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 aperitvo 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 bacari 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.
Andiamo, I’ll show you the real Venice and the surrounding countryside that the tourists never see.
Immerse yourself in the food culture of 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 on this food and wine tour of Venice. Then join me in the Veneto countryside where the wealthy Venetians had their holiday homes and farms and where iconic wines like Valpolicella and Soave are produced.
The above itinerary covers the tour highlights, the order of activities and locations may vary.
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