I’ll admit that after my celiac diagnosis, I was afraid to go to Italy again. It is the land of pasta and bread, all things gluten. So I was surprised how gluten free friendly Venice is!
On our first night there, Kay wanted to stop and get gelato before we went to bed. We stopped at place on the way to our flat and seeing the cone dishes, I asked if they had normal paper cups before Kay pointed out a vase full of cones labeled “Senza glutine”. HOLY HELL, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a gluten free cone in an ice cream or gelato shop anywhere!!
The shop was called SUSO. I was so impressed we came back again even though we did see other gelaterias elsewhere. 
It was too late to do food shopping after our arrival on Friday night, so we headed to Ristobar San Polo because we knew it would be open from 8am onward.
Breakfast is still one of the most difficult meals to obtain gluten free and unfortunately they could only offer Kay a focaccia or bruschetta and the only gluten free things they could offer me were tiramisu and some kind of apple cake, so I took both with a cappuccino! 
The tiramisu was pretty good, moist, but the apple cake was even better because it was warm. Still, with only two pieces of cake and a coffee, I was not really satisfied. Kay just ordered the focaccia and coffee and together we paid €26. Venice is not cheap!
We stopped for more coffee in another square later on to soak up the sun and I ended up snacking on some of my gluten free snacks I’d brought along.
For dinner, we went to Osteria All’Ombra because it had good reviews on The Gluten Bigot, but it was a pretty mediocre restaurant. It actually had a different name on the menu or wall somewhere and was run by Asians, so at first we honestly thought we were in the wrong restaurant, possibly an Asian one by the name on the card, but it was still All’Ombra they assured us and we aren’t sure if they bought the restaurant from original owners or if it was always like that, but they were definitely not speaking Italian in the kitchen and we are always a little hesitant to eat local cuisine prepared by non-locals. You know, like the sign of a good Chinese place is when other Asians eat there and how it’s a risky sign if there are only non-Asians in the kitchen. We decided to risk it because it could still be good, but all the gluten free stuff was frozen or pre-prepared and Kay’s normal food was not great either.
For the starter we ordered prosciutto and mozzarella, which was pretty blah.
My pizza was fine and I did not get sick eating it, but even the ingredients on top seemed pretty mediocre.
I was most disappointed when I ordered tiramisu for dessert and it looked exactly like the tiramisu for breakfast. Obviously it’s the same frozen brand, but All’Ombra didn’t defrost it very well. I could even hear the microwave ding in the background, but there were still frozen chunks of ice in the cake.
With that and the pre-set frozen gluten free menu, I was wondering why we went there instead of the many other places that also offer gluten free items. (Hint, almost all the restaurants I am betting have the same GF menu, as we found out at another restaurant the next day.) They did get points for a nicer presentation than Ristobar though.
For breakfast on Sunday, we went to a grocery (Thank God!) and bought some absolutely delicious meat and bufala mozzarella.
That with espresso from the moka pot supplied by the landlord (yes!!) we had an amazing breakfast supplemented by some gluten free cake we found in the grocery.
Ahhh cheese. So good!! So fresh!
Kay and I were both impressed how many gluten free items there were in the grocery. Many brands that we don’t know here in Switzerland.
We had the cake above for breakfast and the snack bars below as additional snacks around the city.
Kay wanted to buy the oreos below, which are actually German, but we ended up bringing them home because we didn’t have time to eat them in Venice.
After our visit to the Doge’s Palace on Sunday, I was so pooped and wanted a coffee, but then a glass of wine sounded great too. Why not?? Weekend trips always inspire indulgence.
In the afternoon we stopped back at SUSO for another cone. This time I got pistachio and yogurt with berries. Mmmm!
I was really in love with the GF cones!
We went to Malibran for lunch because it had a big “GLUTEN FREE” sign out front, which was also OK, but nothing amazing. They actually didn’t even have a dedicated gluten free menu and just told me I could order pizza or pasta. I was not especially impressed. 
I ordered mussels for an appetizer and then chose from the same boring pre-made gluten free menu of pizza or pasta.
I ended up with penne and ragout, which I can probably make better at home myself, but it was hot and comforting since it had started to drizzle outside.
So there you have it. Food in Venice is similar to Rome. Expensive and crappy because they know they can charge that much for mediocre food and people will still come.
Rest assured that as a gluten free traveler, you will still have lots of options for different restaurants and you can even order gluten free beer (Daura), pizza, pasta, and gelato with a cone, all with minimal effort on your part.
Don’t be afraid of getting sick, just be afraid of the prices! And if you can, I still recommend eating local produce at home because breakfast at our stinky flat was the best food we had all weekend! 🙂
Venice is every bit romantic as you can imagine, but you also need to come knowing that it is an expensive, often extremely touristy and crowded city.
We stayed close to “the most beautiful bookstore in the world” as our landlord and the owner of said bookstore told us, and it was certainly a strange and novel experience wandering through the overly filled store with a staircase out back made out of books.
On the Saturday we had amazing weather with blue skies and I mostly wanted to soak in the canal sites, which were just breathtaking. 🙂
Considering it was another cloudy, rainy weekend in Zurich, we were beside ourselves.
A little tired, but very happy to be here!
At the end of October, it was pretty fresh around 15ºC (59ºF) and 9ºC (48ºF) at night, but we had our jackets and scarves and it was still warmer than it is in Zurich at the moment.
We headed over to San Marco to visit Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di San Marco during the time slot Kay had purchased online. Thank goodness for that, it was great to skip ahead the lines!
The square was already (or still?) a bit flooded with “acqua alta” as the Italians say. It was only 3-4 inches deep in some spots and the effect was actually beautiful, although astonishing.
Closer to the basilica, there were risers set up for people to walk on. Kay and I were still happy we both had on gortex waterproof shoes for the more shallow puddles.
After the basilica, we climbed the San Marco Campanile bell tower for this amazing view over the city.
After the tower we picked up our tickets for the Doge’s Palace that we planned on visiting the next day. Good thing too, because overnight a huge cruise ship unloaded and the ticket line for picking up tickets was packed the next day!
After San Marco, Kay agreed to humor me with an absurdly expensive gondola ride, because this was my romantic trip to Venice and we would probably only do it once.
I thought it was worth it! I mean, it’s not really worth the price, but at the same time, you just have to do it. There isn’t really another way for tourists to experience Venice from this vantage point and it’s absolutely not the same as walking over the footbridges. 
Plus our rower pointed out a lot of famous buildings from this new perspective, including the house Mozart stayed in during his time in Venice, city hall, and where George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin got married.
Back on land, we waited for sunset in San Marco and then headed for dinner.
Kay was pretty tired, but I begged him to stay out a bit longer so that I could take some long exposures of the canals by night.
The next morning, our flat was still stinky as ever (combination of cigarette smoke and canal stink), but we’d gotten a bit used to it by sleeping at night. It must have previously been a boat garage because the window in the back led directly to the canal, with boat access for the owner.
Below, you can see the window entrance on the left side under the laundry, which hung above the window in the photo above. It definitely looks like they bricked in two boat garages to make way for more living space.
Below was the front room of the flat with kitchen, wash machine, and fridge.
After breakfast at the flat, we headed over to San Marco again to visit the Doge’s Palace on a cloudy Sunday.
The weather had turned quite a bit from the day before, but that was fine because we’d planned to be inside for most of the day anyway.
After a long time in the palace though, stuck in some armory rooms at the end, I was pretty tired. Time to wake up with a 
For the rest of the day we sort of wandered around more before shopping for some street vendor art so that I could have a painting of Venice to match my painting of Paris. I like the idea of filling up our house with romantic city paintings. 🙂
On the vaporetto back to the airport, we took the long way around from the southern tip of the city where the street vendors were, so I had an hour to nap on Kay before our flight back.
The weather was covered on Saturday and we had hopes that it would open up, but it remained foggy and grey. Still, we made our way around markets and walked around the city until it was time for our port cellar tour at 
With the weather still cloudy, we made a stop at 
…and it was pretty darn magnificent.
The unique staircase is also thought to be an inspiration to ones described in the Harry Potter books.
Next it was on to a couple churches.
We were a little sad that the weather was so gloomy, but you can’t always be lucky with the weather on these short trips. Well, or our long ones either. We actually seem to do better weather wise on weekend trips compared to proper two week holidays…
The port winery tour at Ferreira was OK, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. The tour guide was alright and the information was good, but it was a large group and the tour was a bit rushed before we were all dropped at the end to try our port selections.
After a very quick introduction to our five selections, the guide took the bottles away and left and we were left trying to remember which port was which within our little group doing the larger degustation. We still had a nice time, but next time we will try a different winery just because! 🙂
We ended up walking around for quite a bit looking for a place to eat that inspired us.
At least the city looked nicer at night when it was lit up.
The next morning though, the sun was out and we were enthused!
After breakfast we stopped for a better coffee and Kay was really excited when the sky opened up completely with sunshine and warmth.
Who is excited about the day and wants to do everything we skipped on Saturday?? This guy!
We decided to head back to the Clérigos Tower and actually climb it this time. It hadn’t seemed worth it the day before, but below was exactly how we imagined Porto!
It was a bit funny though. I’d made Kay wear his dress shirt on Sunday because I made lunch reservations at 
Above was our view from the table at lunch. The entire experience was pure heaven! 
Me and my handsome man. 🙂
After a very long lunch, we made our way back down to the river.
We didn’t have that much time before we needed to get to the airport for our flight, but we soaked in a couple more sights.
We were also pretty full of food and port by this time!
At the airport it was important to buy some port based on what we’d sampled in the winery and restaurants. We had some good advice and decided to pick up four different kinds which I’ll mention in the food post soon.
Oh Porto. You tired me out. Our flight back was also delayed, although we didn’t have to transfer on the way home, we also only arrived home after midnight. It’s making for a tired week, but worth it to enjoy these last weekends with Kay before school.
Clothes: jeans, two long sleeved shirts, two pairs of socks, two pairs of undies
On the way there we had emergency exit seats, so I was not allowed to keep the bag under the seat, but here it is on our way back. I have fit this bag into a very small Canadair CL-65 aircraft on the way from Columbus to Philadelphia as well. 
You do have to turn the bag on its side to fit it under, but in the Swiss aircraft below, I still had room to put my feet stretched under the seat as well if I wanted.
Moreover, I am also really happy with all the pockets in this bag. It makes organization a breeze (there is even a shoe storage pocket!) and I feel more secure storing my wallet in the inner pockets on city trips with the additional inner zipper pockets.
Something about city trips always makes me feel extra romantic, especially during these last months with Kay. I want to soak up this time in a bottle and remember it later when we are alone and down.
I planned the Luxembourg trip ages back because I wanted to go somewhere for my birthday weekend and Luxembourg happened to have some affordable tickets then.
It did happen to be one of the hottest weekends, if not the hottest weekend in Switzerland/Europe of the whole year. It was 37ºC/99ºF and unlike Switzerland, Luxembourg does not have an abundance of open bathing opportunities like Switzerland. We nearly melted!
I asked the hotel staff where they go to cool down and they pointed us in the direction of two indoor swimming pools. Other than that, all the rivers/ponds/bodies of water outdoor were not for swimming. We figured it wasn’t worth going inside, so we just enjoyed the radiating heat after all our cold weather and accepted that we would be pretty sweaty by the end of the trip.
Luxembourg was small enough that we ended up going to the same tourist destinations as the other couples visiting the city. We ran into the same folks quite a few times at historical sites, museums, and even pub cafes.
It was great on Saturday to have a bit of “us” relaxation time in the park in the shade. Time like that is important to relish! 
I was also into photographing almost all the nature.
Down below there was a couple getting married on Saturday. The bride had a traditional white gown on and I can only imagine how much she was sweating in her dress. It was killer heat.
I thought the city was pretty charming for a weekend trip. It had a fair amount of hills to walk up and down and a strange mix of old and new architecture.
Here I am doing my favorite thing… ruining Kay’s shot. I learned from the best himself. 😉
We stayed at a 
Below we visited 
It was a little cooler out of the sun at least. 🙂
Sunday afternoon we went through a small brewery district in search of restaurants open for early dinner before our flight back.
All I really wanted to do at this point was sit down and enjoy a cold drink.
It’s always about a thousand times nicer to visit a city with great weather. It leaves such an impression on your opinion of the place.
At the end of our trip we were tired, hot, and sweaty. We had thoroughly enjoyed the heat even without a nice dip in water.