Sunday, 26 September 2010
Ciao!
Wow! What an incredible day it has been, and we haven’t even gotten to dinner yet!
Up around the usual time, and down for breakfast at 8 a.m. Good breakfast – salami and prosciutto, rolls, cheese, hard boiled eggs – I do like all that for breakfast, including some wonderful sweet chocolate bread cut into small squares … YUM! (We need to enjoy it now, as we have to leave early tomorrow morning for the airport!) R logged in to check email, and I talked to one of the owners about getting to the airport. Decided to take a water taxi, as three bridges between us and the vaparetto at Zattere, and one of the special boats to the airport from this end of the island doesn’t start running until 9 a.m. It is a splurge, of course, but figure that with luggage and Mom, it will be the easiest way all around – and we won’t have to fight our way on to or off of any boats. Water taxi scheduled for 7 a.m.!
Out about 9 a.m. and heading to Salute. There was no place to buy boat passes, so we hopped on a #1 for free and rode over to San Zaccaria near San Marco. (Talk about scofflaws!) Bought 24 hour passes for the three of us – at 18 E each, they were expensive! (Public transportation here SO much more expensive than in Rome! There, we got 7 DAY passes on all buses and metro for 16 E each. Here it is 18 E for 24 hours, although I believe that things got comparatively cheaper the longer the time – something like 7 days for 50 E…) So…off we went, on a #42 that took us along the waterfront, past the bianelle grounds and around the corner to let us off at Fondamente Nove. There we caught another vaparetto out to Burano. Now, please note: Murano is where all the glass is blown. Burano is where the lace is made. And, for a lovely and relaxing change of pace, Torchello and Burano are the places to go! Took about half an hour to get out there – beautiful, sunny day. We got off at the first stop on Burano and strolled through the neighborhood and admired the water and the parks. Burano is really lovely, especially because of their painted houses! They use the most incredible colors, and all jammed together, it’s a great sight to see!
Walked into the public part of town to admire the lace (did see an older woman working on a beautiful piece!) and look in shop windows. Found a nice place under an umbrella for lunch, watching the rest of the world pass by! Fun to see neighbors coming home from church and greeting each other, all mixed in with tourists of every nationality. For lunch, Mom started with bean soup, which she said was delicious. From there, she tried her first gnocchi with meat sauce, which was the same thing that I had. It was delicious! R had a plate of penne and a spicy sauce, which was excellent. Started with Prosecco, ended with red wine; Mom stuck to white wine. Mom finished her repast with tiramisu, which she has had before, but didn’t remember. She started out not caring for it too much, but by the time it had entirely disappeared, she had changed her mind. I got my usual gelato at a nearby shop – will really miss it when we leave Italy tomorrow!
Wandered through the square and out the other side, finally turning back to make our way to the vaparetto stop. And, we saw aqua alta! (Italian for high water!) The tides sometimes rise so much that the streets will flood, at which times wooden platforms with legs about a foot long are set out to form a path to walk on. Have never seen it before in action – where the tide washes up on the sidewalk, although it seems that we’ve seen the stored platforms before, probably at San Marco square.
Got a vaparetto heading back toward Venice, and actually went in a full circle and out by Piazalle Roma and the train station from yesterday! Just stayed on the vaparetto, as it worked its way back around to San Zaccaria, where we again got off and found the #1 toward Rialto. Took that two stops to Salute, and voila, we were back at the Ca Zose! An interesting thing, though – we had a ticket inspector on one of the boats – on a Sunday! Fortunately, we were covered and were scofflaws no more! – so note: They do check, even when you think they won’t! Glad we didn’t get caught last night or this morning! I think the fine is something like 50 E each!
Back about 4:30 to the hotel for a rest. Out for dinner in about half an hour!
More later!
Love,
m
x
Dinner update! Up and out at 7 p.m. and walked over to Taverna San Trovaso at the recommendation of the hotel owner. Terrific place – great food, within reasonable walking distance, and good prices! What a great combination! I think we got the last free table that would accommodate three people. After that, they were turning people without reservations away! (Except for what appeared to be a HUGE tour group of some sort – French, at least 50+ people who were quickly whisked away to an upstairs room!)
Mom had vegetables – three separate plates of spinach, incredible grilled peppers and wonderful eggplant. R and I had the “menu touristico” – R choosing the penne with tomato sauce for starters, and me their great vegetable soup. Both R and I had chicken breast with lemon and spinach for mains. Dessert for Mom was an amazing meringue cake with lemon, and I had their chocolate “truffle” – vanilla ice cream in the center, surrounded by chocolate ice cream and the whole mess powdered with cocoa! It was GREAT! R drank his dessert – Amaretto – as did his mother in law.
Very lovely dinner and a terrific farewell to Italy! We’ll be out early in the morning!
Love,
m
X
No comments:
Post a Comment