BAC Le Marche

May 24-28 - Venice and Riccione

Venice - Dinner at Rosticceria San Bartolomeo

May 24 - Venice

We made it to Venice after a very long flight to Frankfurt and a short hop to Venice. When we got to Venice, we bought three-day transportation passes and used them for the bus from the airport to Piazzale Roma. I wheeled my bicycle in its case over to the train station where I stashed it in the left luggage storeroom. There was no way that I would lug it to our hotel via the water bus. From Piazzale Roma we rode the water bus to Rialto Mercato. In our fourth-floor walk-up room at Pensione Guerrato, I tested our cell phones that we brought from home. The one Ellen loaned us worked. My old one didn't. I planned buy a cheap one in the next few days. The pensione if the same one that Jeff and I stayed in at the end of our Trans Alps bicycle trip.

We managed to stay awake long enough to have dinner at Rosticceria San Bartolomeo, a well-known cafeteria that was across the Rialto Bridge. It was inexpensive for Venice. Being jet-lagged, it was easier to point to the food we wanted instead of ordering from a menu. At a little after 7:00 PM and we were fading fast. We had been awake forever.

May 25 - Venice

Burano

We got lots of sleep last night. We needed it after being up for 32 hours. Breakfast at our hotel was at 7:30. We had juice, muesli, yogurt, filled croissants and coffee.

We left the hotel, caught the vaporetto and cruised down the Grand Canal to Piazza San Marco. Our destination was Burano. This meant that we had to catch a different boat to get there. We just missed the 8:30 departure, so we killed time by walking around the neighborhood northeast of the piazza.

We caught the 10:30 vaporetto and sailed for Burano. We got there about an hour later after making stops in Lido, S Niccolo and one other. The weather was sunny and warm so we were in shirt sleeves.

Burano is known mostly for its lace, its colorful houses and its leaning church tower. It also has lots of eating places but not too many tourists.

Crucifixion by Tiepolo

We wandered through the town looking at the houses and lace shops. We went into the church of San Martino and saw a restored painting by Tiepolo of the crucifixion. When we got hungry, we ate lunch outside at Restorante al Veccio Pipa. We had an enormous amount of good food ordering three plates which we shared. Our first course was prociutto with avocados. Then we had spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce and frito misto – a huge pile of lightly fried seafood. Everything was very good, but it was too much to finish.

After lunch we walked back to the vaporetto stop and took the boat to the Fondamente Nova stop in Venice. We walked across that neighborhood, caught another vaporetto at Ca’ D’Oro, got off at Rialto Mercato and walked to our hotel where we took a rest.

Venice - Osteria Trattoria Nono Risorto

Before we went to dinner, we had to get out and take a walk to keep from falling asleep. Our destination was a pizza restaurant that was recommended by Rick Steves. His directions to the restaurant were hard to follow so I got out my GPS and it guided us right to it. When we got there, it was not’t open yet so we wandered around in our jet-lag daze.

At 7:00 we were seated in the outside terrace of Osteria Trattoria Al Nono Risorto. We both ordered a pizza – Ann’s was vegetarian and mine was sausage with gorgonzola cheese. I also had a beer ala spina. The pizzas were good but a little too large to finish.

When we walked back to the hotel, we walked to its other side into Campo Cesare Battisti Gia Della Bella Vienna. We wanted to see where the crowd noise was coming from that Ann heard last night. We discovered that this is a hot-spot for the young crowd for Venice’s version of a pub crawl. There are several small Cicchetti bars that sell wines and toothpick munchies. People socialize at the bars until late at night. We recognized a couple of bars that we went to with the Bensons a few years ago.

Bed time was at 9:00. We were going to try to shed our jet lag.

May 26 - Venice

We got up after 10 hours in bed. Ann remarked that the noise during the night into the wee hours of the morning was especially loud on the campo outside our room. The most noisy people were young and American-English speaking. This was embarrassing for us. The acoustics on the compo were very good. My ear plug technique worked, but Ann was having trouble with hers.

Our breakfast room had several cramped tables - some seating two, some seating four and one seating six. Most of the guests were Americans and most of them had their Rick Steves guidebooks next to them. It is interesting to me that there are several groups of women that travel together but no groups of men.

Gondola and Vaporetto

After breakfast, we rode the vaporetto to Piazza San Marco. We got into a long line leading to the Basilica di San Marco. The line moved fairly quickly and soon we were in the church. We had been here before when we wandered around with no focus. This time we used Rick Steves audio tour that we had downloaded onto our iPhones. The tour pointed out many sights that we had missed on previous visits. There were lots of people in the basilica, so we moved very slowly. It seems that tour guides are allowed to speak to their groups in the basilica and when they do so they stop their groups and block traffic. It's annoying but it forced us to slow down and really look at things.

We used an audio tour for the Piazza San Marco where we got more insight on its history. I highly recommend using this means to learn about famous attractions. It's much cheaper than hiring a guide and you can pause it whenever you need to.

Scala Contarini del Bovolo

After eating a sandwich in a small shop behind the basilica, we took another Rick Steves tour. This time it was a walking tour from Piazza San Marco to the Rialto Bridge. One highlight on the walk was The Scala Contarini del Bovolo. This is a small palace in Venice. It is hidden away in an obscure little alley known as the Calle della Vida, near the Campo Manin, and was the palace of Contarini family. It is known for its elaborate spiral external staircase. Being "toured out", we walked across the bridge to our pensione and rested for awhile.

After an hour or two, we decided to walk to and tour the Frari Church. A lot of art in Italy is in its churches. The Frari is no exception.

Baroque Concert

Outside of the Frari, we noticed an poster advertising a free concert that evening. So we went back to the pensione, showered and changed clothes, walked across the Rialto Bridge to a Lutheran church, climbed up to its second-floor stuffy chapel and watched a baroque concert by a German choral group. Ann reports that they were very good, performing pieces that the Contra Costa Chorale would not attempt. The choral group had singers from pre-teens through older gray-haired adults. The small orchestra played old baroque instruments that they had to tune between pieces. An interesting side note is that few people knew where the Lutheran church was located. Our hotel owner had to Google it and was still unsure of its location. He called a near-by restaurant and the person he talked to was unaware of the church. It turned that it was about 100 yards from the restaurant.

After the concert, we ate dinner at Trattoria da Bepi. I had a mixed salad and spaghetti with shell fish. Ann had tomatoes with mozzarella cheese and sardines with a onion and vinegar sauce.

We faded at 9:30.

Rialto Fish Market

May 27 - Venice

We had another good day in Venice. We saw some new things and reviewed some old things. First, we did an old thing. We walked to Piazza San Marco following the streets and little bridges that we had been over on previous visits. We recognized many of the shops, museums, restaurants, gelatorias and churches along the way. I especially paid attention to the Rialto Fish Market.

Church of San Zaccaria - Madonna and Child with Saints - Bellini

Next, we went on a Rick Steves walking tour to the church of San Zaccaria. This church is dedicated to the father of John the Baptist. (The Catholics seem to put parents on a pedestal. I like the concept). Art is important here. There are restored paintings, the featured one being Giovanni Bellini's last and most beautiful Madonna, painted in 1505. There is a crypt in the basement that is flooded. During our tour, there was only about a foot of water on the floor. During the Acqua Alta in the winter, the water level is much higher. The church also has a room with golden (in color, only) thrones. The walk and the church tour were new.

San Giorgio Maggiore - View from the Tower

Our next excursion was also new to us. We took the vaporetto to San Giorgio Maggiore. The church is on an island across from Piazza San Marco. Art in the church features Tintoretto's Manna from Heaven and Tintoretto's Last Supper. The prime reason that we wanted to go to the church was to go up in the elevator to the top of the bell tower and get views of Venice and the surrounding area. We were not disappointed. The views were fantastic.

When we were finished, we took the vaporetto back to Piazza San Marco and looked in at the Correr Museum. We decided to skip it. It was expensive to get in and it was not rated as an important museum. Besides, we were getting hungry. So we walked over to Compo San Stefano and had panini at an outdoor cafe. (This was new). While there, we watched an aggressive pigeon destroy a wine glass at a nearby empty table.

After a full morning, we walked slowly back to our pensione.

After putting our feet up for awhile, we left the pensione, walked across the Rialto Bridge and bought an inexpensive cell phone at the Vodafone store. We got caught in a brief rain shower on the way back to the pensione. I tested our two working phones with the sim cards that we bought before we left the US. They worked, but I was very unhappy about how they worked. This was the fault of the sim cards. They required you to dial a number, hang up and then wait for it to call you back. We thought that we could live with this procedure for a while. More on this later.

Dinner was at Osteria La Bitta – a repeat from a previous trip. Ann remembered this osteria from our previous visit with the Bensons. I did not remember it until we stood in front of it. It is a small restaurant with six indoor tables in a wood-paneled room. There is a terrace in back with more tables. We arrived at 7:00 when it opened. We had no reservations but we were seated anyway when we promised to be finished by 9:00 when the table was reserved. If you know the way we eat, two hours is ample for us. We shared the room with a table of young French-speaking tourists and three tables of English-speaking folks. Ann ordered lamb shank. I had veal. (They serve no fish). We split a panna cotta. We were finished well before 9:00.

May 28 - Venice to Riccone

We checked out of our pensione in Venice and took the vaporatto to Piazzale Roma. I walked to the train station and picked up my bicycle case. It cost me around 25 Euros for four days. I hauled it back to the piazzale and we picked up our rental car - a Fiat Panda with manual transmission. We had to put down the back seats to get all of our luggage into it. Jack (our friendly GPS) led us an a 4 hour drive to Riccione with one stop near Bologna for lunch at an Autogrille. It wasn’t bad. You can get freshly cooked pasta, etc. cafeteria style. Traffic moves fast on the autostrada.

Riccione - View from Our Room

We got to Riccione around 2:00 and settled into our room at Hotel Sarti. Ann went swimming in the hotel’s pool while I went down to the basement to put my bicycle together. There were dozens of other bicycles already there that belonged to other riders staying at the hotel. My bicycle survived the plane flights without any damage.

Our group meeting was at 5:30 in the hotel's lobby lounge area. We got an overview of our tour and everyone gave a self-introduction. The hotel's owners were there too. They introduced themselves and told us the hotel's history and what we should expect in the next few days. There were several people on the tour that I have ridden with in Italy and at home. It made me feel comfortable. Being a non-rider, it would take Ann a little longer to get to know everyone.

Dinner at 7:30 was wonderful. We started out with an antipasto assortment from a buffet. There were selections of food I have never seen before – and there was a lot of it. Then we had a pasta choice – Ann had risotto while I had pasta with flat lobster (whatever that is). Then we had a main course. Ann skipped it while I had grilled monkfish. Dessert was fresh strawberries. Of course there was a lot of wine. This hotel caters to bicyclists, so there was a lot of food.

We got back to our room at 9:30. Cycling starts tomorrow.