10/15/18: Venice

After just some brief sleep on the plane, we were up and at em, stepping off the plane at 11am local time. The customs procedure seems a little permissive, with me not asked anything except for getting a picture taken.

We took a long but meaningfully scenic water bus ride around Venice, digesting the scenery and style. 

We spent a good 15 min getting prepped for our dog by the concierge, which made our first day pretty packed. 

Lunch was a long walk down to Al Bottegon, a cicchetti spot away from the main tourist trap strip in San Marco's "Las Vegas" district right around the hotel. Andrea the concierge turns his nose up at generic Italian cuisine meant to placate the tourists -- pizza, carbonara, bolognese. These out of town dishes didn't reflect his Venezia. But Al Bottegon did. We piled on the various fish paste on bread bites and got a feel for Venetian seafood tastes. 

We then walked and water bussed up north into the San Marcuola area. First was another cicchetti joint that had some excellent fundamentals despite the cousin of The Situation behind the counter and the ambiance music being a mid-career Tupac record.

We walked a few blocks over to Paradiso Perduto for dinner proper. Our appetizer was as expanded form of the Saor bites we'd already tried, with superb polenta. 

 

But the main courses, a seafood mix stew and pasta, were disappointing. The pasta had a king crab shell in it, which wasn't warned by the server. The pasta was great, but the meats were only so-so. 

Walking around without mobs of tourists everywhere lent Venice a relaxed and civil atmosphere. It was great to see gondolas cruising down the charming canals with stereotypical Italian architecture all around.