Issue 10: Venice Guide - Itineraries for 3 perfect days.
Not once do I say you need to go inside the Doge's Palace.
I’m just back from a week in Venice. I think it was my 6th time there, which speaks to my love for this city. Venice is fragile and the population is now under 50,000. The city is struggling to stay alive on anything other than tourism. And yet, it does need tourists. Good ones. I think if you don’t arrive on a cruise, if you come to stay for several days, if you avoid buying tourist trinkets, if you really try to “live” in the place, and you patronize great bars and restaurants, you can contribute to the vitality and survival of the city.
Venice is a city where, even if you don’t make plans, you will have wonderful days. Just wandering what is essentially an open-air museum is a thrill. Every district has good cafes, bars, and bakeries that will delight you and fuel you for many miles of wandering each day. I travel because I want to shove the world into my eyeballs. Strip-mall America makes me lust for beauty. Venice delivers.
Another reason to recommend Venice is that it’s so close to other incredible cities. If you want the romance and drama of Venice, but also want to be in Bologna or Verona by lunchtime, you can do that. This is absolutely bonkers to me. One year, we spent the week after Christmas in Venice. On New Year’s Eve day we took the train to Bologna for lunch, we then witnessed the city preparing for its unique New Year’s Eve bonfire, and we were back in Venice in time for dinner and fireworks. The density of good things to do and see in northern Italy is remarkable and Venice makes a terrific base. Stretch the amount of time you think you want to be in Venice by about 3 days because you will want to take a few day trips.
I’ve written before about why I love Venice in winter, so I won’t retread what’s already covered in that newsletter. Instead I’ll simply describe three days that are designed to get you looking at the most beautiful things, in the cutest areas, and with the best food and drink in your belly. Following these three itineraries, I list all my favorite bars, bakeries, restaurants, and hotels.
Itinerary 1: A church of miracles, clam pasta, vintage postcards, and a trip to another island to see the earliest mosaics in Venice inside a church founded in 639.
Make your way to see Santa Maria dei Miracoli, a church almost entirely sheathed in marble. From here, take a gondola ride if that’s on your wishlist. (Definitely don’t take one on the Grand Canal. It will be busy and inelegant.) Next, in the square by this church, check out Libreria Miracoli, a bookseller with some of his wares displayed out front. His vintage postcards make great souvenirs. Now head to Osteria da Alberto and have some cicchetti and/or spaghetti with clams for lunch. Arrive with a reservation or right when it opens. Walk to Rosa Salva for coffee and a chantilly pastry. Then backtrack just a bit and head to Fondamenta Nove to catch the ACTV vaporetto line 12 to Torcello. Torcello is famous for a church that, in its original construction, dates to 639 AD, and it houses the oldest mosaics around Venice, one of which runs almost floor to ceiling in the church. Assuming you visit Torcello in late fall or winter (the lines for the waterbus are too long in summer), make sure you catch a boat that arrives at *Burano/Torcello before 3:45 or so. The church at Torcello stops selling entry tickets at 4:30pm, so you want to be sure you are there by 4pm to enter and look around. In winter this means you will also be catching that golden hour light, perfect for picture-taking as you leave. The island has a foggy, misty, evocative, haunted feel. Unmissable. Don’t forget to note the interesting bridge here. It has no parapet. It’s also the subject of a very famous Henri Cartier-Bresson photo.
*The boat doesn’t usually stop in Torcello, and that’s ok. You go to Burano, and then check the signs for Torcello. Go to the part of the pier marked for departure to Torcello. An Alilaguna bus is what makes this 5 minute run to Torcello. Just ask as you board, “Torcello?” to confirm you caught the correct ride. You will reverse engineer this for your departure back to Venice.
Itinerary 2: Coffee with a view, a two- minute gondola ride, a legendary art collection, and baccala mantecato at Ai Cugnai.
Start your day at the cafe at Gritti Palace. You could spend $1,400 - $4,000 a night to stay at the hotel, or you could just come and spend 8 euros for coffee. The price is worth it for terrific views from the Riva cafe, for a peek at the gorgeous lobby and bar interiors, and for use of the nicest ladies’ room in Venice. After you’ve had your coffee, go next door where you see gondolas lined up. You want to get in line for the “traghetto.” This is an oversized gondola that directly crosses the Grand Canal for 2 euros. Take the traghetto across to the Dorsoduro area. Walk about 4 minutes to the Peggy Guggenheim museum. In winter you shouldn’t need advance tickets, but it’s best to buy before if you don’t want to worry. For extra credit, watch this documentary before your trip to Venice. What a fascinating, complicated woman. It’s not too common that an art collection lives on in the home of the collector. Seeing these modern works displayed in such a real and human context is quite an experience, and an antidote to so many other antiseptic modern museums. Enjoy the courtyard gardens and the cafe. Next, walk to Ai Cugnai. But don’t walk too fast. This immediate area is very charming, especially right when you turn into Campiello Barbaro. As you walk from this little courtyard/campiello, pause on the bridge and look toward the grand canal. It’s beautiful any time of year, but especially beautiful when things are in bloom.
Keep walking until you reach restaurant Ai Cugnai. Here you should try their exceptional baccala mantecato with white polenta. It’s one of my favorite things to eat in Venice. Arrive with a reservation or be there a few minutes before they open. This place fills up quickly.
While you’re in the neighborhood, see if anything good is on at Palazzo Cini, a museum and gallery. (You passed it about 30 seconds before you arrived at Ai Cugnai). If so, pop in. Next, walk to the Carlo Goldoni museum. It’s about a 15 min walk from Ai Cugnai. If you want to save the steps, then go to the Accademia vaporetto stop and head to the San Toma stop. From here, walk to the Carlo Goldoni museum. This is a sweet little museum that doesn’t demand much of your time. You are here to see the puppet theater.
Congrats. You’ve now been to two (possibly three, if you went to Palazzo Cini) museums in one day. Now you are off to have another coffee or a drink. Walk to Adagio. This is a cute and contemporary little wine bar with very warm service. The people-watching from here is good. After this, do as you please. Backtrack one minute to peek at this antiquarian bookshop or see what this furniture restorer is working on. Maybe have a nap at your hotel. After your nap, when you head out for dinner, this would be a good night to hit up Adriatico Mar, a cool wine bar in Dorsoduro, the neighborhood you’ve spent most of today in.
Itinerary 3: Books in boats & bathtubs, a palazzo that lets the water in, a meal at the friendliest restaurant, and a mind-blowing “insider-y” museum that you absolutely should not miss.
Start off in Campo Santa Maria Formosa, reachable via the Rialto stop and a short walk. Head toward Querini Stampalia. This could be a 30 minute visit. It’s a minor museum, but major for lovers of modern architecture and Carlo Scarpa, specifically. Watch my 1-minute video about the Scarpa significance HERE. Apart from visiting the Scarpa areas on the ground level and in the garden, go upstairs to see the house museum and paintings. I love the grisaille (grayscale) paintings. It seems harder to paint convincingly in grayscale than color, so these are especially impressive to me. You need pay an extra 1 euro if you will want to take photos, so ask for this when you buy your ticket. Make sure you wear the photo sticker. The museum has a cafe and bookstore, and you know I love a pretentious tote bag, and this museum has a good one.
Next, leave the museum and head to Palazzo Grimani. Again, you don’t need to spend more than 30 minutes here but you absolutely cannot miss it because it has one of the most insane and beautiful rooms you will ever enter in your life. Look up everywhere. The ceilings have murals or are finished in decorative carved wood. You are done with museums, so now you should head toward Laltraottica. This is an optical shop with extremely cool frames. Bring your prescription or just bring your glasses and you can have standard lenses made and fit into your cool new Italian frames within a day or two. Italian eyewear makes a fantastic souvenir. Let ‘em know you are COOL and have have BEEN TO EUROPE. “Oh these… I got them in Venice,” is what you will be saying all year.
Keep walking for just 2 or 3 minutes to a legendary bookstore, Libreria Acqua Alta. This is the rare place that is very touristy and worthwhile. The main draw here is the merchandising. There is just… so much. Many of the books are piled into wooden boats, a giant gondola, and into small bathtubs. This kind of zeal for retail merchandising is dying, which is why it’s a total delight to see this orgy of books shoved into symbols of the city. You will want to take photos of it all, and you should. Even better, there are piles of books stacked up outside for you to climb to see a lovely view of a small canal.
You probably don’t want to haul back heavy books as souvenirs so the best things to buy and bring home are: Italian playing cards. These are cool because they feature different dimensions and designs than American cards. Tarot card sets. “Il Destino,” when it’s in stock, is a good one. And they also sell a special set of Italian books (small, thin, easy to pack) that you need to see. These little notebooks cover a range of topics like making Italian sweets, cooking with herbs, etc., and are printed in a cursive typeface with terrific illustrations. Even if you don’t read Italian, the recipe books are comprehensible with a little effort (and Google Translate). They make great gifts for the Italy lover in your life. Please buy.
Exit the side door to the alley and then walk to Ponte dei Conzafelzi (a bridge). You will have a view of one of the most striking buildings in Venice, I think the only one in Venice surrounded by water on three side. Next, cross the bridge and head toward Osteria alla Staffa. I love this little place. I think it seats only about 18 people. The service is always warm. They don’t take reservations so plan to arrive when it opens for either lunch or dinner. I recommend any of these: baccala mantecato, fritto misto, the sage/mushroom/asiago raviolini, the squid-ink ravioli, and their white chocolate & pistachio dessert that oozes when you cut into it. If you don’t get dessert here, you are pretty close to the same Rosa Salva mentioned earlier, and you can head there (before it closes at 8pm) for a treat, coffee, and even a sit outside to people watch in this lovely square. To make your way back to your hotel, the nearest vaporetto stops serving the Grand Canal are Rialto or San Zaccaria.
Now here’s the big list… All the details on where to stay, what to eat, and what to drink: