Eastern European Vacation Day 3

Saturday October 30th, 2010
Another bright but cool day in Venice. We breakfasted in the hotel and then headed out, via a water taxi, to the nearby island of Murano; this trip was included in the price of our hotel and a nice little bonus. Murano is of course famous for glass making; they’ve been doing it on the island since the 1700’s so they’ve had lots of practice.

Upon arrival we were escorted straight into a conveniently located glass factory and showroom where a young lady commenced the narration while the “master” demonstrated some basic glass blowing techniques, for tips. The master first made a basic vase and then a small horse – both quite expertly done; I think he’d done this before a few times. At the end of the demonstration, before the applause had died down, as if on queue the vase shattered into a thousand pieces. Amazing. At this point our host must have mistaken us for people of means because we shown into the “private” showroom – the rest of the masses (well about a dozen folks) were shuttled off to the “gift shop”.

The showroom was a series of rooms crammed with all kinds of glass art; including the famous Murano chandeliers many priced at $150,000 – we feigned interest and sauntered along muttering “it just won’t go with our décor”. We soon discovered that Murano is basically one showroom after another – and we only walked a short distance along the dock, so we jumped on a vaporetto and headed back to St. Mark’s square. On the way back we were treated to a magnificent sight; the Queen Victoria was docked just along from St. Mark’s square – we were able to get some great pictures and even pick out our cabin as we floated by.

The people density in Venice must go up dramatically on the weekends – the square was absolutely packed today, literally shoulder to shoulder in places. Feeling a bit tired we headed back to the hotel for a short rest.

Suitably refreshed we headed out and took the vaporetto up to the Rialto Bridge area; we wandered a bit and found a place to have light lunch. Following lunch we headed up to the famous Rialto Bridge- the place was packed with bloody tourists jostling for the best photo opportunity – if they would all just get out of the way, things would be fine. Much of the bridge is covered in graffiti, sad really. We didn’t hang around and decided to walk back to the hotel rather than take the boat. Along the way I picked up a nice black silk tie for 8 Euros to replace the one I had left back home – now I feel complete!

Navigating the narrow winding streets of Venice can be a bit tricky; we had a very good map – but even it was not detailed enough to capture every little alley and bridge. After a while we figured out a navigation method that worked for us; we discovered that several of the major landmarks are signposted at almost every major intersection of alleys. As well as large official yellow signs, these signposts sometimes are in the form of spray painted graffiti-like scrawls or small text carefully hand written with an indelible marker. If you know what to look for you can see these signs – and they turned out to be quite reliable.

We met up with Kat and Mike in the early evening and headed out for dinner on our last night in Venice. We tried to get into to a place quite close to the hotel that had been recommended in Kat’s guidebook – we even found the place, unlike the previous night. However we soon learned a hard lesson; when going out to dinner on a Saturday night in Venice, book a table! Following our disappointment at restaurant number one, we wondered aimlessly and were turned down at restaurants two and three – some of these were really quite small and unassuming places. In desperation we turned down a tiny back alley and stumbled across yet another small place, Da Mario Alla Fava – I stuck my head in the door and put on my biggest smile and to my amazement we were seated almost straight away.

We had no idea what a great meal awaited us. We all ordered off the half-portion menu – an approach that leaves room for dessert. While we waited for the food we saw dozens of people turned away at the door because they did not have reservations – making us feel even more fortunate to have got seated. The food did not disappoint; superb Fennel soup with scallops then pasta and also sliced beef – it was excellent. We once again took advice for the wine selection and we were not disappointed. In addition we ordered a jug of the local Proseco sparkling wine which was also very good. The desserts were nothing short of spectacular; hand made chocolates with 10 year old tawny port, molten chocolate cake with gelato and a sort of chocolate soup. We immediately decided to delay our embarkation to the ship and made reservations for lunch the next day.

We sauntered back to the hotel for a quick pit stop and then headed out to find a bar for a nightcap. Amazingly we ended up back at the first place that had turned us down earlier in the night – proving that when it comes to the consumption of alcohol we bear no malice or ill will.