Survival basics – Useful tips
Let's talk about the essentials – may be some of them are not romantic, but sometimes our comfortable life depends on them :) For instance....
vToilets – of course, you're always welcome in a bar where a hot espresso may be followed (or preceded!) by a trip to the bathrom ("il bagno" in Italian). Many bars have a sign on the door "Only for the clients" and some (usually small ones) even have their doors locked. Like it is not embarassing enough to ask for the key! However, I was a witness once how the owner of a tiny bar in front of my language school ran after the lady tourist who was asking to use the toilet. Venetians are very, very kind! (I couldn't understand, in the first place, why that lady did refuse to spend an euro for a fresh hot coffee and save the trouble of looking for the public facilities! perhaps, she did not have the need enough).
In any case, if you are similarly biased toward the public WC as opposed to the bar facitilities, so that you know – there is a number of the public toilets in Venezia, they are mentioned on the map and, also, there are big arrows all over town on the walls reading: “Toilet” (or “Bagno” in Italian). The cost of visit is about 0.5 euro, if I’m not mistaken. I would insist on recommending still the more pleasant experience of having a cup of coffee in the nearest bar :)
Water – of course, the vendors sell it everywhere, and in touristic places the price may reach 2E per bottle. Nonsense! It would be great to know that tap water in Venice is absolutely safe and tastes better than some of the bottled water. Have your plastic bottle and refill it wherever you see il lavandigno (sink). J
There are also these old–fashionable and marvelous drinking fountains located out on the streets.
Coffee – Italians obviously like staying close to each other, and they use the chance to mingle when they are having their coffee in the morning. Normally, un Italiano/una Italiana would have for breakfast a cup of coffee and a briosh (a pastry which the rest of the world are calling "croissant"), and do so in the nearest bar. At home they would eat the pieces of dry bread – “il pane tostato” or like in a family that I used to know, they would have a piece of buscuit cake.
! NB A cup of coffee “al banco” (you order and drink at the bar) would cost you two times less than if you sit at a table.
The orders commonly made in a bar:
- Un café normale - means espresso, about 20 drops of rich black aromatic liquid giving you energy for half a day.
- Un capuccio - means cappuccino, a normal–size cup of coffee with whipped milk.
! NB Please note that Italians do not drink cappuccino after noon. They think it’s bad for their health, and, probably, they are right. (Italians also do not consider swimming after a meal as good for health because “the stomach is full and working, and the water is cold” – probably, there is some logic….
- o Un café macchiato - means espresso with a small amount of milk.
- o Un café latte - means a BIG cup of coffee with milk. So if you’d like to have a long drink, get this one.
:) Once I pressed the button ‘latte’ dealing with the coffee wending machine in one agriturismo.... I was terribly surprised, to put it lightly, when it gave me no coffee, just the milk! We are used to call it "latte" simple style, in Italy the milk is milk..
If you ask for “un café”, you will automatically get espresso.
To add to your breakfast freshly squezeed orange juice, ask for spremuta.
Briosh come in variety of “vuoto” (empty), “con marmellata” (with jam) or “con cioccolato”.
Speaking about bars.....A Bar is a great invention of Italians (perhaps, not, but they definitely put those to the good use), where you can get your morning coffee, un aperitivo in the afternoon, a snack, some water, go to the toilet, read a paper, write, talk, simply look around…. In other words, that’s one of the centers of communal life in Italy, and Venezia is not an exception. I encourage you come and enjoy them not being put off by a crowd of chattering Italians – the bartender will always notice you and ask for your order. It is common also in many bars to have your order first and finish it, and only then to pay.
They are very trustworthy guys out there.
v Aperitivi is another thing worth noting. From 5pm many bars in Italy start serving drinks generally called i aperitivi, and many provide a good amount of free food with them. There is no limits or even rules what you order as your drink – the most common are campari orange or campari soda, a glass of wine or spritz, a signature drink of Venezia (apart from Bellini, which deserves a chapter on its own), a mix of sparkling wine, campari or apperol and soda.
It is not so common In Venice as in the mainland to serve much food with i aperitivi (in Bologna, for one, you can skip dinner eating so well at the aperitivi hour because the food is free of charge in most bars between the hour of 5 and 7pm). At the same time, the price for un aperitivo is also lower – you'd pay 2–3 euro for a glass of wine or a cocktail, with the extremes of 80 cents in some local places and 10+ Euro in the fancy places. In my local bar in Guidecca a glass of wine or Campari soda was 1.80 euro. In the hotel bar on the Grand Canal that I once stayed un aperitivo was Euro 16...
Campari soda often comes in small bottles as a premade drink, so if you prefer normal red Campari ask for Campari bitter. Campari, by the way, is very good for the digestion! Just remember this at times when you are bending over moaning from the excessive food, as a normal–size stomach human is unable to refrain from eating good Italian food…. Stay calm, you always can go on a diet later!
v TIME OF MEALS – although Italians eat their meals (for many years already) at set times (and also have some firm ideas as to how their meals should be eaten), nowadays many restaurants serve food all day long.
Here’s an example of how an Italian would have his daily intake of calories:
8–10am: un café e briosh (we already know what it means J)
12–2pm: un pranzo (lunch) consisting of il primo – usually la pasta or risotto or la zuppa and often no secondo, at least for an everyday meal.
8pm–10pm: la cena (dinner) – either pizza or fish or meat.
Since la pizza is made in a wooden oven, which takes several hours to heat, the normal time to eat it is for dinner. Some snack points in the city offering pizza by piece (“un pezzo”) are not bad, however, the real true pizza is soooo delicious, just wait for the evening and go to the one of pizzeria’s suggested later on.
Types of eateries and Venice Specialties
The difference between the osteria, pizzeria, trattoria, ristorante, chichetteria, tavolo caldo is the type of food they serve. For pizza you need to go to the pizzeria. Il ristorante will offer full–fledged services, including white table cloth, printed menu, host or hostess, wine list and ….and a higher price. Trattoria is usually family–owned and operated. There may be a menu (usually, there is one), but it’s best to ask the waiter for his suggestion what to eat. The service is casual. Osteria is the least formal of all, used to be a cuisine at the locanda (inn). Most of the eateries in Venezia would call themselves osteria. This is what I would choose – the food is hearty and homemade, the prices are the lowest, and the quality is always perfect because the guests usually know the owner.
Tavolo caldo, or Cicheteria in Venice, serves cold dishes. The Venice specialties include ’Sarde in saor’ (marinated sardines), “Cichetti” (morsel on a stick), “Gamberini” (shrimps), “Baccala” (salted cod).Traditionally, fish was marinated and/or salted in order to preserve it for long periods of time before eating, and that still reflects on variety of cold dishes that are found in the local eateries and are must try.
Cichetti – similar to Spanish tapas, these are small portions of food that are served in Venetian bars. Traditionally, Venetians eat cichetti (“have some fun”) with a small glass of wine (ombre) either before lunch or dinner or often in place of those meals. Eating cichetti is mostly a social activity where the locals hang out in crowded bars and eat cichetti standing up at the bar where they are spread out for one to choose from. It may also substitute a dinner, though J.
Interestingly, polenta is very popular in Venice, as well as fegato(calves liver). This makes one of the most delicious “secondo” (main course).
Panini – how we can forget about this one, a perfect sandwich made of heated bread (‘il pane’) with cheese and ham or bacon. There’s a huge variety of it made with tomatoes, mozzarella, tuna, eggs, you name it. It’s an all-Italian specialty and you can find it in the most of cafes and bars, yet there’s a special place for those called paninoteca, although in Venezia I have seen none of them.
Gelateria –a sacred place selling gelato (ice–cream). I recommend looking for gelato artigianale – artesian ice–cream as opposed to industrially made. The most remarkable flavor is “I fiori di latte” (flowers of milk). There is another interesting kind of ice–cream called “Un bacio” (a kiss). Well, all I can tell you about it is that when you are eating it, it does attract the men who are passing by – not sure which ingredient provides it with such a quality J.
Wine
Local wine, or vino della casa, is always a default (and very good) choice. The waiter (or the owner in osteria/trattoria) with pleasure brings you un bicchiero (a glass), un quartino (a quarter, that is, 250 ml), un mezzo (half a liter) or un litro, if you are very thirsty, of rosso or bianco. The price varies, but the more you get the less you pay (I like this principle!). A decent price for un quartino is 3–4 euros. Just a bargain, isn’t it?...
You may have heard of ombre – that’s what Italians ask for when they want a glass of wine in a bar. In Italian “ombre” means “shadow”. It comes from times when the wine vendor followed the shadow of Campanella on the Piazza San Marco to keep his product fresco (fresh). Un ombre goes for as little as 0,8 euro at some places and is the fine quality wine.
