Venice - Italy - page 291

reason for you to consider staying on Giudecca—despite the vaporetto trip to get
here at the end of a day of sightseeing—is the prospect of sleeping in one of the
cheapest beds in Venice. Right near the Zitelle vaporetto launch, Ostello di
Venezia ( % 041-5238211; www.hostelbooking.com) benefits from its shore-front
location right on the Fondamenta, facing Dorsoduro. Breakfast is included in the
ultralow € 17 you'll pay for a bed in a unisex dorm. Note: This hostel isn't church-
operated, but the management here believes that cleanliness is next to godliness.
Book through the Internet, and coordinate your arrival to coincide with reception
times (7-9:30am and 1:30-11:30pm). Dorm access is restricted during the day,
and there's an 11:30pm curfew. If you don't already have one, you can purchase
your HI (hostelling) card upon arrival.
DINING FOR ALL TASTES
Venice has absorbed a remarkable variety of culinary influences, resulting from
centuries of occupation, borrowing, and assimilation. Naturally, the ocean is
responsible for many of the more expensive dishes on the city's menus; fish and a
range of exotic-sounding shellfish are taken from nearby waters and sold at the
pescheria (fish market) in Rialto. You'll be able to order everything from spider-
crab (granseola) to carpet-shell clams (caparozzolli) to the very unusual cap-
pelunghe, a long, pencil-shaped shell creature. One Venetian oddity you have got
to try is sarde in saor, a cold sour-sweet dish of sardines in vinegar and onions,
which is great as a starter (available city-wide) or as a snack at a bar.
Sarde in saor is one of the many varieties of cicchetti, Venice's version of tapas-
style snacking, which usually takes place at any of the myriad wine bars, or bacari,
and tends to be dominated by a smorgasbord of panini and tramazzini. Other
local specialties are baccalà montecato (dried, salted stockfish whipped into a
mousse), cuttlefish prepared in its own ink, fegato (calf 's liver with onions), and—
less regularly— anquilla (eel). Bigoli is a variety of large Venetian pasta you'll see
on most menus.
Venice's range of influences makes it an excellent place to experiment with new
tastes, but if you do have a conservative palate, there's always pizza, pasta, and
even steak to fall back on. Every menu in town has something for vegetarians.
Don't expect to get away with anything too cheap, because for the most part
Venetian restaurants are aimed squarely at the tourist buck. I've met a number of
Don't Let Them Eat Cake
Venice has long had a love affair with fine dining, so much so that in
times gone by, the city fathers passed laws to curb the tide of conspicu-
ous over-consumption of decadent, expensive foods. In 1514, a body of
“Luxury Commissioners” known as Provveditori alle Pompe was set up to
tone down the reportedly depraved tastes of the citizenry. It became ille-
gal to serve oysters at large dinner parties, and there were serious limita-
tions on the type of confection that could be served for dessert.