Today I had my first breakfast-in-a-hotel on this trip so far! I woke up in time to start packing up, grab a bite to eat (including yogurt, a hearty whole grain roll, some orange juice, and some tea!), and we loaded up the car to get on the road. Fortunately, today was our shortest drive yet, and we made it!
Venice is on a tiny island in northeast Italy - I didn't know this until I was looking in the tourbook and on maps. We had to leave the car in a garage on "land" and then take a boat to our hotel which was on the island. We basically had no idea what to do or where to go, and vaguely followed directions from the Rick Steves book to make it happen. The boats here are called vaporettos, and they operate like city buses or subways. This is public transportation on an island built from the water, with bridges, and canals, and tiny sidewalks. So our first vaporetto ride took us to San Marco, which is St. Mark's Square. Our hotel was nearby (we thought) so in the middle of a bustling crowd of people by the docks (some of whom were all decked out in masquerade attire for Carnevale/Mardi Gras), we looked for our hotel in the Rick Steves book because we knew it was listed there, and maybe it was on the map of hotels or he gives walking directions. Turns out, it WAS on the hotel map! Lucky us. A few turns down teeny tiny little streets and alleyways, and it opens up into a small square with our hotel - Casa Querini. (I took a picture - shocker.)
We were able to check in right away, and put our things in the room. Stop number 1 - lunch. We wandered over to a nearby square, in an attempt to find some food. We restaurant hopped a bit, finding 2 stands of fresh fruit and candy by the kilo (just like at Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem!), a church (oh right, we're in Italy), and finally decided on a restaurant. I started with a soup and had a vegetable omelette. Adam got the "Menu Turistico" which included a primo piatti (first plate) of spaghetti pomodoro (spaghetti with tomato sauce) and a segundi piatti (second plate) of 1/4 pollo arroste (1/4 roasted chicken). We were both pretty happy with the meal, but unhappy when the bill came and we had to pay extra for our water (um, hello, water is the source of life, you shouldn't have to pay for it, especially when your waiter tells you it's "on the house" but the owner gives you your bill and claims to not understand what you're saying about the waiter's comments earlier), and the service charge was added to the bill. We were both pretty sure that the menu said service was included. So...we didn't put up a fight, but it was a waste of 9 Euro. The food was really good though! That's how the cookie crumbles I guess
I was so desperate for a nap from having woken up before my body was actually ready, so we went back to the room for some much needed naptime! Over 2 hours later, we both finally woke up (after manys snoozes on the alarm clock on my phone), and got ready to go out to find a restaurant and somewhere fun to go later. It's Carnevale and Mardi Gras so there must be something! We tried finding a square that was recommended by the guy downstairs at our hotel (who circled it on the map he gave to Adam) who told us there were discotechs there (assumed some restaurants too) and ended up getting SO lost! We walked over bridges, down small streets and dark alleyways, walked back over more bridges, it just never ended. We decided to give up on the disco and went toward San Marco. There are tons of signs everywhere for San Marco, so we knew that wouldn't be a big problem! We got there and saw a huge performance and stage in the square, but we had JUST missed whatever it was that was going on. Bummer. We finally found a restaurant that looked good - had a good selection, not too expensive, and the guy outside brought us in and sat us down at a table near the front of the restaurant. We made our selections on the menu and were just waiting for the waiter to come take our order. Our waiter seemed to disappear, and another came to the rescue, or so we thought. He came to the table, we asked him some questions just to clarify some things, and then he turned around to take an order from another table, and walked away. Well at that point, we had waited so long, and we knew there was another restaurant down the street, that we left our menus on the table, took our things with us and left. I don't know if I've ever done that before (!) but I was so fed up with our treatment, that I didn't want to give them the business anymore.
We walked into the next restaurant, and we were treated like royalty! It was night and day - unbelievable. Our food came out very quickly, and it was so nice. The wait staff answered our questions about where to go out later, made jokes with us, so naturally, they were our new best friends. It was such a nice experience, and good food!
We took the waiter's advice to go to Rialto (which is one of the main bridges over the Grand Canal) in search of other young people and some drinks! Well there were definitely young people, and by young people I mean like the age that would be illegal to consume alcoholic products in America. They can drink legally here, but they weren't exactly our crowd to attempt to socialize with. We tried checking out one more bar that looked promising from our walk over to the Rialto bridge, and that was unsuccessful as well. Somehow, the night before Mardi Gras was not looking so good. I guess not every holiday is celebrated starting with an "erev" (the night before for most Jewish holidays). We'll have to try again tomorrow.
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