the other places (definitely not like it is at Osteria Alla Bifora at Campo Santa Margherita for example) so you’re a bit closer to passersby.

Muro is an interesting place with modern interior décor. Massive lampshades span almost the entire width of the room and the perimeter seating has strange headrests stuck to the wall, just in case you want to lean back and rest your head while maintaining a perfectly rigid posture. My favourite part of the interior design was the toilets, which were clad head to toe in black. Guess it doesn’t show the dirt at least.

The service was friendly and prompt and it obviously had a good reputation as it was continuously busy, particularly with big groups. Having worked up a decent appetite we ordered a pizza each and if you’ve been walking all afternoon you can easily manage a whole one to yourself. I went for a simple and delicious mozzarella, basil and tomato pizza but if you want something with more of a kick, they also have a ‘diavola’ or spicy salami pizza. There’s no shortage of pizza choices and they also have a respectable list of pasta, seafood and salads to choose from.

For about $55 we were treated to two pizzas, one pasta dish and a carafe of the house red wine and a diet coke. This also included the 1.50 euro cover charge which is applied at many Venice eateries.

www.murovenezia.com

Don’t be fooled by the cheap plastic chairs set out in Campo San Stefano, this trattoria may look modest but it serves very decent, and very decently priced food. I was slightly worried that we had arrived at Busa alla Torre too late in the afternoon for lunch as it felt like most of Murano was taking a siesta. Fortunately for us, while the rest of the island fell quiet, the kitchen at Busa alla Torre was very much awake.

We took a table outside. The indoor seating is quite limited so we were grateful for the clement weather. From the corner of the small piazza we could sit and admire the slender brick clock tower and a more modern, spiky blue glass sculpture in front of the canal. A cluster of middle-aged waiters attended the tables, bringing out baskets of impossibly smooth bread rolls, which had the appearance of having been hand sculpted by a professional plasterer.

Having become a little glassy-eyed from a couple of hours of Murano window-shopping along Fondamenta dei Vetrai, I was in the mood for something substantial. I went straight for the gnocchi in a tomato and mozzarella sauce. My husband opted for the spaghetti in tomato sauce and my mother-in-law ordered the lasagne. All three meals were delicious, simple and thankfully filling. I don’t know how Italians rate Busa alla Torre for authenticity but the no-nonsense food, coupled with the lazy, laid back air of Campo San Stefano made for what felt like an idyllic Italian island lunch.

The ample outdoor seating means that Busa alla Torre is also a good place for groups. I’ve read that their seafood dishes are also highly rated but if you’re looking for something uncomplicated, substantial and inexpensive, Busa alla Torre is the place to come.

I wouldn’t necessarily encourage you to go out of your way to visit Bar da Gino but I would recommend stopping by if you’re in the neighbourhood. It’s conveniently close to the Zattere, Ponte Accadamia and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and strikes me as a good place to stop and write postcards or read a newspaper.

The food and service is nothing outstanding. The paninis we ordered were average but this quiet, modest corner café-bar caters to the small Dorsoduro community and that on its own is something to appreciate in a city that is so tourist oriented. We took an outdoor table next to a group of two mothers and their lively brood of seven children. The youngest of the bunch were very sweet, running in and out of the bar and showing a great deal of enthusiasm for the ice creams that were eventually brought out by a man who I guessed to be the owner.

Along the narrow Piscina Venier other children tumbled around on bikes or on foot, politely calling at friends’ houses to see if they were free to come out and play. Despite all the family activity it maintained a calm air about it and we relaxed with some ham and cheese paninis and soft drinks. I only ventured inside once to use the toilet. The bar looked so well established I could imagine it being the central meeting place in a televised Venetian soap opera, if such a thing existed.

Our three soft drinks and sandwiches came to 19.80 euro (about $28) so it’s not exceptionally cheap but still a nice place to hang out and if we’d had the energy, order something a little stronger from the neatly arranged bar.