At this point Andy rolls her eyes and says “you say that, but you always wolf it down when we have a pud.”

That’s true as well. I love good puddings. The thing about dessert menus is in some countries they can swing from the divine to the deadly dull, especially in traditional restaurants. You never know which is going to show up. Portugal is a classic example of what I mean. This is a country whose dessert menus are dominated by puddings made from left over egg yolks after nuns have used the whites to starch their wimples. Conventual desserts have novelty value when first encountered, but after numerous occasions discovering all those desserts with odd little names (nun’s belly, lard from heaven etc.) consist of the holy trio of egg yolks, sugar, and cinnamon, it all gets a bit samey. But then, deliciously fruity crumbles, and dreamy, creamy cheesecakes can turn up on a lot of Portuguese menus as well, just to confound expectations.

My least favourite part of a meal is dessert… unless there is something which awakens the sweet-toothed child that slumbers within. And there regularly is, no matter where we travel around Europe.

White chocolate egg, Italy and Portugal
The dessert menu at Mundet, located in the non-touristy town of Seixal on the other side of the Tagus from Lisbon, is inspired by Alice Through the Looking Glass, and does feature goodies suitable for a wonderland setting. Humpty Dumpty involved a white chocolate egg enclosing Mundet’s take on a traditional sponge cake called pão de ló. It was fun, lip-licking tasty, and reminded us of another white chocolate egg dessert which caused a WOW moment, as it was dropped from above diners’ heads to smash into pieces on their plates. That one was at the two star Michelin restaurant Piccolo Lago on the banks of Lake Mergozzo in Italy. All night we wondered why there were sudden outbursts of laughter at tables around the restaurant, until a huge,white chocolate egg whizzed past Andy’s head to explode on her plate, revealing an anarchic splodge of raspberries with banana and caramel ice cream.

Deep-fried ice cream, Glasgow
It is true, the west of Scotland is deep-fried Nirvana – a land of battered sausages and hardened arteries. As teenagers we never thought twice about ordering deep-fried pizzas and Scotch pies from the local chippie after a night on the Tennents. But deep-fried ice cream at Oriental fusion restaurant Opium on Hope Street was a first for me. It consisted of a large ball of vanilla ice cream enclosed in melt-in-the-mouth golden, crispy, batter, drizzled with chocolate sauce and honey; the epitome of sinful dining.

Salt and caramel, La Palma
The first time we knowingly tasted salted caramel was at Jardín de la Sal on the volcanic badlands at fiery Fuencaliente, the site of a brace of volcanic eruptions, the last being in 1971. The restaurant specialises in giving traditional dishes a contemporary reboot. The signature dessert dish (literary as the chef actually signed it using caramel) was as wildly surreal as the surrounding terrain – featuring an eruption of chocolate mousse; chocolate cake; almond ice cream; broken Oreos; dried banana; toasted almonds; passion fruit syrup; yoghurt, and goat’s cheese foam. The salt used to elevate the caramel to the culinary heavens was from the salt pans outside the restaurant. Caramel desserts without salt just don’t make the grade now.

Mountain of cream, Bavaria
There’s no split personality issues with desserts in Germany. This is the country which gave the world the Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte – Black Forest gateau. The problem in Germany is trying to not eat too many delicious desserts. Sometimes a mission impossible. We don’t like to eat a hefty lunch mid-hike, but the desserts at Windbeutelbaron (a mountain lodge en route to the infamous Eagle’s Nest above Berchtesgaden) tempted us right off that path. Their speciality is a puff pastry, fresh cream concoction known as Der Windbeutel which is inspired by the various peaks of the Watzmann Mountains forming the panoramic view from the lodge’s terrace. Each cake is gigantic. We showed some restraint by sharing one, whereas most other customers devoured a mountain to themselves.

Spanish toast in Extremadura
If you like French toast, you’ll love torrijas, the improved Spanish version. The really good ones are as light as air, despite some looking the size of a brick. I could mention a few places where we’ve eaten outstanding examples, but the torrija cacereña at El 13 de San Anton in historic Cáceres gets pride of place as we enjoyed such a good evening there, plus the torrija was accompanied by English cream, coffee ice cream, and Licor de bellota.

Deconstructed classic in Drôme Provençale
According to some online sources, the USA is responsible for the gift that is lemon meringue pie. I’m afraid I’m not buying that story. Other sources attribute it to Victorian England; although nearly everybody accepts a form of lemon tart has been around since way before Columbus crossed the ocean blue. Meringue is a French word, so there’s definitely some French influence. It’s one of my favourite desserts, and when spotted on a menu every other option becomes a blur. The most memorable in recent years was a deconstructed version served in the leafy courtyard of L’entre2, a charmer of a restaurant in a typically Provençal stone house just outside the old centre of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux.

Pure pantomime, Tenerife
It takes some talent when a chef can please the taste-buds and put a smile on your face when you’re suffering from the flu. We’d booked Michelin star El Rincón de Juan Carlos in Los Gigantes months in advance and had spent all day in bed, sleeping, sweating, and shivering etc. after succumbing to some bug picked up thanks to the poor hygienic habits of too many of the guests at a resort hotel we’d stayed at. But there was no way we were going to miss a meal at our favourite restaurant in the Canary Islands. One of the things we enjoy about avant-garde dining is the sense of theatre and fun (see white egg previously). Chef Juan Carlos ended another triumph of a taster menu with a flight of pure whimsy in the shape of a bonsai-sized candyfloss tree. Magical.

Awesome apples, Austria
It’s unfair to pick out one restaurant when it comes to apple strudel as I don’t remember having a bad one anywhere in Germany, Austria, Croatia, or Slovenia; all countries where the dish crops up all the time on dessert menus. We’ve flaked their pastries in roadside cafes, alpine lodges, farmhouses, and bustling city centres. Purely to choose one to illustrate, I’ve opted for Gasthaus Zum Kranz in Freiburg. It was a cosy, convivial, traditional restaurant in the Altstadt whose apple strudel in custard rounded off a tasty introduction this environmentally friendly city’s gastronomy.

Hot and cold in Venice
We expected the gastronomic offerings in Venice to have suffered due to overtourism, just like we’d previously experienced in places like Dubrovnik. We ended up pleasantly surprised both by the quality of the food we ate and the fact that after dark there were nowhere near as many tourists filling the streets. On sultry summer nights good restaurants were far easier to get into than some other popular European cities. Our visit was topped off by a delight of a dessert at Impronta Cafe (not a cafe at all) in the arty Dorsoduro district – mascarpone cheese custard on a meringue waffle with lashings of hot liquorice and star anise sauce. The Italians simply do good food like nobody else.

Hard to beat puds, England
I’m biased, but nowhere in Europe does puds quite as good as Britain. And yet I struggled to come up with a standout one from England. Not England’s fault, it’s just that we don’t spend much time there and when we do it’s usually with family, so desserts don’t often figure. Then I remembered a December day a couple of years ago, sitting by the fire in Yo Olde Nags Head in Castleton with snowy scenes outside the window, good company at my side, a craft ale in my hand, and a bowl with sticky toffee pudding in caramel sauce on the table in front of me. These are the sort of ingredients that make hearty, British desserts difficult to top.

Overtourism isn’t new, it’s just taken some destinations time to stop seeing the dollar/euro signs ringing up on tills and start seeing the negative effects of what has often been partly their own doing – e.g. not regulating cruise ship numbers, or campaigns which have attracted the wrong sort of tourists. The first time I remember being shocked by the impact of the ‘wrong sort of tourist’ was in Barcelona during a blog trip to Catalonia in 2012.

Behaving badly in Barcelona
The transformation from the previous time I’d visited Barcelona was extreme. Las Ramblas late night was a stag and hen disaster zone. Waiting in line at an ATM I realised the swaying guy in front wasn’t withdrawing money, he was pissing against the wall. The group of bloggers I was with were mostly Spanish, American, and Canadian. The pissed up folk on Las Ramblas were mainly British. It was an embarrassment.
But, and this is a key point, the only place we’d experienced overtourism of this ilk was on Las Ramblas. We were taken to many other city centre locations where the visitor/local balance wasn’t weighted quite so much in the favour of drunken extranjeros.

Something we spotted shortly after moving to Tenerife was the herd habits of many tourists. A significant amount of people follow the same routes when meandering through towns and cities. In Puerto de la Cruz, the seafront promenade between the old town and the new could be jam-packed whilst one street back was crowd-free. Lots of great little tascas and interesting sights remained unseen by the majority of visitors because they were literally off the beaten trail. It was a piece of information which completely changed how we visited popular tourist destinations.

Drowning in Dubrovnik
I regularly read how Game of Thrones has been responsible for overtourism in the old town of Dubrovnik. I’m sure it has brought more visitors, but Dubrovnik had a serious overtourism problem long before GOT raised its tourism profile even higher. We had an exclusive sneak preview of a GOT tour just after the first series to feature Dubrovnik as Kings Landing was screened. GOT hadn’t become so huge at that point, we hadn’t even watched it and bluffed our way around as our tour guide, who’d been an extra in the series, pointed out key locations from the show.
The entrance to the old town, Pile Gate, was a manic war zone of tourists shipped in from cruise ships. It was a nightmare; moving through being almost impossible. A single organism which suffocated the beautiful, limestone-paved Stradun. However, dink up a narrow side alley and it felt like escaping a straight-jacket.

Huge tour groups are the scourge of many a city; touristic cream cheese disrupting the smooth flow through main arteries. However, they don’t clog up minor ones in the same way, which makes them easy to avoid. Once we know tour group routes we’re on the way to avoiding the worst impacts of overtourism.

A tour group antidote in Venice
Cities suffer from overtourism because they’re so popular. And they’re popular because they’re fabulous places to visit. Venice is a classic example. There is no alternative to Venice. It is stunningly unique and the most romantic city we’ve visited. We only got round to doing so in June last year as the ‘too busy’ tag had put us off for years. But it wasn’t that much different from every popular city we’ve visited. The main attractions were mobbed, and the routes between cruise ship and attractions were clogged. However, there is nowhere which isn’t beautiful in Venice and, again, just by veering off the main drag we strolled many delightful and quiet streets lining gorgeous canals. After dark, once the day-trippers had departed, the city wasn’t busy at all. We stayed in Venice twice, the first time was just off Piazza San Marco. The second was in Dorsoduro where the streets were equally charming… and totally devoid of tour groups.

Frantic Florence
It was similar with Florence. Where Ponte Vecchio and Piazza della Signoria were claustrophobic with people, Oltrarno on the south side of the river delivered the Merchant Ivory vision of Florence we’d hoped for.

Lively Lisbon
Lisbon suffers from overtourism of a different kind. I don’t tend to notice big tour groups in Lisbon as much as in the likes of Venice or Dubrovnik, they’re absorbed more by the city. But Lisbon’s popularity has exploded over the last few years among independent travellers. Airbnb and similar have capitalised on demand for a more ‘local’ experience, subsequently the personalities of some neighbourhoods have changed. There are pros and cons. Some areas which were seriously dilapidated have been invigorated. Others, which oozed local charm by the bucket-load, have had some of their character erased. Like every other popular city, visitors head to the same spots and tread the same routes. We’d never eat along Rua Augusta as it’s a tourist trap, yet its restaurants are packed daily even though there are far better places in the surrounding side streets. There are neighbourhoods where few tourists wander, between Chiado and Belém for example. As it’s another of those European cities where everywhere you meander is interesting, there are still plenty of crowd-free places to explore.

There’s no disputing these, and other cities like them, have a battle on their hands to balance the needs of the local population with that of a transient one. They are cities of joy, which is why so many want to enjoy them. Straying from the well trodden path helps reduce pressure on over-filled pavements, and spreads the love (i.e. money) as well as visitors around more.

That’s what I tell myself anyway, to ease a conscience which is guilty at wanting to visit already oversubscribed destinations.

Saturday midday – arrival at Porta Nuova train station
We booked the budget train option (€9.99) to travel from Venice to Verona, quickly discovering this meant no assigned seats, air-con courtesy of the window, and a million fellow passengers in a hot and sweaty carriage. In 30C temps it was more like a mobile greenhouse. We arrived in Verona like a pair of over ripe tomatoes. Mistake two was deciding to drag our suitcases a sweltering 1.5km to the Hotel Marco Polo near the Torre Pentagona entrance to the old town.

Saturday lunch

Arriving somewhere new at lunchtime is like being on a culinary game show where the clock ticks down as you struggle to make a decision over which restaurant table to park your bum on before the gong sounds and lunch is over. We chose Le Fogge off Corsa Sant’ Anastasia purely on the grounds the gong was just about to be hit. On Tripadvisor the restaurant earns a lowly two star rating and is classed as a ‘tourist trap’. A restaurant aimed at tourists on the main drag through Verona – who’d have thought? Negative reviews are from folk who ate a full-blown meal there; we wouldn’t have chosen it for that. But for a couple of birras with focaccia and a ham and cheese piadina (€4.50), it was fine. There was a wedding taking place at the Basilica di Santa Anastasia, so we were treated to a wedding fashion catwalk as we ate.

First contact

The first thing we do in any compact-sized new city is grab a tourist map, walk, and make a mental tick list of things to explore later. Piazza Bra where the Arena is located – buzzing but with pavement cafes and restaurants definitely aimed at tourists; Via Guiseppe Mazzini – good for shopping; Piazza Erbe – smaller with more character than Bra and worth a return look; Piazzi Signori – nice, but not quite the culinary hideaway described in one travel feature; Ponte Pietra – jazzy buskers, fewer people, views over the river and lots of romantic restaurants nearby; Museum of Love Letters – doesn’t exist; Juliet’s house – oh dear, oh dear. How to turn the greatest love story ever written into a tacky fifty shades of Juliet’s golden breasts, rubbed smooth by selfie-taking tourists. We returned to the Marco Polo via quaint back streets devoid of the masses, noting lots of individualistic bars and restaurants that deserved our presence.

Saturday night’s alright for…

Locanda 4 Cuochi just off Piazza Bra ticked all our boxes. The menu features updated Italian classics, including a four course chef’s menu at €39 (decent value – it’s a Michelin Bib Gourmand) the standout of which was a simple, creamy spaghetti dish. Although a sleekly sophisticated restaurant, each table had coloured pencils so young un’s could keep themselves amused by scribbling on the tablecloth. Ironically, the most enthusiastic ‘artists’ were a table of diners in their late teens.
For post-dinner wine, Piazza Erbe was a different scene from the afternoon. Gone were both Saturday market and day-trippers, replaced by annoyingly stylish Italian promenaders who provided great eye-fodder for avid people-watchers like us.

Sunday morning strolling
A morning dedicated to sightseeing.

Ponte Scaligero – as well as being an attractive red brick construction, the bridge is the place for riverside photos of medieval Castelvecchio, one of the city’s famed historic edifices. Over the river is Arsenale Franz Josef which Google Maps lists as being an open air museum. Of what I’m not sure, unless it was a mock up of a seedy urban development.
Torre dei Lamberti (€6) – in city of towers Lamberti at 84m high is tallest. The tower has two bells. One signalled the end of the working day and when fire broke out. The other summoned residents during times of war. Sounds potentially confusing to me – ‘should I bring a bucket of water or a gun?’
Arche Scaligere (€0.50) – a courtyard of elaborately decorated tombs built by the Della Scala family, rulers of the city in the 13th and 14th centuries. The tombs are rather beautiful and quite intriguing. But we’re graveyard ghouls.

Funicular di Castel S.Pietro – just over Ponte Pietra, the funicular was initially designed to make it easier for students to get to the Accademia delle Belle Arti. Now it saves thigh muscles from walking up to Castel San Pedro. It’s €2 (one way) well spent. The Castel isn’t much of a looker up close, it’s the views across the river to old Verona which are the draw.

Time out for a beer

Conveniently, next to the Castel is restaurant Re Teodorico where you get the same views but with the bonus they’re accompanied by a La Traviata beer (or whatever tipple you fancy). We only stopped for a drink, but once settled in our scenic seats decided to do what everyone else was doing and order a platter of mixed meats with focaccia and pickled vegetables (€14). This is a fabulous lunch venue.

Final culture stop
After a birra and a glass of white, the idea of wandering around Verona’s dusty Duomo didn’t appeal, but as we were passing anyway…

The Romanesque Cathedral (€2.50) wasn’t dry at all, thanks to an excellent audio guide which added colourful insights to what is ostensibly a mix of church, museum and archaeological dig. The marble baptismal font is particularly interesting, and gruesome. From one place of worship to another, this time at a church of Bacchus aka La Tradision (on a street leading from Piazza Bra); an absolute cracker of a tavern which stocks a huge range of wines and beers as well as snacks and pastries. If I lived in Verona I’d make it my local.

Sunday dinner

Ristorante Antica Torretta is a cliche of an Italian restaurant – an historic building near Ponte Pietra with tables lining an old wall decorated with climbing vines – which is why we decided to eat there. That and the fact it had fried courgette flowers on the menu. These were accompanied by the likes of Black Angus tartare and nettle filled tortelli with scallops (€16). After feasting we wandered back to our favourite post-dinner watering area, Piazza Erbe, strolling through empty streets lit as though they were part of the set of a romantic movie.

Mixed Monday morning

We still had a couple of sights to tick off. Juliet’s Tomb (€6) is a bit of a trek south east of the centre. Whilst we confirmed it was open, we didn’t check actual Monday opening hours – 13.45 to 19.30. We had a look through the closed gate and toddled back to enjoy more of the old centre instead, watching smartly dressed Italians peddle old bicycles with wicker baskets on the front – proper cycling. Instead of looming over the tomb of a tragic teenager we loomed over a couple of Aperol Spritz in Nobis, another snazzy little side street cafe/bar, before heading to what should have been one of Verona’s highlights.

Built in the 1st century A.D. the Arena is the third biggest Roman amphitheatre in Italy. It’s the centrepiece of old Verona, and somewhat of an anti-climax. From kitsch Roman centurions at the entrance to its disgusting toilets it underwhelmed. It’s an impressive piece of ancient architecture for sure, and I imagine watching an opera there would be quite special, but we didn’t feel it was worth the €10 entrance fee; half that maybe.

TV dinner

England playing Tunisia in the World Cup dictated where we ate. With Italy not qualifying for the tournament, restaurants showing live games were in short supply. Pizzeria Bella Napoli around the corner from the Marco Polo was one which was; it was also known for serving good pizzas. Being just outside the old town, the modern pizzeria was frequented more by Italians than visitors, none of whom were interested in the match. Subsequently, the football was screened without commentary. The pizzas (average €8) lived up to their reputation and the lively atmosphere in the restaurant made up for the muted game.

Tuesday Departure
Lesson learnt, we booked a seat on one of Italy’s red arrow trains (Freccia Rossa) for a comfortable, crowd-free, air-conditioned return trip to Venice. Although twice the price of the budget train it was more than worth the extra money.

Verona in a sentence or two
We’d happily spend more time in the romantic old city. We were charmed by its historic streets, the slightly off the beaten track attractions, and its restaurants, cafes and bars. There was generally more of a ‘local’ feel to Verona than we’d experienced in the heart of Venice. Basically, it was a lovely location to simply wander around aimlessly. The ‘big’ attractions were, ironically, Verona’s weakest aspects; kitsch and overrun with day-trippers. I’ll leave the final summing up to the Bard.

“There is no world without Verona walls, but purgatory, torture, hell itself.”

It happened with Marrakesh and to a lesser extent Dubrovnik. One fascinated yet I found it difficult to like; the other immaculately beautiful but with a soul which had been partly erased by the soles of too many cruise passengers.

Venice is one of those destinations which sat loftily on a grand cerebral column. But reports of it being an overcrowded tourist destination (regularly lumped in with Barcelona and Dubrovnik) had made us wary that it might be just another dreamy bubble waiting to be burst.

Arrival at San Marco

Ponte della Paglia was a bustling human ant hill of activity. On the choppy canal below, sleek ebony gondolas queued up to ferry their passengers under the Bridge of Sighs. The promenade in front of the Doge’s Palace leading to Piazza San Marco ebbed and flowed with a rippling sea of people. It was every bit as busy as I’d expected. But, as the vaporetto (water bus) deposited me in the midst of the madness, my first impression was that for all the photos I’d seen of Venice I wasn’t at all prepared for somewhere, as Shelley so eloquently put it, “temples and palaces did seem like fabrics of enchantment piled to heaven.”

Escaping the crowds

It isn’t the volume of people in some of Venice’s slender old streets which is the problem, all cities are by their nature busy places, it’s the marauding gangs of excursionists. There’s a self-regulated flow when people move as individuals or in pairs. But big groups clog up main arteries, getting in the way as they blindly follow the person with the umbrella or raised flag. It quickly became apparent the excursionists all followed the same over-trodden path between wherever they alighted and the main Venice attractions. Sometimes it was necessary to briefly do battle with the herds, but in a city where every unassuming lane leads to postcard scenes it was easy to escape the masses to enjoy streets which, if anything, were quieter than the average city.

There’s a reason…

… places attract the hordes. Because they are worth seeing. Piazza San Marco is as beautiful a square as I’ve seen anywhere. After dark, when cruise passengers are safely back on board their floating metal cities, it is especially magical. I might prefer to spend most of my time away from the frantic throng jostling for selfies on a tick-list of historic bridges, but I’d bitterly regret not taking a peek at what all the fuss is about. So, like everyone else, I happily elbowed my way into pole position on Ponte della Paglia to take the classic shot of gondolas gliding under the Ponte dei Sospiri.

Talking of Venice bridges, bookend 1

Rialto Bridge might be one of Venice’s architectural landmarks and another huge tourist magnet, deservedly so as it’s a gorgeous piece of work, but its ‘bookends’ were both interesting and illuminating. On the San Polo side is the Rialto Market which has been providing Venetians with fresh produce since the 11th century. Where the bridge was in danger of buckling under the weight of people, the market was relatively tranquil at around 10.30 on a Thursday morning. Crates of sunny courgette flowers gave me a yen for a plate of deep-fried ones, whilst neat rows of butterflied sardines looked ready to pop in the pan and then the mouth without fear of annoying needle-like bones getting stuck in the gums.

Talking of Venice bridges, bookend 2

On the other side of the bridge lay a more sophisticated shopping experience – T Fondaco dei Tedeschi, a palatial shopping centre inside what was originally a 13th century trading centre. You’d expect it to be busy but, like the market, it wasn’t. It’s now a shrine to designer labels and, whether fashionista or not, it’s worth popping inside for a gander (there’s also a rooftop terrace). Both modest market and luxury shopping centre provided clues to why some parts of Venice are mobbed but many interesting parts aren’t. It comes back to that old slow traveller’s nemesis, cruise ships and their passengers. Theirs is a whistle-stop experience of Venice, subsequently anywhere that requires time to explore at leisure is likely to be off the agenda. Even in the Doge’s Palace we noticed excursionists were given an abridged tour.

Quiet and quirky

Having spotted a sparkling, silver rhinoceros from the water bus which brought us to Venice, we set off in search of the mythical creature on the banks of the Grand Canal. Almost as soon as we left San Marco to enter the Castello district the canal-side became devoid of crowds, with only a handful of people strolling the same route. We found our shining rhino and continued exploring inland after reading about a bookshop with a difference. Apart from an annoying quartet of instagrammers who hogged a mouldy, water-damaged book staircase, the few other customers at Libreria Alta Acqua were actually browsing books, some of which were safely piled up in roll top baths. This quirky bookshop is full of interesting tomes and whimsical touches; like the fire escape pictured.

Bridges for everyone

The multitudinous bridges across canals around San Marco, both grand and humble, buzzed with visitors vying for a spot to capture their Venice visit on their phones. On some there were even small queues of people waiting their turn. Had they walked in any direction away from the main drag for five minutes they’d have found a pretty bridge all to themselves; the city is a glorious maze full of them. My navigational skills were trashed by Venice, but it didn’t matter in the slightest as this is a city where getting lost really does lead to hidden treasures.

An opposing view

The more we strolled, the more we saw much of Venice wasn’t very busy at all, yet nowhere in the five districts of Venice we wandered through was anything less than architectural eye-candy. This is a city where grandiose historic buildings are as common as the pigeons on Piazza San Marco. Anyone who stands on the San Marco side of the Grand Canal can’t miss the twin domes of the Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute across the water. But there weren’t many who crossed the Accademia Bridge into Dorsoduro where the Basilica is located. We sat on its steps enjoying watching life on the canal with the Doge’s Palace as a classy backdrop from a tranquil, crowd-free setting.

The monster of Venice

I’d seen photographs of cruise ships on the canals, none prepared me for the reality of just how incongruous they are. Like a behemoth rising from the depths, one suddenly appeared above the historic rooftops, making the buildings look as though they were models. Everyone stopped in their tracks to stare as it passed, thankfully at a snail’s pace. It is a shocking, sobering vision; however, it is spectacularly eye-catching and I’m glad to have witnessed it.

Ending in another Piazza

Our first night in Venice had involved being spellbound by its most famous piazza, our last night was spent in a square in Dorsoduro which was a complete contrast. Long, wide and lined with bars and restaurants, Campo Santa Margherita is located close to the university; subsequently it is students who give it its personality rather than visitors. Narrow alleys lead to it from all directions – on the south side one leads to a bridge known for bare-knuckle fighting – giving it an air of almost being hidden away. We could hear the buzz coming from the piazza before we found which spoke of the maze actually led to it. It was a square which reinforced the notion that, for all its popularity as a travel destination, Venice firmly retains the strength of character which has seen it flourish for centuries.

The greatest surprise about Venice? That it was more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. Romantic and visually stunning – an aristocrat which was also refreshingly down to earth – it not only met expectations, it towered high above them.

For the past two and a half hours we’ve been enjoying our five course tasting menu in the Castello district while the rain outside the window has been sending the surface of the canal into frenzied stipples. Now the rain has stopped but as we emerge from our gastronomic cocoon it’s to a parallel world to the one we left when we entered the restaurant. Myriad refracted lights dance off rain-sodden streets whose polished cobbles raise their heads above the deluge, gasping for air. The restaurant tables and chairs that thronged with pretty women wearing pretty summer dresses and sipping on Aperol spritz are now stacked in dripping towers, forlorn.

No longer carried in a tide of tour groups, we stroll the near-empty streets towards Piazza San Marco which we have to cross to reach our hotel. At the entrance to the piazza, vendors are selling plastic overshoes at €5 a pair. There are hardly any potential customers on the streets so their sales technique is tenacious. Beyond their grasp we peer across the expanse of the piazza, most of which lies beneath the level of the water which continues to rise, fed by gushing fountains that are sending the manhole covers into swirling dervishes as if held aloft by the dancing feet of an underwater acrobat.

Declining every shade of neon plastic overshoe that is trust into our path, we thread our way through the narrow alleys, trying to find an alternative route back to our hotel. At each intersection we peer into the piazza to see if the water is receding but to no avail. Following the edge of the canal, we finally arrive at a bridge that isn’t flooded and we know we can make it back to the hotel with dry feet. We cross over to San Marcos and skirt the northern edge of the piazza.

“Just one more photo,” says Jack, disappearing down an alleyway. I follow.

Milling around the edges of the piazza are a few dozen people – some are just standing at the edge of the water like reluctant paddlers, others have removed their shoes and are walking through the rain, splintering the illustrious reflections and sending them racing in shards across the surface. From behind the façade of Caffè Florian, the strains of a philharmonic orchestra drift into the piazza lending the scene an ethereal romance. I’m already spellbound when the orchestra begins to play Time to Say Goodbye (Con Te Partiro), and a scene that was merely exalted, transcends into divinity.

Piazza San Marco is flooded.

In the midst of its flood waters, two young women begin to waltz barefoot. The water laps around their ankles; the floodlit façade of the Doge’s Palace pours its gold in rivers to dance around their feet; the arched portals of the Basilica look on in raptured silence; the orchestra plays, oblivious to the drama that is taking place off-stage. And I stand and watch, tears welling in my eyes.

Sometimes, just sometimes, life is tortuously beautiful.

I compiled a list of recommendations from sources which included travel articles in online newspapers (we know first hand The Telegraph uses writers with destination knowledge so they were in, as was The Guardian). Tripadvisor is the voice of the people so had to be included. Finally we looked at suggestions from a travel blogger who grew up near Venice (Live Love Food).

The first test
… came shortly after landing when we picked up a street map showing Venice’s six sestieri (districts). After pounding city streets all day, I don’t want to have to walk them again for an hour just to eat dinner. Although all recommendations included either the district they were located or the closest vaporetto (waterbus) stop, Live Love Food’s was most user friendly. It grouped restaurants by district and included a brief intro to each sestiere which gave a useful insight into their differing personalities.

First bite
Our hotel located a few steps from Piazza San Marco. Nearby was Osteria San Marco, described by the Telegraph as “an oasis of quality in a sea of menù turistici”. It looked inviting but the pricey menu didn’t seem different enough to lure us in. The description highlighted a problem we had with some conventional travel writing reviews; they felt overly prescriptive, too uniformly similar – there was something lacking. They could have been written from research alone. Life Love Food’s, on the other hand, were similarly concise and although they didn’t include opening hours/website details etc. they did resonate with an insider’s voice.

Her recommendation for Local (Salizzada dei Greci) drew us away from the crowds around San Marco to the quieter streets of Castello (about 15mins walk). It wasn’t cheap, the 5 course taster menu was €75, but it did promise a creative take on classic Venetian cuisine. Local’s decor is on the minimalist side and the atmosphere a tad serious (they neatly fold your napkin if you stray from your table) but it was a successful start to our culinary experiences in Venice. An amuse-bouche of sardine, mini salt cod burger, and savoury poppadom was fun and full of contrasting flavours; the chef’s interpretation of scallop au gratin was excellent as was sole with potatoes, spinach, lemon and hazelnuts. A risotto with gò, nori seaweed and katsuobushi was good rather than great; and eel, mango miso and puntarelle lacked inventiveness. I enjoyed the dessert, chocolate berena (a fun take on Venice which included samphire paired with chocolate), but Andy was less keen. Overall, a great recommendation.

Simply traditional
Recommendations in broadsheets can favour restaurants which are new, different, expensive, boast a known chef, are frequented mostly by locals and so on. Decent places on the beaten track tend to get overlooked because there’s nothing different about them. This is an area where Tripadvisor comes in handy. Wanting a more traditional and less expensive meal we turned to the travel advisory site for suggestions of potential restaurants not too far from our hotel. Family run Da Carlotta (Calle de la Bande, Castello) had an above average rating and turned out to be as friendly as reviews suggested. Peppery beef carpaccio with Parmesan, Venetian gnocchi, lobster linguine, and home-made tiramisu all hit the mark, plus we got to watch the waiter use a spoon to fillet salt crust sea bass at the adjoining table. A silver star for Tripadvisor.

Light lunching
It doesn’t take long to learn visitors can eat relatively cheaply in Venice if they stick to the many places selling street food – slices of pizza, piadinas, arancini, wraps etc. Alternatively there’s cicchetti, the Venetian version of tapas. Due to random meandering lunch was difficult to plan in advance. The selection of tasty looking cicchetti at contemporary Osteria A le Bande (Campo de la Guerra, Castello) caught our eye at just the right time. We didn’t even have to mull over a menu as they suggested we try six of their best. These featured a mix of cheeses paired with cured ham, salami, anchovies, tuna and salt cod – all winners and, at around €2.50 each, not bad value in Venice.

Bad pizza
We sacrificed quality in favour of football as we wanted to watch the Spain v Portugal World Cup match. Finding a pizzeria with a decent reputation which also had a football screen proved difficult, probably due Italy’s failure to qualify. Planet (Calle Casseleria, Castello) is a pizzeria and pub which is unlikely to appear on anyone’s recommended restaurant list; Tripadvisor reviews fluctuate between good and terrible. Packed out for the match, the atmosphere was buzzing but, as expected, the pizzas were poor. Cracking match though and seeing CR7 in full flow made it worth the sacrifice.

A different scene
After a jaunt to Verona we spent a final night in Venice, this time in the arty Dorsoduro district. Again the local travel blog advice was most comprehensive. However, we ignored suggestions in favour of Impronta Cafe (Calle dei Preti) simply because its menu looked more interesting than others. What was interesting was Impronta ‘s Google description is of a “sleek, modern cafe, open all day, with sandwiches & a full menu of classic dishes, plus cocktails”. This was reflected in listings in a couple of reputable travel guides even though in reality it’s a modern, sophisticated restaurant with an interesting menu. This had us pondering if everyone who recommended it had actually eaten there. The food (mussels with clams, cherry tomato sauce and toast; smoked salmon with fried courgettes; seafood and vegetable tempura; black noodles, pesto and almonds in seafood sauce) was above average and portions were, if anything, too big. We were stuffed by the end, but not too stuffed to pass on a dream of a dessert – mascarpone cheese custard on a meringue waffle with a hot liquorice and star anise sauce. It wasn’t cheap (around €100 for three courses with wine and water) but in Venice we felt it was worth paying a little bit more than normal menu prices to ensure quality.

All in all we were pleasantly surprised by our gastronomic experiences in various Venetian districts; the only bad meal had been of our own deliberate choosing. Using a mix of sources for recommendations had worked well; each had both strengths and weaknesses. The local travel blogger, Life Love Food, stood out for having most insightful knowledge, and Tripadvisor was useful because we know how to use it.

Although it was clear the advice given in guides/online newspapers was well researched and written, the much-used formula applied by many publications meant, whatever the publication, there was a sameness which somewhat diluted writers’ voices. As a result I found myself trusting the more personal tone of the local travel blogger.