Bella Venezia: Men in White Coats & Pork Signs from Above

With a little time before beginning spring semester of my Wine Studies program, I decided a weekend in Venice would be an easy venture and was on my "must see before leaving Italy" list.  It is only two hours away by Eurostar & I live within a seven minute walk to the train station.  Trains depart almost every hour for places like Venice, Rome, Milan, Bologna, Naples, etc. I have no excuse not to be on more of these trains before I leave Italy. No excuse.

It's surreal, really, waking up in Venice this morning, having breakfast, looking out on a canal, a gondola parked outside my hotel.  By lunchtime I was already back in Florence, munching a salami sandwich, unpacking, and jamming to MTV.

NOTE:  The dance to Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" is best not to be attempted while eating salami.  Just sayin'.  And is it me, or do some elements of that dance resemble Michael Jackson's "Thriller?" 

So back to Venice - I won't go into the trite descriptions, you know, "Ohhhh, soooo romantic..." You know the deal with Venice. But I did snap this photo, just to scratch any romantic itch you may have.  I don't know this couple, but I thought they really were the essence of "go get romantic in Venice."  Not posing it, but being it.


Gondole fun facts: They are made with eight types of wood, and coated with five layers of black paint.  The bottoms are flat so as not to create waves, and they all have this 'right lean' thing going on so as to make them steerable.  Each Gondolier goes through a certification process, including a test of navigating one of the narrowest canals in Venice.

Oh, you know I did a little reading on the train on the way up, and a little "documentary viewing" - which I then watched in 3 other languages, just for fun.  The history is fascinating, and I'm sure I only scratched the surface.  But the one thing I really wanted to experience in Venice was Harry's Bar.  It was here the Bellini was invented and first served in 1948.  After seeing Food Network Television's Giada De Laurentis's special on Italy featuring a visit to Harry's Bar a few years back, well, I had to go check it out.

Harry's Bar fun facts:  

1) The service was impeccable.  But the words 'overrated' and 'overpriced' have never been more clearly defined than an attempt at lunch here.  And don't worry about lines - no one's waiting to get in here - that should have been my first clue. 

2)  I always knew I'd have an experience someday with "men in white coats" - but had no idea it would be here.  The servers are very elegant, extremely polite, attentive, and professional, and to top it off they are pleasant, and not pretentious. Men in white coats are fun to play with. You make the slightest motion they move toward your table. You look their way, they nearly stand at attention while trying to see if they can read your mind to see what you want.  You smile, nod, and they stand down.  At ease, fellas, I'm just taking a break from this giant pile of risotto to gaze out at the water.

3)  If you do insist on paying in excess of what one might spend on hot new above-the-knee boots (on clearance, thank you very much) for LUNCH, then insist on doing it in their upstairs dining room.  Oh, they won't tell you about it, until you make a scene because you are crammed in between two tables, chairs ridiculously close together.  Like, touching.  Like, oh HELL no. Like, "I'm sorry, Mr. Manager.  I can't do this. That woman's fur coat is trying to drink my Bellini."  I was offered the less popular (secret), but BEAUTIFUL upstairs dining option. 

4)  In fact, I recommend the upstairs dining room, which has a lovely view of the water - and the desserts.  And P.S. the dessert was the most awesome part of the meal.  When two pretty men in white coats approached my table at once with desserts in both hands ... decisions, decisions, but being I already sacrificed eating out for the next month, I gave in. "Voreiiiiii ... questo." I chose the Meringata alla crema - hauntingly delicious in texture, flavor, and decadence.  I want it again.

5)  Watch the locals roll their eyes at the mention of Harry's Bar, and they will tell you, "You can get a Bellini anywhere in Venice, and you know, we DO have a Hard Rock Cafe!"  Note to self, revisit 'Giada in Venice' episode again where she's raving about Harry's Bar.  I've seen the reviews - from a practical sense, my initial instinct was to ask for my coat, pay for the Bellini (which I've made better myself, really) and leave.  But something from out of nowhere invited me to lighten up, sink in, and enjoy this once in a lifetime (I assure you) experience that I'd been wanting to have for several years.  Call it the romance of Venice, I gave in.

Piazza San Marco fun facts:

1) Pigeons.  Apparently they are famous.  And they know it.

2) The paper towels from the upstairs "Dames" room at Harry's Bar do a nice job of removing what pigeons did to your Anne Klein wool coat.  Seriously. 

3) Take a close look at St. Mark's Clocktower, constructed in the late 1400s.  It has all the signs of the zodiac, phases of the sun and moon, and the sun is on the hand indicating the hour as it rotates around what was believed to be the center of the universe at the time - Earth.  Of course we have since learned  the center of the universe is not Earth, but Starbucks.  Yes, this is what the Venetians were up to when Columbus was sailing the ocean blue.  Legend has it that the creators of this clock were blinded by Venetian senators to ensure the work of art could not be replicated anywhere else.  It is still accurate to this day, and all clocks in Venice are believed to be set off of this one since 1858.  

4)  St. Mark's Basilica - I couldn't quit looking at it.  It's an exquisite Byzantine structure, especially as the sun glazed and glinted off the gold in the mosaics during late afternoon. There were other places to go, things to see, servers to play with in the city, but I lingered in St. Mark's square, sitting, looking at the basilica, walking around it, sitting, looking, enjoying the light.
One mosaic that held my attention was the one with the guys in the turbans?  I went back and researched and found out that when St. Mark the Evangelist's remains were smuggled out of Alexandria, Egypt, his body was hidden under pieces of pork to keep the Muslims from prying into their stash.

So the next day, after revisiting this mosaic yet again, I pretty much knew that I was having pork for lunch.  Pig sandwich to be specific.  Where?  The Hard Rock Cafe.  I got hooked on Pig Sandwiches in London and Paris Hard Rocks.  Dammit, this mosaic was a sign from God - eat Pig sandwich at the Venice Hard Rock Cafe around the corner like the good local woman told you to.  French fries just sounded so good.  I practically left a trail of drool from the basilica to the restaurant.  I totally forgot how fantastic the food was, as it's been a few years since I bothered with a Hard Rock venue, but the service was phenomenal, and after the Harry's Bar experience the day before, hey - this was cheap!

Other Venice fun facts:

1) Little balls of fried dough covered with sugar - Frittelle - convenient for munching whilst getting your bearings and scoping out the city's treasures - and there are many.  Just make sure you remove the sugary evidence from your chin, scarf, coat, etc. when communicating with other human beings.

2)  I know there are signs telling you which way is what, but don't believe all of them.  Take two maps - the one from the hotel, and your own, as you will need one or the other to escape canal dead ends. 

3) Fur. Hats.  Big women in big fur coats and big hats. Everywhere.  PETA would have had a field day.  So why are the pigeons targeting my tidy little wool coat?  Just sayin'.

4) Gondalier talking on cell phone while steering - definitely a 'must see' - and you will see it - quite a bit.  Not sure if this is part of their certifications, however, but still quite impressive.

5)  The mannequins.  You have to see them for yourself, or order one from an adult-toy magazine - same thing.  I won't post a picture of my favorite, but suffice to say I won't be naming him "Ken." 

6)  Don't worry if you don't find the Peggy Gugenheim collection the first, second, third, or fourth attempt.  Pffft - signs.  They are wrong!  Use a map, ask, use the other map, ask, and pass the same courtyard with the tie-died sheets two more times, and you're there.  In all fairness, this area has much construction so there are many detours.

7)  Just because you spent hours trying to locate Peggy's Palazzo, don't fall into a false sense of security that you will have a nice quiet museum experience.  The big women with the big fur all found it.  And so did the people with the small children who you KNOW were fully appreciating this intimate collection of 20th Century art, including Pollock, Dali, Ernst, Chagall, and Picasso.

8) No cars. No buses.  No scooters. Everything is done by water.  Once this sinks in, that realization in itself is an experience.  You know that going there, but you have to experience that reality - like many others in this life - for yourself.

I said it before - this is why we travel - to get some glimpse into other ways of looking at life.  Every place has its own romance, allure, gustatory goodies, memorable people, and leaves its own special signature somewhere on your heart.