We came, We Saw, [we Ate] Venice!

When we first started planning our Italian honeymoon, I was against going to Venice. When I visited in the summer as a child, I thought it smelled, and in early February as a college kid, it was biting cold. Kyle too hadn’t considered Venice much. But when we talked to my Papa about his visit to Italy with my Grammy, it was his favorite city. He said it was “just neat, just really something else!” Seeing his face light up as he talked about the floating city, how could we not add it to our list??

Seeing Venice through new eyes was absolutely wonderful, we had blissfully beautiful weather, and in a city known for being packed with tourists, we lucked out no crowds, even on the Ponte Rialto and in Piazza San Marco we experienced only a handful of other tourists. Whether this is due to travel restrictions, the American holiday, or the high risk of Acqua Alta (seasonal high tides that bring water into the city squares/ streets) during November and December, who’s to say. All I can say is that we had absolutely idyllic conditions in Venice- Kyle joked that it was just Katy-And-Kyle-Vacation-Magic 💕.

We only spent 24 hours here, but we most definitely got a feel for the city, felt connected to its history, walked 15 miles (literally), ate seafood and cicchetti (Venitian tapas), discovered the secret Select Spritz, and caught views of the islands from land, sea, and sky. An overall magical experience. To anyone wondering whether it’s possible to squeeze a day in Venice into a tight Italian itinerary- we highly recommend it.

Veni Vidi: Traveling Through Time

Milan didn’t really find its footing until 1801 and reconstructed the 1960s – so it’s by far the most modern city that we’ll visit during our time here in Italy.

By contrast, Venice celebrated it’s 1600th birthday this year! (signs were all over the place). When the city was built—on marsh lands — the Venetians hand-drove wood posts into the ground to support the new structures, those posts have since fossilized so they aren’t rotting or deteriorating, but they are slowly sinking into the marsh and you can see evidence of the change in water level on the buildings- over the centuries the high tides have crept higher and higher on their walls. We were on the edge of the lagoon in San Marco square at high tide this morning, and the water was just inches from the level of the piazza.

We could feel the history all around us, and what a distinctly American thing to feel like something 500 years old should be in a museum. Venetians don’t think twice about the age of their city except to celebrate it, for example, Marco Polo’s home, which was built around 1300 is an apartment building! People just live there, it’s not a monument or museum or anything. Can you imagine people just living in Ben Franklin’s old house??

Veni Vidi: Cicchetti

After checking into our hotel near the train station, we set off into the city with empty stomachs and a couple hours to kill. We filled the time by hopping between snack bars sampling cicchetti and wine. cicchetti are essentially Venetian tapas- little pieces of bread or rolls topped for filled with various meats, cheeses, and vegetables. They’re only a few bites and €1-2 each, so we were able to taste a really wide variety. 

While traveling we rarely stop at places that Kyle hasn’t exhaustively researched beforehand, but our first stop, L’Archivio, was an exception. It’s a little hole in the wall on a canal, and was bustling with locals and a handful of tourists when we walked by, so we opted to stop in, and were glad we did! We tried two cicchetti- one with spicy salami, and one with the traditional Venetian salted cod spread “baccala”. Kyle said the baccala is “what whitefish spread in New York wishes it was”, it wasn’t for me. But the spicy salami, which came on a little roll with some creamy cheese, was fantastico! We also tried a fried dough pocket filled with cheese and prosciutto (yum!) and a “trammezino” which is essentially an Italian uncrustable filled with ham and egg. We liked L’Archivio so much that we went back again for a quick snack before we left Venice on day 2. Along with our drinks we tried a popular local drink- the Select Spritz. It’s basically an Aperol spritz made with Select, a local Venetian bitter liqueur with a taste somewhere between Aperol and Campari.

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Our second stop was pre-researched: Cantine del Vino Gia Chiavi. This restaurant was busier than L’archivo, and had a much more adventurous range of cicchetti toppings. We tried ones with prosciutto, brie, and mushroom,; shrimp and avocado; ricotta, tomato, and anchovy; and cheese, tomato, and pesto. They were all great, and left us fueled up for our upcoming walking tour.

Veni Vidi: Local Tour

One of the things we learned during our travels to southeast Asia was the value of personal tour guides. A few hours of a one-on-one tour in Bangkok gave us invaluable insight into where to go, what to do, where to eat, and how to avoid common tourist mis-steps. We’ve found withlocals.com to be the best place to find private guides for a reasonable rate. So on the train to Venice we found a quick “intro to Venice” tour from With Locals, and booked it for that afternoon!

Veni Vidi: Cioccolata from 1720

Veni Vidi: Dinner at Al Covo  – Kyle’s Take

We hadn’t made any reservations when we arrived in Venice, but had assumed that between recommendations from our tour guide and places we found in our research, we’d be able to get in somewhere decent. To our surprise, Al Covo, which happened to be at the top of both lists, had an open reservation at 8PM! It was located on the other side of the city, about a 30 minute walk away, but in Venice the journey really is as beautiful as the destination. A long walk really flies by when there’s a beautiful view down a different canal every 100 yards.

Al Covo is a traditional Venetian restaurant, which means they specialize in classic Venetian dishes, mostly based on the abundant fresh fish found in the lagoon. The small crustaceans and oily fish aren’t as approachable as the seafood that we tend to favor in the US. Venetians, like many other cultures around the world, lean into fishy flavors in a way that will turn off many Americans. Katy couldn’t make it through the amuse bouche of tiny whole fried shrimp on polenta, which worried us, but the rest of the meal wasn’t nearly as challenging. Katy started with a charcuterie plate, which included our first bite of 36 month aged Parmigiano Reggiano, which is just mind-blowingly delicious. I was a little braver and tried the classic Venetian “sarde en soar”, fried sardine cooked in vinegar with onions and raisins. This dish was surprisingly tasty. When paired with the aggressive flavors of vinegar and onion, the fishiness of the oily sardine fades, providing a meaty, savory backdrop for each bite. Our mains were two excellent seafood pasta dishes- Katy’s was a potato gnocchi with baby squid and baby crab, and mine was linguine with mixed local seafood. Both were excellent, but the gnocchi really blew us away with its soft texture and surprisingly strong potato flavor. We finished the meal with two great desserts- panna cotta and “fried cream” with a lemon sauce. We never really got to the bottom of what the fried cream was, but it sure was tasty. All in all, we’d recommend Al Covo to adventurous seafood eaters, but maybe not to anyone who isn’t a big fan of fish and fishy flavors.

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Veni Vidi: Vici Venice

We woke up to a beautifully sunny, crisp morning on Tuesday. After a quick pastry and coffee at our hotel, we headed off into the city, intending to wander around and see all of the sights in the sunshine. We passed over the Rialto Bridge AGAIN- it seemed like whenever we asked Apple Maps how to get somewhere, the answer was “go over the Rialto Bridge”. We must have crossed it a dozen times in 24 hours, but we weren’t complaining because it’s so beautiful at every time of the day. We walked through the Rialto Market and saw the vendors selling fresh fruit and every kind of seafood imaginable. After picking up a couple souvenirs, we took off to check a few more items off of our Venice bucket list.

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A Discovery of Witches!

Gondola

A trip to Venice just wouldn’t be complete without a ride on one of the iconic Gondolas. Our tour guide explained to us that all gondola rides are a fixed price of €80 for a 30 minute ride during the day, and pointed us to a good spot to start a ride- just to the east of the Rialto Bridge. 

The boat was a little freaky at first because it lists to the right, but the gondolier explained it was necessary for him to be able to drive the boat properly. Honestly, I thought they held giant sticks and pushed across the bottom of the canals, but actually it was a big oar!! We were so impressed with the precision that these men are able to control the gondolas with, sometimes coming just a centimeter off the houses & walls along the canals but never hitting them. Our driver provided a bit of a tour, pointing out again some sights that Lu had shared the night before (like Marco Polo’s estate turned theater) and new sites like a beautiful Carrera marble church. I was particularly impressed (and a little freaked out) by going under the bridges because it looked like our guide was going to hit his head every time. All-in-all, a very unique way to see Venice and totally work the €80.

Rooftop Views

Veni Vidi: Hotel Review

The Santa Croce Boutique Hotel in Venice did not disappoint. The walls were soft and made me feel like I was staying in a medieval castle, but the bed was plush and bathroom gorgeous. Set in a quiet square just a few hundred meters from the St. Lucia train station, this was a perfect location for us. We got to walk past delicious food, stay in a more residential part of town, witnessed an after-school pickup session, saw kids playing soccer in a piazza, enjoyed the longer walks all over town, and slept like babies! Lu showed us how Venice is sort of shaped like a fish, if you think about it that way, with the head being the far west side where the St. Lucia train station connects the island to the mainland, then the hotel was in the fish’s head, the Rialto Bridge is right in the middle, Al Covo is where the by meets the tail, & Piazza San Marco is pretty much on the belly. Actually, it made it really easy for us to orient ourselves just by thinking about which part of the “fish” we were in.

We came, we ate, we saw Venice… It might have only been a 24-hour visit, but not only do I feel like we truly captured the essence of the city, I feel like we got to see it’s authentic side and enjoy somewhere neither of us had planned on going. We will definitely be back <3.