Eat, Play, Love: Cin-Cin: A Salute to Venezia

Venice, often described as "La Dominante", "Serenissima" and "Queen of the Adriatic", is renowned the world over for its unique combination of history, geography and culture, and for good reason. With pastel palazzi and golden domes, fresh espresso wafting from centuries-old cafes, and gondoliers pushing their crafts through teal waters, crooning around countless canal bends, Venice is a dreamscape like no other. Walking around this miraculous city, I was constantly marvelling at the audacity of the people who built it—constructing a marble metropolis atop a malaria-infested swampland is no easy feat. Surely, if humans can build this, they can do just about anything?

1,600 years of civilization is a lot to take in in one day, but I tried my best. After a four-hour drive across Lombardy and the Veneto, Rosanna, Adele and her niece, and I arrived in Venice mid-morning. As it was the closing night of the International Film Festival, there was a bit of a buzz in the air, and on the water.

Arriving in Venice

Nothing quite prepares you for the first-time you set eyes on Piazza San Marco (St Mark’s Square). Described by Napoleon as “the drawing room of Europe,” Piazza San Marco is dominated by the Basilica di San Marco (St Mark’s Basilica), the Campanile and the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Palace), and has been giving pigeons a good name since 1815 (when they were introduced by the House of Habsburg). East meets West at the Basilica di San Marco—Venice’s signature architectural wonder was created over a period of 800 years, in its own cosmopolitan image, with Byzantine domes and mosaics, a Greek cross plan, Gothic rosettes and Egyptian marble walls. The Campanile, the Basilica’s 99-metre tall bell tower, has 360-degree views of the lagoon (which we took in later that night), and was from where Galileo Galilei famously showed off his telescope to the Doge of Venice. Speaking of Doges, next-door Palazzo Ducale’s elegant pink-checkered exterior housed Venice’s government for nearly seven centuries, and is now a museum and gallery (that I, unfortunately, didn’t have time to explore).

View of Piazza San Marco

Gondolas, near Piazza San Marco

Basilica di San Marco and the Palazzo Ducale

The Campanile

Piazza San Marco

Rosanna and me, Piazza San Marco

One of my favourite sights in all of Venice is the nearby Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs), which once connected the Palazzo Ducale to the sixteenth century Priggione Nove (New Prisons). It’s named after the sighs that condemned or freed prisoners would emit as they were being led down to their cells, or out from them.

Ponte dei Sospiri (Bridge of Sighs), near Piazza San Marco

After exploring Piazza San Marco (and fending off its pigeons), I led everyone on a backstreets walking tour of Venice’s charming campi (squares) and crooked calli (lanes). After passing underneath the Torre dell’Orlogio, we walked from the narrow Campo della Guerra to the sunny Campo Santa Maria Formosa. Although only 200 metres apart, the latter square was quiet (for Venice, anyway), and for the next couple of hours, we felt as though we had the city mostly to ourselves.

After spending some time at the Libreria Acqua Alta, “the most beautiful bookshop in the world”—I would describe it as “the most overwhelmingly beautiful treasure trove” myself—we crossed bridge after bridge after bridge to reach the marble-clad Chiesa di Santa Maria dei Miracoli, and the quiet Campo Santa Maria Nova.

Campo Santa Maria Formosa

Walking around Venice

Libreria Acqua Alta, "The Most Beautiful Bookshop in the World"

Walking around Venice

After checking out the Gothic Basilica Santi Giovanni e Paolo and the skinny Campo San Bartolomeo and checking in to Gelateria Suso (think fig sauce and walnuts swirled into mascarpone ice cream), we reached the marbled Ponte di Rialto and its crowds. From there, we crossed the Campo Cesare Battisti and continued along the Grand Canal to the produce-piled Rialto Mercato and its neighbouring Pescaria—two markets that specialize in all things fresh, local and seasonal (unfortunately, it was getting late in the day, and both were closing up shop).

View from the Salizada Santi Giovanni e Paolo and the Zanipolo

Gelato, Suso Gelatoteca

Ponte di Rialto

View from the Ponte di Rialto

View of the Ca' d'Oro, from the Rialto Market/Pescaria

Afterwards, we hopped on the vaporetto No. 1, a 3.5 kilometre public transportation route that takes locals and tourists along the city's main canal and by most of its spectacularly scenic highlights—if only the same could be said of Toronto’s Yonge-University-Spadina subway line.

View from the Grand Canal

Ponte di Rialto, from the Grand Canal

View from the Grand Canal

In the late afternoon, we got off the vaporetto in Dorsoduro, one of the city's sestieri (subdivisions), and made for the Campo Santa Margherita, a local Venetian haunt. There, we munched on cicheti (tapas) and drank Spritz—a Prosecco cocktail made of Aperol or Campari—and people-watched.

Afterwards, we headed back to Piazza San Marco and up the Campanile, for views of Venice at dusk.