Venice is one of those cities that I knew enough about that I wasn't dying to go—I can't handle being surrounded by too many other people, let alone other tourists. Also, everyone loves it, and what's the fun in being the last person to fall in love with a place? But Adam was convinced I'd enjoy it as much as he did, and when he had business in Europe, we tagged on a visit.
While Venice is wildly touristy—especially in and around San Marco—it was not quite as I expected. It was more real, and more the kind of destination I like. It was so beautiful, in a decaying, patina-rich way, that I stopped taking photos because I couldn't decide what not to shoot. When we got back to New York, and crossed the Williamsburg Bridge, I turned to Adam and said, "I never realized how ugly New York is." No other city—not Paris, not Rome—made me feel that way before. Venice might be the only city where laundry hanging out to dry looks good.
The highlights....
10. I dread guidebooks—I think they kill the serendipity of travel. I want to discover things on my own instead of checking them off of someone else's list. There comes a time in a trip when you feel like you've gotten a handle on a place—you master the mass transit, perhaps—and I love that feeling. While Venice has attractions, and we went to a few museums, the pleasure was far more in the wandering. We ended up missing out on a museum I would've liked, because I hadn't read that you had to make reservations, but I'm not sure I would've liked it more than turning the corner in what ended up being a dead-end street, only to find a grand floral-arrangement-in-progress. Or the basketball hoop embedded in an old brick wall. Or the joy on Adam's face when we found a vendor selling pieces of coconut in a fountain, just the way he remembered from his trip two decades ago.
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9. Many buildings in Venice have glamorous panels of doorbells. Then I began realizing that the smaller panels often resembled faces, possibly intentionally. These are only a handful of the photos I took (including one of a non-doorbell face).
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8. One of my standard pieces of travel advice is that when visiting a city for more than a couple of days, you should rent a bike, even if it's only for an hour. All that walking and gawking—even in Venice—gets repetitive, and you need to break the rhythm. I was happy to see the advice hold true when we took the vaporetto to the beach island of Lido, and had a blast toodling around on bikes. Plus, it was flat and not windy. Plus, we had gelato afterward. The photo is tilted because I took it over my shoulder.
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7. Getting lost is an essential part of the Venice experience, and it's not as if you're going to wander into somewhere dangerous, so you just roll with it. I was reminded of those early text-only computer games where you went from room to room in some strange other world, never quite knowing where you were. Most of the time, you don't find anything in particular, but it doesn't really matter. So much of our travel these days is planned in some way that it's nice to let the city win, even if it led to some of the worst arguments Adam and I have had while traveling.
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6. It would be nice if every now and then you saw a shop you wanted to pop into, but most of the stores sell Murano-ish glass and carnival masks—sweet mother of God, even if every visitor to Venice bought one mask, how many mask stores do there really need to be? We did find an exquisite chocolatier, VizioVirtù, and I'm still hoping to track down some of the dirty little ceramics we saw in a store window in Castello, only to to learn that the store wouldn't be open during our stay. (Alessandro Merlin, please answer my email!) I also bought Adam a minitaure plastic pug at a toy store. "I hope you didn't spend very much on it," he said, followed by, "I think I'll leave it in the apartment." I explained that it would be polite to wait, oh, an hour before announcing how one might dispose of a gift.
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5. How can you not adore a city where the primary means of getting around is by boat? I had no intention of getting in a gondola, and I normally turn pale if someone suggests I board a bus, but the bus-boats known as vaporetti were fantastic. And we splurged and took water taxis to and from the airport, in good part because the apartment we rented wasn't near one of the airport vaporetti stops, and you don't want to be dragging your bags in the zigzaggiest city on earth. "Water taxi" is up there with other phrases I can't resist, like "wraparound porch" and "outdoor shower."
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4. There should be a phrase that means "stairs that lead into water," because I get tingly at the sight of them—even when you'd never want to actually go in the water. I wish I could kayak in Venice, or maybe even better, swim/raft through a ridiclous recreation in a water park somewhere.
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3. I knew the food wasn't supposed to be good, so I guess it was a victory that we had a few decent meals. One was at Algiubagiò, which has a waterside location in an area where tourists aren't everywhere. Another was at a restaurant recommended by a friend, but he sweared us to secrecy. (Adam agreed to that; not sure I would have.) Otherwise we had good coffee, mediocre pizza, and hit-and-miss gelato. The best was at Grom, which we went to even though we have an outpost in New York City (and it has never been a favorite). Convinced that Grom's gelato is better in Venice, Adam actually ate there twice in one day.
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2. Food markets are always on travel writers' lists of things to do—in any city—but what's the fun in looking at vegetables if you're not going to cook? We weren't going to cook because the apartment's air conditioning wasn't up to the challenge, but we did shop at the Rialto Market for cherries, strawberries, apricots, and a melon for a picnic on the steps of Il Redentore church in Giudecca. (We also had cheese and bread and wine.) I don't think travelers do that kind of thing enough. It takes some preparation—and it helps if you have access to knives, corkscrews, and what not—but still. If all you do is eat at restaurants, they get really boring.
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1. I've declared this the year of star jasmine, because we keep running into it. The apartment, located in Castello, had a pretty back balcony that was practically engulfed in the stuff. Adam couldn't get enough, but I think I might be allergic to it. Otherwise, the apartment suited us nicely. I wouldn't have minded better air conditioning—if only to appease Adam—but I didn't miss much else hotel-y. Being in a residential neighborhood was fantastic. I even enjoyed taking out the trash every day—in Venice, you hang a small shopping bag on your front door (or on a hook nearby) every morning; as you can see from the photo below, people who live on plazas pile their garbage in the middle.
The only awkward apartment moment came when the housekeeper arrived at 8 a.m. on the day we were leaving. I had just gotten up, but I hadn't had any coffee, so I knew less Italian than usual. Adam was asleep in the sleeping loft, but eventually he had to come down—in his underwear, because his clothes were downstairs—to help try to kick her out. The housekeeper, an older woman with the stubbornness of a bull, refused to leave: She kept pulling out cleaning supplies even when we'd run around saying, "No! No!" We finally got the owner on the phone, and she was able to tell the housekeeper to leave, but the trauma may have sent us back to hotels for good.
