Advertisement
Published: August 17th 2014
Edit Blog Post
Wow. Watching Carmen in the Arena ended up being one of those experiences that most likely will not be topped. General admission tickets were the only ones in our price range, so we had to get there pretty early to get decent seats. We were able to find some space as close to the center as possible without having any light posts obstructing our view. You are allowed to bring food and alcohol inside so we came prepared with a bottle of Soave and waited for the show to start. At 8:45 pm the music began and the stage lit up. From when the show started to when it ended I literally did not stop smiling. The music was beautiful, the signing was perfect and even though it was in a different language I was able to follow most of it, and even caught the implied humor. After the opera we were hoping to catch dinner before the nice restaurants closed. That didn't happen and we ended up eating at a place called Hippopotamus, which is basically an Italian version of a Dennys. Mixed cuisines, open late and below mediocre food. We were starving at that point so we didn't really
care. The next day we woke up relatively early, packed up and headed to the Venice. The train ride was only about an hour and when you walk out the the train station in Venice you are immediately greeted by the view of the canals, bridges, water taxis, water buses and countless tourists. Its beautiful and overwhelming at the same time. Once we got our bearings, we hopped on a water bus and headed to our hotel on Murano. The island of Murano is famous for its glass and is about a 10 minute boat ride from Venice. The cuisine style in the Venice area is a fair amount different than what we had experienced so far. Fish is a much bigger staple and dominates most menus, not surprising since it is surrounded by the ocean. Our first meal on Muruano Gina had some crab and tomato ravioli and I had a grilled sea bass that they brought out whole and filleted right in front of me. Both were extremely fresh and light. The rest of the day we spent our time roaming the island and stopping in the countless glass shops. Other than the glass shops, there are handful
of restaurants, a couple bakeries, pharmacies and some hotels... so eat, drink and shop is basically all there is to do, but we were definitely okay with it. Because Murano is so small, and described to us as "still in the stone age", everything closes very early. We had our earliest dinner of the trip at Trattoria Valmarana. Their seafood risotto was to die for and the raw mixed seafood appetizer was worth trying, but not our favorite dish of the trip. The next day was entirely devoted to exploring the streets of Venice and taking a gondola ride. Venice is only about a mile and a half wide and two miles long, so you would think it would be easy to navigate. Wrong. With all of the bridges, dead ends and windy streets its is nearly impossible to not get lost at least once. We probably got lost a total of 5 times, but since Venice is so small it doesn't take long to find a street you recognize. We had a quick lunch and a random cafe before finding the perfect gondola. You cannot haggle with the gondola drivers. The price is 80 euro and thats that. But
there are ones that have less crowded routes and interact with you a lot more. Stefano was our driver. He was sweet, had good english and was extremely knowledgeable about Venice and its history. Despite what some people say, Gina and I found the gondola ride to be charming and well worth the money. After the ride, we made our way to San Marco square which has some of the most amazing architecture I have seen so far on the trip. Unfortunately it was so ridiculously crowded it was hard to fully enjoy without getting claustrophobic. We stayed long enough to snap some pictures then headed to a restaurant to drink some beer and recover from the tourist overload. The last regularly scheduled bus from Venice to Murano leaves at 8:30 PM, so we headed back, had a quick dinner of scallops and veggie soup, then went to bed. Today is a day trip to Burano, then Spain tomorrow! Ciao!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.05s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 26; dbt: 0.0297s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb