First day in La Serenissima

As soon as we arrived in our apartment Monday evening, we carried out the first essential errand, buying wine at the enotica conveniently located right across the campiello from us.

Not too far to go to fetch wine. This cold be habit forming.
Not too far to go to fetch wine. This could be habit forming.

But bigger chores awaited Tuesday, as we needed to find the supermarket and fetch the third bag of luggage, both intimidating travel routes through the maze that makes Venice. But Google Maps and iPods have removed much of the fear, mystery and loathing about navigating this unnavigable city.

A workboat on the way to fetch the accursed third bag of luggage.
While fetching the accursed third bag of luggage, we passed a typical Venetian workboat on the Grand Canal. We’re both on a mission.

Both trips went off with no loss of direction, no wanderings down blind alleys and no existential angst (well, for the most part). The wonders of modern electronic gadgetry.

We were so efficient, we had time for a pizza on the way back, which we split, while watching other couples eat en entire pie each. This is not unusual either in Venice or Nice or Paris for that matter. And you rarely ever see anyone fat. Obviously in Venice they walk a lot, but how do you explain the French cities?

We had to wait until 4:30 for the little vegetable shop down the street to open for the afternoon.  Venetians take longer lunch breaks than even the Nicoise.  When the store finally re-opened, Lynn started to pick up the tomatoes to smell their freshness and feel their firmness, whereupon people in the little shop went dead silent, then customer and manager alike told Lynn that touching the produce was absolutely forbidden.  All she was allowed to do was point and tell the clerk how many. That’s never happened before, anywhere. Do they expect to eat the produce as soon as it goes into the bag?

Back at the apartment, we settled in for a dinner at home. We had purchased a few “tramezzini,” little triangles of prosciutto and cheese sandwiched between two pork sausage patties. Two triangles just about equal the area of one slice of white bread. Seared in a frying pan, they tasted faintly spicy and richly cheesy. Combined with the new pasta we had bought at the InCoop supermarket and the untouchable lettuce from the produce market (3 euros compared to one euro in the Nice market), it was quite a tasty home-cooked meal. The locally produced cabernet franc  from across the way perfectly complemented our first home-cooked Venetian dinner.

Bellisimo!

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.