Fine (The End)

Today is what we refer to as our “Jewish Day”. We went for a long walk all the way up to the old Jewish ghetto, which happens to have been the first in the world (go Venice!).

We took the guided tour through three of the tiny ghetto’s five synagogues. The synagogues are very plain from the outside. The only way to see that it is a synagogue is that there are five arched windows in a row. See them up there? Five!

The synagogues were also housed in the top floors of these buildings. This is because the city would not let the Jews build a freestanding synagogue until a later period.

Here is an illegal picture of the ceiling of the German synagogue. I took it right before the tour guide said “no pictures please”. The synagogues are very ornate and differ as they were built by Ashkenazim and Sephardim all hailing from different countries. A lot of them have similar characteristics to the catholic churches in Venice since they were built by the same craftsmen.

Even the ghetto has its evil bakeries.

After the tour we found “Gam Gam” the kosher restaurant in the neighborhood. We were treated to light and crispy latkes

and an assortment of vegetarian goodies like hummus, falafel, veggies… It was probably the lightest kosher meal either of us has ever had.

Here we are at eating al fresco.


Tonight we will go back to “our place” for one final dinner. The name is “Al Portego” if you happen to be in the neighborhood.

Don’t ask me how to get there though.
The food is out of this world.

Mmmmm....


And so we bid farewell to Venice in all its touristy kitsch and former glory. It is still a fascinating place to see. And as Al Gore will tell you, you better go see it soon. We are off to the airport tomorrow via water taxi. For the record we when all is said and done, we will have taken 5 airplanes, 1 bus, 4 trains, 2 taxis, and 5 boats on this trip! I would like to thank my mother for this wonderful experience. We have always talked about doing something like this together and I feel very fortunate to have actually been able to do it.

So this is Julie and Pei-hsin, signing off from Italy (and promptly going into gelato withdrawal).
Arrivederci!


(sigh)

Ahhhh, Venice...

And so we trade the relative tranquility of the Piazza Maggiore in Bologna...

...for the mass of touristic humanity that is the Piazza San Marco.

Howdy, Roger!

That is one gaudy church.

Amazingly, we find our hotel on the first try. It’s right off the San Zaccaria vaporetto stop on a teeny tiny street that you’ll miss if you blink.

Our home for now, Albergo Doni. It’s very humble and there’s a whole lot of stairs and shared bathrooms but if you don’t mind that sort of thing and don’t want to spend $300 a night we recommend it highly.

This is our room.

And the view's not bad either.

We also happen to be on the direct route of the local gondoliers so we get the experience of floating around and getting sung to without the embarrassment.

If you can escape the constant swarms of tourists around San Marco you will find amazingly deserted little streets and piazzas. It’s easy to get lost. It’s actually a given that you’ll get lost, but you can see some great things and maybe catch a glimpse of what Venice used to be like before Carnival Cruise started showing up.





We took a nice visit to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum. Got our fill of Miro, Picasso, Calder, Pollock and all the other greats. No pictures allowed so sorry folks, but it was something like this:

Along with its art and history, Venice is also a city of evil, evil pastry shops and the like.




But you can’t live on chocolate and pastry forever (can you?) so we knew we needed to find somewhere decent to eat. This is a tall order in Venice, the city of the “menu turistica”. Translated that means, “don’t touch it with a ten foot gondola pole.” I’d heard of a Venetian staple called cicheti, little snacks not unlike Spanish tapas. Locals go for a small glass of wine or a “spritz”, wine with campari and soda, and then snack on some yummies from a small counter display. We asked our helpful host at Albergo Doni and he pointed us to one that he called “typical”. We wouldn’t exactly describe it as that. Maybe oh, “fantastic” and “delicious” and “cheap!!!”? (We liked this place so much, in fact, it was the only restaurant we ate dinner at our whole time in Venice. We figure, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.)
So anyways, we grabbed a place at the counter and tried to sample everything which turned out to be impossible. We started with teeny tiny snails and big fat asparagus. We moved on to teeny tiny soft-shelled crabs, spinach, a potato and ham cake and a wonderful spring roll with crab. It was all very tasty.

We then moved on to a layered eggplant dish with a gorgeous tomato sauce, sautéed shrimp and those little ball thingies, which turned out to be olives stuffed with meat then breaded and deep-fried. Oh yes.

We were stuffed to the gills with great food, but then on our way home we somehow managed to throw all sense of decency out the window. First we saw this:

The next thing we knew we had chocolate and Grand Marnier crepes in our hands! Oy veh.

The next day, having regained our composure somewhat, we wandered around the city and found this great old mansion called the “Palazzo Contarini Del Bovolo”.

We also found the yarn shop.

We found a great pizza place, which was so good we found it again the next day (and probably the next as well). Here’s a white pizza with radicchio.

Our one day of drizzle saw all the gondolas out of service.

We took the vaporetto out to “Cemetery Island”.

This is where locals and some foreigners used to and still do find their final resting places.

In the “acatholic” section (we found that amusing) are the three most famous people buried there. Ezra Pound:

Igor Stravinsky (we bow down)

And finally, Serge Diaghilev, the great impresario of ballet.

Someone even left him some stinky shoes. Only a dancer would find that endearing.

After that we made the obligatory stop at Murano, the island of a thousand glass shops.

We went into a gallery that houses the three most famous glassmakers of the island. Mom bought me a gorgeous piece by Carlo Moretti. You’ll have to come over to our house to see it because it’s all bubble wrapped now. Thanks, Mom!

After Murano we decided to get the most out of our vaporetto passes and just ride the ferries around. We got some great views of the lagoon and city.

This is what a vaporetto looks like, by the way. They operate very much like a subway system, but you know, on water.

More views from the water.

These guys were training for some kind of color coded rowing race.

We got dropped off at the Lido, a chic little island where the Venice Film Festival is held. We took in views of the gaudy hotel there…

…and then took in some more of this stuff:

The vaporetto dropped us off on the main island and we wandered back into town. There was evil at every turn.


Everyone’s heard of the famous “Bridge of Sighs”.

Only, slightly lesser well-known is the “Bridge of Tits” located in the former red light district.