Back to English. Just to make it clear, I don't have a split personality or something. It is easier to write some (more serious?) posts in Lithuanian and others in English.
But anyway, a few weeks ago I was on a three-week trip to/in Italy. After two days of driving, we reached the original Venice. Surprisingly, I have never been there before, so my hopes and expectations were big. And my experience turned out to be even better than I imagined. Basically, I expected Venice to be a quite small group of old buildings surrounded by water and a few small bridges. Many people also warned me about crowds of billions of tourists, litter, scorching heat and muddy water, especilly in the summer. However, after leaving the car in a car park outside the city and reaching the city only with backpacks, I was very surprised to feel cool breeze and fresh sea air, boats as a public transport a.k.a. venetian equivalent of busses/underground. There were many tourists indeed, but it's pretty easy to avoid them if you avoid hanging out around St. Marco square. Being a picky eater and fan of Italian cuisine, I, of course, cannot avoid the topic of food. First evening we ate diner in restaurant I found in yelp and later I had a chance to change my preliminary expectations when I saw thousands of small streets, squares, parks, personal boats instead of cars, supermarkets, cats, local people watching football and just hanging out in tiny squares and courtyards. After a little walk at night I soon realised that I should have brought my sneakers, but I surely needn't have taken a sweater and a jacket, because even at a late evening it was surprisingly warm.
Next day I visited a market, the square of St. Marco and Venice Biennale in Giardini, which is a park
with many different pavilions of different countries, and the Arsenale - a complex of former shipyards and
armories clustered together. Many different exhibitions also take place all over the city (in parks,
buildings, museums etc.) and are free, so its difficult to avoid seeing art even if you wanted.
We didn't think about the Biennale, which is open from the 13th of May to the 26th of November, until I got to Venice and suddenly it became our main activity. This event is a true paradise
for the fans of the contemporary art and if we had time, we would have spent more than two days there.
On our third day we had to leave at noon and before that we visited Lithuania's pavilion, which was
created by Žilvinas Landzbergas.
Anyway, Venice was fascinating, despite blisters on my feet and terrible heat, which went away the day we left
Some of retaurants I enjoyed:
- ,,Ai Marcanti'' Calle Fuseri, 4346/a, 30011 Venezia - Italian, European cuisine, fish, vegetables. My choise (I don't eat seafood, fish and most of read meat) - pacherri with spicy chard and ricotta, carrots with cumin. Good for dinner $$$$
- ,,La zucca'' Santa Croce 1762, 30135 Venezia (Michelin recommended, so you need reservation) Italian, vegetarian cuisine. My choise - gaspacho, baked carrots with lime, salad with avocado, chicken and pistachio and flan with riccota and pumpkins.
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| Bienalle |
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| Bienalle/Arsenale |
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| Bienalle |
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| Bienalle/Arsenale |
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| Bienalle/Arsenale |
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| Bienalle/Arsenale |
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| Palace of Doge |
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| stylish locals |
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| smaller locals |
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| ,,La zucca'' |
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| market |