Gondola Parking
Tonight we decided to focus on planing for Venezia and we booked our hotel (the name of which we will keep off of the Internets until after our stay). My wife did all of her TripAdvisor stuff and we’ve discovered Venere.comas a pretty good hotel research site. The one thing that reading hotel reviews has taught us is that the infamous canal odor is pretty unpredictable and it seems like crossing your fingers is about all you can do.
I’ve skimmed through a couple of the books that we checked out of the library as well as the Eyewitness Travel Top 10 Venice book that I picked up at Costco. I like buying the Top 10 books because they are good quick references, very portable, and have decent maps.
There aren’t a lot of big name sights to see in the City of Water. You have your Piazzo San Marco, Grand Canal, and Rialto Market but not much more for those of us who don’t appreciate art and churches as much as some others. Having said that, we’ve decided to make Venice one of our 3-night locales because the biggest attraction is the city itself.
In addition to the obvious uniqueness of the canals and water culture, the fact that it’s a place that lends itself to walking, exploring, and getting lost means that it would be hard to experience it without 2 full days.
From what I’ve read Venice isn’t really known as a foodie city by Italian standards but I want to get my seafood fix in before we head inland. The high tourist to local ratio means that we will have to do some serious research to avoid expensive and lousy tourist traps. When I’m looking for real food on my travels the first place I go to is my fave foodie guide Anthony Bourdain. Luckily he recently had a No Reservations episode in Venice so I’ve got a good place to start from. How do I know that Tony gives good advice? Because he got it mostly right in Vancouver, Hawaii, and Hong Kong.
I also have to thank Tony for indirectly leading me to A Month in Venice. Googling for Anthony Bourdain Venice results in a post about the episode done by a freelance writer who planned a full month (duh) in Venice. I’ve only read a couple of posts so far but it looks like a great resource and I’m looking forward to spending some time there tomorrow.
Here are a few more food links that I bookmarked tonight. Eventually I’ll make a prioritized list of eating options. I can’t wait to try some cicheti in the bacari!
Real Good Food Venice
S. Worthen Blog