day 12 :

thursday, 25 may

Today's field trip was to Venice. After a couple of hours of driving, our tour bus arrived at the Tronchetto parking area, and we walked a short distance to a water taxi. Giuliano did a great job with the arrangements here: although a few hundred tourists were waiting on the docks for boats to central Venice, we walked past all of them, got into our water taxi, and took off within a minute, with the crowd staring after us. Now that's what we call first-class service!

Our taxi let us off at the famous Rialto market, and Giuliano took us to each of the seafood stands, translating the signs and describing where each unique fish and crustacean came from. Some of the best catches come from the nearby Venetian lagoon. We've never seen such a variety of edible sea creatures in one place before! From here, we walked through the rest of the market and stopped at Giuliano's favorite food-related shops, including one that carries some of the best dried pasta in Italy. Just as wine and coffee connoisseurs like to know the details of where their drink comes from, pasta connoisseurs are starting to see the same sort of information on the high-end products. Is the pasta a single wheat varietal, or from multiple wheat sources? What field was the wheat grown in? When was it harvested? Apparently, this is a trend on the rise.

We walked over a few little bridges, through tiny streets and piazzas, and arrived at Fiaschetteria Toscana. Many years ago, the building was a wine and oil market, so when the present owners converted the space into a restaurant, they kept the name. However, there's nothing Tuscan about the cuisine here. It is as Venetian as it gets, and was one of our favorite restaurants on the entire trip. Giuliano's family also happens to be good friends with the owners (Marcella and Victor lived in Venice for 20 years), so we all enjoyed the lavish attention given to our group. The meal featured dish after dish of freshly-caught seafood, exquisitely prepared and presented. The cuttlefish ink pasta with lobster is not to be missed — just the right balance of black pasta, a delicious tomato and herb sauce, and the delicate lobster on top. Mariuccia, one of the owners, makes the desserts, and her apple tarte tatin was one of the best we've had. It's so famous, in fact, that it was featured in Gourmet magazine in January 2006.

We had some free time this afternoon to wander through Venice, so the two of us took an elevator up to the top of Campanile di San Marco (the belltower of San Marco square) to get a good overview of the city. The square itself is jam-packed with tourists and pigeons, and bordered on all sides by ridiculously overpriced shops and restaurants. But, once you're 325 feet above the madness, all of that fades and you simply marvel at the beauty of the city and its waterways. We tried to not think about how the tower had collapsed unexpectedly in 1902, and an exact replica was built in 1912. We hoped the replica wasn't too exact!

Our weary crew arrived back at the villa in the evening, and because of the long day and late hour, we didn't have a cooking class. So, our hosts at Villa Giona prepared a simple but tasty meal for us. One treat was a spit roast which they had tended all afternoon and evening, using the spit built into one of the wings of the villa. They use the mechanical rotating roaster frequently for large dinners at the villa.