We had a 4 hour food tour starting at 11am.
Our guide, Anna was knowledgeable about Venice and the world. She spoke 6 languages and was born in Maldova. She first took us through the outdoor fresh fish, meat, fruit and veggie markets. Here she told us that one of the main vegetables is artichokes. We watched a man sitting on a bucket cleaning them at the market. We also found out that scallops come in large seashells. Our first stop was to a cantina, a very, very old local spot. It has a front door and then a "local door" as Anna calls it. If you want to have a snack you enter thru the front but if you want to buy a bottle of wine or a kilo of meat you enter thru the back. We had a sharp cheese, a small ham sandwich and artichokes boiled in olive oil, salt, pepper and parsley. They were all delicious. There were pink copper pots (used for cooking in the 1400s) adorning the ceiling. Here we also had our first glass of red wine for the day. It was super tasty with the dishes we tried.
Our next stop was a bakery for a flakey caramel pastry and a small circular biscuit. Everyone's favorite was the flaky caramel pastry.
After we went to SEPA, which is where we tried cod and olive patties, potato cups topped with mascarpone cheese and grilled veggies. Here we had prosecco that was local to the region.
Then we went to an outdoor patio to enjoy a meat and cheese board with fresh foccacia. Here my dad was trying really hard to stay out of the sun, so our guide, Anna, nicknamed him 'Mozzarella Man' because of his white suntanless skin. We all got a good laugh out of that one. The red wine here had a spicy after taste that we all really enjoyed.
Next stop: lunch. We had pasta with black squid ink, lasagna, eggplant parmigiana and seafood pasta with tomato sauce. Lunch was delicious but we had to ask for doggy bags because oh my gosh we were so stuffed. The wine here was a choice of red or white. We came to find out that our waiter was living in Venice but was originally from Albania so we exchanged pleasantries in Albanian before leaving.
Our last stop was for tiramisu-- the chocolate powder on top was really thick. I was stuffed so I didn't eat much of mine.
We thanked Anna for putting up with us all day (the poor thing-- you can tell we're American tourists because when Anna told us she was going to her other job at a leather store my mom thought she said a liver store ๐) we then wandered around at St. Marks Square which I could've sworn was called Summer Square (reason number two why we're tourists). We saw St. Mark's Basilica and crossed the Rialto bridge.
We sat along the water for awhile watching gondolas go by, until a gondolier chased us away. We stopped at an outdoor patio for drinks and then took a gondola ride around 7pm.
Our ride was supposed to be 30 minutes but it was more like 20. It was really cool riding up and down the canals where people lived. Did you know there aren't cars in Venice? Fun fact. It's a town built around water.
We headed to an Irish Pub to watch the US women's team play The English. Surprisingly enough there were a lot of other Americans doing the same so we made friends quickly. 2 hours later we were cheering excitedly because the women had won again!
No comments:
Post a Comment