At the Trattoria San
Remo I was shown how to properly eat Italian sphegetti.
The proprietress showed me how to fluff it up so that the meat, tomato sauce and pasta are mixed together. Then you twist it around your fork ready for eating and wash it down with a good house wine.
This little trattoria was one of the gems of Venice. And we wondered each night how we managed to find it as it was tucked away under the hundreds of bridges on one of the hundreds of canals north of the Bacino di Orseolo. For 33,000 lira we would have spaghetti Bolognese, fresh salad, bread and garlic oil. Or the seafood - what is the point in coming to Venice and not trying the seafood? Lobster and squid were very expensive but the "frito misto" - seafood fry-up was a bargain at 40,000 lira. It was so good I can taste it even now.
Part of the Venice experience is dining on a canalside restaurant. This experience does not come cheap as the restaurants pray on the tourist trade and have high prices. A general rule of thumb is that the more spectacular the location the higher the prices. If you choose a restaurant overlooking the Rialto bridge or the Grande Canale then it will be more expensive then a little trattoria tucked away in eastern Castello. After a while you will wonder how can the locals afford to eat here?
The proprietress showed me how to fluff it up so that the meat, tomato sauce and pasta are mixed together. Then you twist it around your fork ready for eating and wash it down with a good house wine.
This little trattoria was one of the gems of Venice. And we wondered each night how we managed to find it as it was tucked away under the hundreds of bridges on one of the hundreds of canals north of the Bacino di Orseolo. For 33,000 lira we would have spaghetti Bolognese, fresh salad, bread and garlic oil. Or the seafood - what is the point in coming to Venice and not trying the seafood? Lobster and squid were very expensive but the "frito misto" - seafood fry-up was a bargain at 40,000 lira. It was so good I can taste it even now.
Part of the Venice experience is dining on a canalside restaurant. This experience does not come cheap as the restaurants pray on the tourist trade and have high prices. A general rule of thumb is that the more spectacular the location the higher the prices. If you choose a restaurant overlooking the Rialto bridge or the Grande Canale then it will be more expensive then a little trattoria tucked away in eastern Castello. After a while you will wonder how can the locals afford to eat here?
Venice is a city for the rich, there's no denying that, but people do live here and certainly don't go to the restaurants every night. They have the 'Bacari's' to cater for them. These are bars/tabacci's/cafes where they can pick up a pachito or pizza at a reasonable price. If you are a canny tourist you can spot the good Bacari and join the locals for their mid-day Bellini for half the price of the restaurants.
For there is a rule in Venice which says picnic's are forbidden (I broke this unintentionally) therefore tourists are forced to frequent the thousands of overpriced restaurants which line the Mercerie or Rialto Bridge. There is no real nightlife in Venice, certainly not comparable to Bologna or Milan, so in the evenings the tourists wander around Piazza San Marco, have something to eat then go to bed. There is only one disco in the city - 'Casanova' on the Lista di Spagna (which we didn't try) so most of the locals can in the car and go to Mestre or Lido di Jesolo. Venice is left to the tourists at night - imagine it, thousands and thousands of tourists gazing into each others eyes across restaurant tables. It's enough to make you want to jump in the canal
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