Italy trip: Venice

And finally to finish up the blogging of our Italy trip (only 6 months late...), I give you the details of our time in Venice and Verona.

• hotel: Papadopoli Venice (formerly Sofitel)
• super close to the train station, but super far from Saint Mark's Square and all the sights
• But we had a corner room on the top floor with a terrace to go out onto and had a great view
• Grand Canal
• We took the cruise recommended by Rick Steve on a vaporetto and used his audio guide and it was great. It gave a good overall feel of the city and history.
• St. Mark's Square
• Was crazy crowded with tourists! I totally don't remember the crowds from my visit 10 years ago. And I must say it was definitely a huge con and ruined my fond memories of Venice.
• It was nice in the relative emptiness in the evening after all the day-trippers left and you could sit and enjoy the cacophony of warring orchestras from the cafes
• Campanile - had to visit because it's what Berkeley's Capanile is based on! good views from each side and fun to be there during the bells
• St. Mark's Basilica - only saw atrium because the rest was closed for service, long lines, and flooded because of high tide! Very opulent. Not our style.
• Doge's Palace and Bridge of Sighs - we didn't go in, but were very disappointed to see that the Bridge of Sighs is covered up with a billboard advertisement!! bleh!
• It is impossible not to get hopelessly lost walking around the city and we did it a lot. But it's one of the best ways to see the city as well and discovering hidden, quiet, picturesque little nooks along the canal to enjoy a sandwich, etc.
• The Peggy Guggenheim Museum houses a collection of modern art...which isn't really up our alley, but we went because we had free tickets through our Costco package.
• We tried to experience a pub crawl as described by RS, but it was so hard finding the places, that we gave up after going to the first cichetti bar he listed called Osteria al Portego. It wasn't that great because it was super crowded, the waitress was not pleasant and the food was not hot or yummy. We eventually accidentally found the self-serve restaurant that RS had mentioned called Rosticceria San Bartolomeo and had the squid ink pasta that was just ok and gave us gross lips and teeth. But we returned on another day to get the super popular fried mozzarella sandwich that everyone was ordering. It was very yum and you could get it with just the cheese or with prosciutto. It runs out very quickly though and you have to kinda fight to get your order in for it.
• La Boutique del Gelato was Bob's favorite of all the gelato we tried in Venice, but after finding it and plassing by it several times throughout our trip, we couldn't for the life of us find it on our last day! :(
• On our last night touring Venice, we enjoyed a romantic canalside dinner at Ristorante alla Conchiglia where Bob enjoyed baked sea bass and I really liked my linguine with mussels, clams and shrimp.
• We tried the famous peach bellini at Harry's Bar but think it's overrated (especially since we had to walk 35 mins to get it...and 35 mins back to our hotel).
• Ostaria ai Storti was nearly impossible to find, but good food. We had pizza, seafood gnocchi and fragolino which is a yummy strawberry-flavored wine.

Island Tour (afternoon tour included in our Costco package)

• Murano - went to a glass blowing factory and got to see a demonstration of a master making a prancing horse which was neat
• Burano - vibrantly colorful sailor town. We skipped out on the lace-making demonstration to get more time to walk around the town. I liked it for the cuteness, and Bob liked it because we happened upon the filming of a Bollywood dance video.
• Torcello - ghost town, 15 inhabitants and lots of houses for sale

Verona (day trip)

• We enjoyed Verona just because it was nice to get away from Venice for a day and go to a more relaxed/quiet city. Also, we wanted to take advantage of the fact that our hotel was so close to the train station! :)
• We stopped at a self-service cafeteria called Brek for lunch and had a surprisingly good spaghetti alla amatriciana.
• We did RS's self-guided walk from the guide book and it was fine. We also got the Verona card because a lot of entrance fees and public transportation would all be included.
• Verona's Roman Arena/colosseum still used today. It was neat to see another colosseum outside of Rome and see the similarities, etc.
• Piazza Erbe was picturesque
• House of Juliet
• super crowded with tourists, lots of love graffiti in the tunnel entrance
• The museum was included in our Verona Day Card so we went in and I took a picture on Juliet's famous balcony
• Went to church Sant'Anastasia to see the statues of hunchbacks holding the holy water and a faded  fresco of St. George and the Princess