Beautiful weather today! It was in the low-mid 70s, a bit breezy, but perfect for wandering the streets.
Breakfast was first order of the day – Italian style. Cappuccino and a pastry was a perfect start. A chocolate croissant, a cream-filled croissant and crostini with ham and sun-dried tomato were our selections.
Being up so early, gave us a chance to see local city work being done. Several times we saw local workers using these carts to move rubbish around and then later saw how it was collected. The cart was being swapped out for another on the boat.
We were extra early for our tour and I went into a fabric store. This irish lady was looking at fabric and we struck up a conversation. She was a quilter and we connected.
We met at the ’round church’ for our tour. There were enough for two groups, so we split and had Claire as our guide.
Claire led us away from the tourist areas, where generally locals would eat. We had a group of 11 with the countries represented being: New Zealand, Australia, Scotland and the states.
One of the first things was to cross the grand canal on a Traghetto. It was a ‘little bit’ scary. She said normally most people stand up but due to the wind and choppy water, we would be asked to sit down. As we all got on the boat, we had to continually balance out the boat and sit on the (6″) edge of the boat.
Our first stop was Cantina do Spade. We started with a light prosecco to drink and had 3 small plates: ham & cheese sandwich, anchovy & cheese sandwich and fried stuffed olives.
Our second stop was Cantina do’Mori. We drank a light Pinot Bianco with a codfish crostini.
Our third stop was at Osteria alla ciurma, a cicchetteria veneziana. I took a break from the wine and had a arancia (orange) soda drink. Our food was a mix of crostini. The best was the one in the middle with pancetta bacon. I had the bottom middle crostini. It was good, but not like the one above it (pancetta).
The next stop we were able to all sit inside at tables at Ostaria all’anlico Dolo. You could drink white or red and we had one of both. The crostini was calamari in red sauce (left) and the typical sardine crostini on the right.
Our last and final stop on the tour was at Sacro e Profano. The drink was a light white wine and we ate from a mix of crostini. I had the upper right crostini with salami. By this time I was full and after two tiny bites, passed it along to Eric. We finished with tiramisu and a venetian spritzer.
We were able to get one photo of our tour guide, Claire, before she departed our group.
On the way back to the apartment, we found this church and toured the inside. I would have loved to show some photos, but it was prohibited. It was a beautiful church.
There was an article that both Rich and I read from Nat Geo and it talked about a spiral staircase. After much searching we found it.
Only two of us paid the fee and walked the 80 stairs to the top. The views were marvelous.
You can see where the other two are.
On to San Marcos Plaza!
After a brief respite at the apartment AND changing shoes, pizza was tonight’s dinner choice. After all, we are in Italy. 🙂 Eric found one that was fairly highly rated.
Our waiter said the pizzas were individual sized – but yikes. We could have easily split one between two of us. Of course the advantage of individual pizzas were four different orders: prosciutto with funghi (mine), margarita (Karen), buffalo mozzerella (Eric) and prosciutto with zucca (Rich). The bottle of wine helped finish out the meal.
We ‘filled in the cracks’ by stopping for gelato on the way home. So ended one of our days in Italy.
Ciao!
Ginny
Darden Travels 