by Nick Taylor

We discovered the pleasure of overnighting in Venice. It can be a perfect stop if you plan to fly from one part of Europe to another.

Yes. Spring and summer in Venice fill the narrow streets and bridges with tourists like the tides fill the canals. But even with a crush of people, Venice enchants.

We thought that we would try it when we scheduled our return from a trip to the Balkans. Our Volotea flight from Split in Croatia put us at Venice’s Marco Polo airport in barely an hour. We picked up our bags and headed to the arrivals area to figure out what form of transportation we should take into the island city. We hope our discoveries will save you time and anxiety.  

We made a mistake with our first decision. We didn’t pay the 110 euros per person for the water taxi, which can take you directly to your hotel. Instead we bought round-trip tickets on an Alilaguna water bus, a motoscafo that’s smaller than a full-sized vaporetto, for 27 euros each. 

We had arrived about noon and wanted to make the most of our day, but the water taxi took forever. You might think you’d get a good look at Venice from the water, but the scratched plexiglass windows don’t let you really see much. On top of that, the motoscafo slowed for smaller boats as a safety measure to avoid creating rocking wakes. Nice, but that made it a slow boat to Venice. 

It stopped first at Murano. Then, like a bus, it took the local route with all the stops on the east side of Venice before chugging across to the Lido and then back to our stop at Arsenale. The entire trip took an hour and a half. On the plus side, we enjoyed chatting with our fellow passengers.

We called our hotel for directions. Allesandro, manning the desk at the Hotel Sant’Antonin, clearly had done this before. “Turn right. Cross the square diagonally. Don’t cross that next bridge. Turn right and start looking,” he told us. We started walking pulling our suitcases. 

The Sant’Antonin, on the Rio de la Pleta that bisects Venice north to south, dates to the 16th century when it served as a warehouse for merchants. A renovation in the late 19th century turned the building into a home for a large family. The large high-ceilinged rooms with enormous windows facing the canal, and a beautiful back garden, give a romantic hint of what life in the house might have felt like.

Once we checked in, we began to wander to renew our acquaintance with Venice. We crossed the bridge over the Rio de la Pleta onto Salizzada dei Greci. We stopped at a small cafe for something light and quick and chanced into a moment of pre-“MeToo” political incorrectness.

The proprietor, probably in his late sixties, clearly loved the sight and feel of women. Maybe he fell instantly in love with every female customer who walked through the door. Or it might have been just Barbara. He transformed from a shopkeeper to a Lothario in seconds. We sat at a small table on the sidewalk and laughed when he bent to kiss her cheek. Before we knew it, he was pouring Prosecco for the three of us and joined us at our table.

He pointed across the street to a small house where he said he had been born. “Venice,” he said, sipping his sparkling wine,  “It’s the most beautiful city in the world. Like nowhere else.” His enthusiasm shattered our language barrier. We went inside to take photos and while it seemed good-humored, his fingers hovered around Barbara’s bra line and dipped into creepiness and we escaped as quickly as we could.

We did laugh and and kept smiling as we joined the thicket of tourists on the narrow streets, quays and bridges that crossed the small canals. We stopped at the high point of one bridge and were rewarded with a concert when a group of gondolas passed on the canal below with an opera singer serenading the passengers and the rest of us.

We walked for the fun of it, with no destination in mind. But a map tempted us to small galleries featuring artists exhibiting in the Venice Biennale. We went through a gate in a courtyard and up the stairs into a building to look at work by artists from Zimbabwe. Three men and one woman displayed works on the theme of “Deconstructing Boundaries: Exploring Ideas of Belonging” using paintings, sculpture, and installation pieces, some of the work quite strong. We had planned to see more of the Biennale but the pavilions were far-flung and the time wasted in the motorscafo cut into our plans.

 

While there isn’t a Biennale this year, there is the wonderful Peggy Guggenheim Museum worth visiting at any time of the year.

But in Venice, on an overnight stop, you can stay outdoors and feast on the glorious architecture. Even if we only had a few of hours of daylight left, we knew we had to visit the  gorgeous 11th Century Basilica San Marco, wrapped in its mashup of Byzantine and Gothic architecture. The cupolas, columns and cornices adorned with statues, floral decorations and mosaics make the church seem like a vision created by a wedding cake baker on acid. 

When we felt a little dizzy with it all, we headed back to the hotel to refresh with a Prosecco. Alessandro recommended a couple of restaurants and we chose Osteria Oliva Nera, or Black Olive.

It was very close to the hotel, a short way past Barbara’s rambunctious admirer’s place on Salizzada dei Greci.

Isabella, the owner, set us up at an outside table right next to a party of four. We quickly fell into an easy conversation with the two couples from California.

It turned out that one couple had been coming to this restaurant for years. Richard Von Ernst, after a long successful career as a TV costume designer, was now in real estate, and his partner Thomas Casteneda did movie publicity.  They also rented an apartment from Isabella. Their friends Dereck Whitfield, a defense lawyer for the auto industry, and Gary Dahle, a contractor who builds shopping centers, told us about the wonderful apartment Isabella had rented them, and raved about the way she seemed to go out of her way to make sure they had everything they needed, from pastries in the morning to wine in the evening.

We discovered later the restaurant’s website points out, “Not only a restaurant. We have apartments too.”

At dinner, we talked through our fish carpaccio starters — oysters, shrimp, and sea bass and tuna crudo.  And the conversation continued as our main courses arrived. Nick had sea bass filet with polenta and grilled tomatoes, and Barbara had her favorite spaghetti with red mullet bottarga. Isabella recommended a Pinot Grigio and began to treat us as if we’d been coming there for years as well.

We got to the hotel about 12:30 and made sensible plans for our 7 a.m. departure.  This time we ordered a water taxi. 

It arrived promptly just as a delivery boat was unloading cases of water. We climbed over the deck of the barge onto the elegant taxi.

What a huge and welcome difference! In no time we left the small canal behind and the driver throttled up the powerful engine to speed us through the channel we’d poked along the day before. It was a clear day, cool in the early morning, and Barbara shot video with the wind blowing through her hair. We docked at Marco Polo in less than twenty minutes, and the 120 euros we paid the driver when we climbed off was more than worth it.

 

 

 

Overnighting in Venice will definitely figure in our plans again.