Oh Venice. You were the last one left on my list of top three cities to visit in 2013, and it took two years to finally get to you.
You were worth it, stink and all.
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.
That’s Venice. Just look how Italian it looks below. Sigh.
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.
Official rates for gondolas while we were there were €80 for 30 minutes, which really meant 25-30 minutes depending on traffic, or €100 for 30-35 minutes after 7pm. We spent the €80 and tried not to think about what we were doing.
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 coffee wine.
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.
One of the most interesting parts of Venice for me was imagining what the city looked like hundreds of years ago and how it’s changed with decay, renovation, restoration, and expansion throughout the years. It was fascinating to see the history in the buildings and even old previously usable steps down to the canal that cannot be used anymore due to water levels changing.
All in all, it was a perfect weekend trip and marks the last city trip of the year before our holidays start. I am thankful for how many cities we’ve been able to visit!
It was one of those weekends that was actually nicer weather at home, but we spent the afternoon and next morning in the sauna and steam room relaxing and reading during the rest periods.
The next morning we saw a glimpse of nice weather before heading home, where it was cloudy and cold by the time we got back.
The hotel and wellness area were “alright”, but for 137CHF a night, they were 3/5. Not bad, but definitely not luxurious. The rooms are pretty basic, but the beds are comfortable. The sauna area was a little underwhelming, but it was fine for what it was.
The ride back was pretty cold. I should have put snow pants on or something, because 1.5h on the bike on the highway at 120km/h was COLD. I thought I would never be warm again when we got home, even with all that time in the sauna.
Kay made big hot chocolates for us with the rest of the Bailey’s chocolate liquor and we warmed up well after a nice, long, hot shower.
Still wanting a nicer coffee, we stopped at 
For lunch, I was adventurous and agreed to eat at a local diner at Largo São Domingos 23, which I couldn’t get a picture of the restaurant name, but we dropped down that dark scaffolding area in the photo below and went to the restaurant with the red door.
We had to scramble a bit to get to 
It was a bit of a disappointing degustation because all the port was too quickly explained and then the guide took the bottles away with the labels and left, so we had no reference besides our quick retention skills to talk about what we were supposed to be tasting.
It was a shame because they even had the glasses set up on sheets with space for writing, so they could have easily written down what we were drinking.
We did get to sample a 20 year old tawny (if I have that right) as well as another LBV. I of course liked the most expensive one the best. 🙂
After the port, we were a little tipsy and tried to wake ourselves up with a coffee on the walk back to the bridge. Mine had a wonderful sweet cinnamon touch.
After coffee we wandered around aimlessly wondering what to do. Museums were closed, but it was not yet time for dinner and without my usual gluten free selection guide, we were again lost as we normally were on city trips pre-celiac disease.
It ended up being a pretty nice restaurant. Sure, the prices were a little more expensive than other places, but Kay thought the melon above was to die for and the restaurant was knowledgeable enough about gluten to make a special gluten free port sauce for my duck.
We also decided to sample another brand of port to help us with our decision of what to purchase at the end. 
Knowing we liked both the 20 year tawny and LBV from Ferreira, we tried the same from Graham’s and decided we liked both of them much more than the Ferreira stuff. The 20 year tawny was the better of the two and had a nice long and complex finish.
The next day we got up for breakfast again before checking out and finding that the sun was starting to peek out. We stopped for a fresh juice and coffee before tackling our day.
I had actually asked, albeit with very short notice, if there was room for dinner reservations for two at 
And it was. This meal made up for all the missed anniversaries this year. We hadn’t gotten around to eating somewhere amazing and this place really spoiled us. They altered everything to be gluten free for me if necessary.
Chef’s greetings with lobster and caviar on a macaroon base and avocado cream on what I think was a shrimp kind of cracker for me and a corn tortilla cracker for Kay.
Next was a refreshing gazpacho and molecular mozzarella to the right, paired with a white wine. I was terrible and forgot to get any of the wine names.
Below was a crispy salmon fillet sandwich with wasabi mayonnaise.
Sea bass, crustaceans & coconut served in a halved coconut.
Below then codfish swim bladder and bean stew, codfish fillet and codfish sauce. This one tasted nice and hearty, like preparing for winter.
The main was grilled and glazed sirloin, chanterelle mushrooms and barbecue sauce & oxtail stew. I think below is the oxtail stew and the next photo is the sirloin with mushrooms.
Ah, heaven!!
They also served Kay seaweed bread and another kind, while I enjoyed a nice light and fluffy gluten free bread with soft butter and olive oil.
The “pre dessert” was some kind of chocolate mousse over nuts. Kay’s probably had some gluten cookie underneath which they just replaced with nuts for me.
Actual dessert was green tea cream with lime merengue, tonka bean ice cream and iced tea.
Here was the iced tea. Funny serving. We were marveling at the interesting dishes for presenting food. Some of the plates were quite large and voluminous.
After dinner we received a selection of macaroons and chocolates. I left the crackery bits to Kay.
After dessert, we decided to try some more port again, so we splurged a bit and chose an LBV from 2010 and a 1976 vintage from Krohn.
I am not sure we could decide which one of these we liked better, but we made sure to look for something similar in the duty free section at the airport. Of course everything is more mainstream in the airport, but we had carry-on only and didn’t want to invest in shipping something home.
In the end we settled on Graham’s 20 year tawny, a white port from Graham’s, a 1998 Krohn vintage, and a Borges Porto 2010 LBV.
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.
If I couldn’t have the baklava, I was going to go crazy on the other two. The Greek yogurt and honey was SUMPTUOUS. Om nom nom.
(Photo by Lund Brynilsen)
(Photo by Lund Brynilsen)
(Photo by Lund Brynilsen)
