After my recent trekking trip in the Dolomites, I got to spend a day in lovely Venice: city of canals, bridges, and throngs of tourists.1 (Though I will say: I was perhaps over-scared of the crowds based on what I read online. In my opinion, Venice has nothing on the major cities of East Asia when it comes to crowds.) I’m honestly a bit fatigued after writing that over-long and over-dramatic post on the Alta Via 2, so what follows is a much shorter overview of what I got up to in Venice.
By the time the bus dropped me off at the Piazzale Roma (the main bus terminal in Venice, at the western end of the island), it was already past dinnertime, and—having just finished a week-long hike in the mountains—I was pretty hungry. My accommodations were on the eastern end of the island; the route there would take me through the heart of Venice, where there were sure to be plenty of restaurants open. The plan was to walk east and stop by any restaurant that looked good.
Yes, I know the theory here: for a fixed number of restaurants, if you want to pick the best one without being allowed to go back, the optimal stopping rule is to walk by the first restaurants and then pick the first one thereafter that is better than all the preceding ones. (This is the solution to the “secretary problem” that maximizes the probability of selecting the best candidate.) But honestly, I just wanted dinner, so I ducked into a random place that looked acceptable. Being quite hungry, I decided to be ambitious and and order a ton of food: a pasta for the first course (specifically, the local specialty of squid ink spaghetti), and a pork cutlet for the second. I soon realized the magnitude of my mistake when I saw the waiter bring out one of the largest plates of pasta that I have ever seen in my life. The sad part was that the food wasn’t even that good. I had thought that even random tourist trap restaurants in Italy would serve decent pasta, but I guess not.2
After this disastrous but very filling experience, I continued on walking toward my accommodations. Perhaps it was a trick of the mind, but I could’ve sworn that my pack felt tighter around the waist after that spaghetti. I passed through the famous St. Mark’s Square, though I didn’t really stop, because I wanted to get to my room (and the first available shower in two days), and I would have plenty of time to explore the next day.
It was not too difficult locating my accommodations, at a guest house operated by a local Catholic religious order located in a wide alleyway near a park. I had a fun adventure when checking in, fulfilling one of my biggest Italy fantasies.
You see, since I was arriving fairly late, the priest on duty at reception didn’t speak any English. Of course, I don’t speak any Italian. This wasn’t really a problem for our communication; between a printed instruction sheet he handed me (in English) and some creative miming, he was able to get across all of the check-in instructions. But then, out of curiosity, I asked if he spoke Latin. Dicisne Latine? He immediately said “time out” (perhaps one of the few English phrases he knew), and retreated to find another priest, who actually spoke Latin fluently! Unfortunately, this was where I discovered that my Latin actually isn’t good enough to hold a conversation; I only managed to tell him (in Latin) that I had studied Latin in school before giving up.3 Oh well, I think I made a valiant attempt.
Slightly embarrassed, I retired to my room, which was small but perfectly serviceable. One could tell that it was part of a Catholic guest house because there was a crucifix hanging over the bed. I enjoyed having a proper, warm shower after having not been able to have one the night before (the mountain hut had run out of water).
The next morning, I woke up to quite the scare. You see, the previous day, Richard and I had split up: I had gone on ahead to make it out of the mountains in time to get back to Venice, while Richard would continue to hike. I had left my hiking poles at the Rifugio Rosetta for Richard to take with him for the remainder of his trip; I wanted to check if he had gotten them.
I first noticed that he hadn’t read my message from the previous afternoon. This wasn’t immediately concerning, as reception is pretty spotty in the mountains, and sometimes the huts don’t have very good wifi. Still, since the day before had been quite difficult terrain-wise (including some decently exposed sections), I thought it would be a good idea to just call the hut and double-check that he had made it there safely the night before. So I did that…and the lady who answered my phone told me that they had no record of his checking in last night. This is where I started to become alarmed. I tried messaging him again, but with no luck.
I seriously contemplated calling mountain rescue on him, but it was a tough call to make, as the helicopter bill would have been quite substantial. Thankfully, I was saved from having to make that decision because Richard finally responded to my message before my self-imposed deadline of noon. I was glad that he was okay; that was certainly an interesting way to start the day.
After hearing that Richard was okay, I went back to tourist mode. I had a pretty basic but perfectly serviceable breakfast at the guest house, before setting out to see St. Mark’s Basilica. The line to get in wasn’t terrible, and once I got inside, I was quite blown away by the impressively decorated Byzantine interior, adorned with elaborate mosaics depicting characters from Biblical and Church history. I’ve been in quite a few nice churches, but this one might take the cake. Just look at it:
I paid for all of the extras, including admission to the Pala d’Oro, which grants access to the tomb of Mark the Evangelist, the traditional author of the Gospel of Mark. According to local tradition, some faithful Venetian merchants smuggled the body out of Alexandria in the ninth century, fearful that the city’s Muslim rulers were planning on ordering the destruction of the church where it was housed there.
I also paid for entry to the museum, which I also thought was well worth it. Probably the most famous piece in the museum was the original set of Horses of Saint Mark, which were stolen from the Hippodrome of Constantinople, when the crusaders infamously sacked the city in 1204. The museum ticket also included access to the roof, which was a pretty cool spot from which to observe St. Mark’s Square below.
After seeing the basilica, I just wandered around the city for a bit, stopping for lunch at a random trattoria down an alleyway. I figured it must be good because I saw a table of local gondoliers in uniform eating there on their lunch break. I ordered an Aperol Spritz (as one must when in Venice) and a spaghetti with garlic, olive oil, and peppers—my new favorite Italian dish after having a wonderful instance of it at the Rifugio Plose. As expected, the food was excellent.
I have realized, though: I think I just like the most “Asian-tasting” Italian dishes: noodles with garlic and oil, or with seafood. Maybe I’m too biased toward Chinese food and should explore more “authentic” Italian cuisine.
After lunch, I killed some time at the Rialto Bridge before going up to the rooftop terrace at Fondaco dei Tedeschi (once a German merchant’s hall, now an upscale shopping area) to admire Venice from above. This one I actually had to book several weeks in advance; I saw people who tried to walk up to the terrace without a reservation get turned away. As one might expect, the view really was quite pleasant.
I found myself quite tired after this, so I went back to the guest house and took an afternoon nap. Yes, it sounds lame, but can you blame me for being tired after a week-long hike?
When I finally woke up from my nap, it was time for dinner. I decided upon a random local restaurant, and this time, I hit the jackpot: the food was pretty good. Though to be fair, I ordered a seafood linguine, which is probably a pretty safe bet for me.
I then walked back to St. Mark’s Square to watch the sunset from the observation deck at the top of the bell tower. This also required advance reservation; I’m quite pleased with myself for having lined up my ticket timing with the sunset. I think I was richly rewarded for my planning:
I hung around the observation deck for a bit just admiring the view of Venice; by the time I descended, it was already quite late.
After a quick consultation of Google Maps, it seemed like one of the few attractions still open at that hour was the Doge’s Palace, which happened to be next door.4 I bought a ticket and entered.
It was actually quite neat having the museum almost entirely to myself; many rooms were empty, and those that weren’t were nearly empty. I spent a fair amount of time in the palace, reading most of the signage and generally learning a lot about the history of Venice. I of course saw Tintoretto’s masterpiece Il Paradiso on the wall of the main chamber, but for some reason I think the painting that moved me the most was The Last Senate of the Republic of Venice by Vittorio Bressanin, depicting a Venetian patrician leaving the Ducal Palace for the last time after the fall of the republic to Napoleon’s army. He held his head in a sad but dignified way, a fitting conclusion to the thousand years of Venetian history that I had just learned about in the prior exhibits.
In general the Doge’s Palace exceeded my expectations, although I will admit that I felt slightly spooked touring the old palace prison at night with no one else around…
When I woke up the next morning, I saw that my flight had been delayed substantially. This actually turned out to be a bit of a good thing, as it meant that I had enough time to attend a local church service. I went to St. George’s Anglican church, the only English-speaking church that I could find in the city.
The service itself was a fairly standard Anglican service from the Book of Common Prayer. After the service, I met and chatted with a guy named Stephen, who turned out to be the pastor of New Covenant Baptist Church out near Seattle. He was here on vacation with his family.
Finally, the last thing I did in Venice was to grab lunch at a local restaurant situated on the waterfront with an absolutely splendid view. I gave the local squid ink pasta another try and liked it a bit better this time, though really it was the view that sold the restaurant. At last, I took the vaporetto (basically a local water bus) back to the Piazzale Roma, from which I boarded an actual bus back to the airport.
The flight back to New York was not that exciting. I finally watched Dune 2, much to Daniel’s delight, so I now understand the Lisan al Gaib meme. I also chatted for a bit with the girl siting next to me, who turned out to be going on vacation with her family to New York. When she asked me for recommendations in the city, I briefly considered sending them to Eataly as a prank, but then I decided it would be too cruel.
One thing that I was impressed by during my visit to Italy was the sheer variety of ingenious contraptions found in various Italian toilets. In one airport toilet, there was a row of urinals with what appeared to be an infrared light built into one side and a sensor on the other; as soon as anyone stepped up to any of the urinals, the sensor would be triggered, and all the urinals would start flushing at once. In the Doge’s Palace, there was a foot-operated flush, and at a random restaurant, I saw a foot-operated sink. Oh, and I also saw a squatting toilet at the Rifugio Rosetta, which was the first time I’d ever seen a squatting toilet outside of Asia. Some pictures are included below in case you, like me, are fascinated by ingenious lavatory contraptions:
This was also my meant to be my buffer day, so that in case I missed the one bus I was supposed to take out of the mountains, I would have a day to make it to Venice before my flight back to New York would depart. I made the bus, so I got to spend the day in Venice instead.↩︎
This was a bit reminiscent of the experience I had while bikepacking from Pittsburgh to DC, when I ordered way too much food for dinner at a local restaurant. But that pasta was actually really good.↩︎
In retrospect, I think I know enough to introduce myself and ask for his name, but I was a bit panicked at the time trying to remember all my verb conjugations, so this didn’t occur to me.↩︎
This is perhaps a bit of a meme, as my high school quizbowl captain—a guy named Doug—used to refer to himself as the Doge, in reference to the rulers of Venice.↩︎
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