Our Venice hotel, 5 minutes from Piazza San Marco, is at the mouth of the Grand Canal, with views to the island of San Giorgio Maggiore and the majestic dome of Santa Maria della Salute. Sunrise and sunset are spectacular. Five minutes in the other direction brings us to peaceful Castello.
An aperitivo before dinner is essential throughout Italy. In Venice it’s taken at bàcari serving a delicious array of cicchetti (bar snacks). The accompanying small glass of white wine is called un’ombra. We’ll visit some of Venice’s most out-of-the-way bàcari for our cicchetti e ombre.
At the thousand-year-old Mercato Rialto we’ll mingle with locals shopping for fresh seafood and an amazing array of fruit & vegetables grown on the lagoon's outer islands. Breakfast of mini panini and local wine on crates outside Bar al Mercà is a Venetian rite of passage.
About half an hour across the lagoon is the colourful island of Burano, where we'll lunch at Trattoria al Gatto Nero. Seafood antipasti of razor clams, tiny scallops and mantis prawns is fresh out of the lagoon, and the tiramisu to finish may be Venice’s best.
In Valpolicella, famous for wines like Amarone and Ripasso, we'll stay on a family-owned wine estate where we'll have a private tasting in the atmospheric cellar. We'll take day trips into the surrounding countryside to learn more about the distinctive wine and food of this beautiful area.
We'll dine in subterranean Trattoria La Torre beneath the bell tower of a 13th century church, where traditional local dishes like bigoli with duck ragù, risotto with Valpolicella, and wood-fired steaks are a perfect accompaniment to more delicious Valpolicella wine.
Most Soave exported around the world is pleasantly quaffable white wine made from grapes grown on the plains around Verona. However, we'll be climbing high into the steep volcanic hillsides of Soave Classico to meet three sisters who are returning this delicious wine to its traditional glory.
Wealthy Venetians have long had farms just beyond the lagoon in Padua. We'll stay in an historic farmhouse here and visit the city centre, UNESCO-listed for its extraordinary 14th-century frescoes, and home to a fabulous covered food market. We'll tour an artisanal grappa distillery too.
Venice is a beautiful old girl, but in her senior years she can be a touch contrary. In winter, when she’s relatively free of tourists, she’s also often grey, windy and flooded. In summer, when the sunshine sparkles off the Istrian marble of her churches and palaces, she’s often packed to the gills with camera-toting day-trippers. But once you learn a few of her secrets – such as which tiny calli to wander down to find the best bàcari – and settle in for cicchetti e un’ombra, then you’re living like a Venetian and fall under her spell.
To really appreciate Venice you need to see her within the context of the Veneto region, yet few of her millions of annual visitors ever set foot in the surrounding provinces. We’ll visit Padua, where Venetian nobility built their farms and summer houses – and Treviso, where the UNESCO-listed vineyard-covered hills produce the finest Prosecco. Vicenza, closely associated with grappa production, is also famous for Renaissance architecture, and Verona is home to the great red wines of Valpolicella and the popular whites of Soave. There’s also the often-overlooked Po Delta, south of Venice, a unique waterway full of wild birds and fascinating history.
Andiamo! I’ll show you the real Venice and the surrounding countryside that the tourists never see.
Spend 11 days immersed in the food culture of the Veneto and Venice. Stay in a hotel overlooking the Grand Canal, eat regional specialties in osterie frequented by locals and enjoy cicchetti and local wine in out-of-the-way bàcari. Then join me in the Veneto countryside where the wealthy Venetians had their holiday homes and farms and where iconic wines like Valpolicella and Prosecco are produced.
The above itinerary covers the tour highlights – the order of activities and locations may vary.
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For centuries Venice’s nobility built their farms and summer houses on the mainland, and the lagoon city relied on the surrounding Veneto for much of its food and wine. On my Veneto food and wine tour, we follow that story from Venice’s bàcari and Rialto Market to the farmland of Padua, the wetlands of the Po Delta and the vineyards of Valpolicella, Soave and Prosecco.
My Veneto food and wine tour visits three of northern Italy’s great wine regions: Valpolicella, home of Amarone and Ripasso, where we stay on a family wine estate; Soave Classico, where we visit a small family producer of complex whites from garganega and trebbiano grapes; and the UNESCO-listed Prosecco hills of Valdobbiadene. We also tour a grappa distillery.
Yes – on this Veneto culinary tour we spend five nights in Venice, with some free time each day to shop, sightsee or simply wander, alongside shared meals and experiences like the Rialto Market, a visit to the Jewish ghetto and a classic mahogany speedboat ride across the lagoon to Burano.
I’ll give you suggestions for what you might like to see and do in your free time too.
Venice is car-free, so we explore on foot, with strolls of up to 30 minutes over its bridges; the vaporetto (water bus) is an easy alternative. In the Veneto region, outside Venice, our minibus takes us everywhere.
Being on tour with me is like travelling with a small group of food-loving friends. Discover all the details – from accommodation and restaurant style to catering for dietary requirements and travelling solo – in the FAQ on my Food & Wine Tours page.
