postcard 20: a foggy day in venice
just another weekend adventure.
It’s 11pm on a Friday night and we’re watching YouTube videos and trying to hem my jeans. We’ve got an early morning tomorrow, but I have nothing to wear. This usually means, I have nothing I want to wear, but today it is 100% a fact. I have nothing to wear.
I researched the weather before we moved here, but I’d underestimated the power of 90% humidity on 50° days. All the shorts I packed have been languishing in the back of my closet and I’ve been rotating two pairs of leggings and my overalls for two and a half months. The leggings are threadbare and I do not think I can wear overalls in Venice, Italy with a straight face.
So here we are, hemming my too-long jeans with holes in the knees the size of dinner plates so I won’t trip over them all day tomorrow. It’s supposed to be sunny and warm, nearly 60, so I lay out a long sleeve shirt and a light jacket and we finally go to bed.
When I take Hazelnut out to pee in the dark morning, a thick fog obscures the stars and swirls around the streetlight. I grab a pair of baselayers, just in case, and we shiver and wait for the car to heat up.
I’ve gotten the hang of driving a manual, on the highways at least, and Topher dozes in between coffee stops as I navigate us through Croatia, across the tiny strip of Slovenia and into Italy. The fog gets thicker and thicker the closer we get to Venice. It’s hard to see anything and I finally pull into a gas station to let him do the final 20 minutes into the city.
Cars, of course, can’t drive onto the islands that make up Venice, but we have a reservation at a parking garage on the mainland where something called a people mover will transport us across the stretch of water to the pedestrian zone. The lanes end abruptly at the toll station and Topher inches the car forward until the toll booth materializes out of the ether. I’m craning my neck for the Audi that was next to us a minute ago, he’s disappeared. We cross our fingers and hope Google Maps chooses this moment to finally be useful and not lead us the wrong way into a canal.
It’s 35° and the fog settles heavy and wet around us. I put on my baselayers under my jeans (definitely should’ve just worn the overalls) and we make our way out of the garage. “It’s broken, take the bus,” the Stanley Tucci look alike at the gate tells us of the people mover. We wander between bus stops, unsure where we’re supposed to go, until a bus labeled “people mover” appears out of the mist. We board it and 10 minutes later, we’re in Piazza le Roma.
I’d imagined if any time of year was safe from Venice’s infamous crowds, it would be a random Saturday in January, but the streets are teeming. There’s signs everywhere warning us of pickpockets but an overwhelmed Hazelnut trails behind us, watching our backs, or at least the pigeons she randomly tries to pounce on every few minutes.
Our plan was to wander, eat cichetti, (small bite street food) for lunch and then deposit Hazelnut back in the car and see a museum before dinner. But we've made it 20 minutes along the canal and we’re both freezing. We duck into an alley and I go into a tiny little restaurant and order a paper cone of fried calamari and shrimp all in Italian, before giving myself away and accidentally handing over a Swiss Franc as payment. We sit on a bench outside and try to figure out how to eat the little head on shrimp that were battered and fried, eyeballs still gazing up at us. Hazelnut doesn’t mind and eats a whole shrimp, tail and all.
The streets are littered with confetti and the crowds grow thicker as we wind our way deeper and deeper into the city. The map made it look compact, but there’s so many canals and bridges and streets between us and the lagoon. The gondoliers are huddling for warmth in cafes and on street corners, no one willing to take a ride on the breezy water. Later we’ll realize that we’ve somehow managed to hit the opening day of Carnival, but for now we're just floored imagining how bad the crowds must get come summer.
People are taking selfies across the Grand Canal, but most everything is still obscured by the thick fog. We duck off the main street and wander into an empty bar where we order espressos and polpetta (fried meatballs) and focaccia topped with pumpkin and thick, garlicky cheese. Hazelnut lays down on the floor, happy to be out of the fog that’s making her poof up to twice her size.
I’ve starred half a dozen spots for us to visit on Maps and Topher leads us through a maze of streets, getting distracted only by cannolis, and deposits me in front of a pasta shop I was excited to see. The giant shells and multi-colored shapes fade into static as I realize it’s not just a pasta shop, it’s an Asian grocery store, too. I’m overwhelmed by the possibilities. Kewpie and gouchujang, dashi and miso and all of Topher’s favorite brands of ramen. I switch with him and hold Hazelnut while he fills his backpack with a kilogram of miso, spicy chili oil and packages and packages of ramen. He bumps into a Japanese woman, buying every bottle of Kewpie mayo they sell and she apologizes in Japanese, “sumimasen”.
Backpack full, we finally make it to the Doge’s Palace at the end of the Grand Canal and marvel at the massive building and ornate basilica. This was the spot we’d planned to return to and go inside while Hazelnut took a nap in the car, but we’ve walked 3 miles already and we’re numb from the cold. Another day, we promise, and start making our way back towards the garage, sticking our heads in every restaurant and cafe, looking for a place to warm up. There’s nowhere with enough room for Hazelnut to lay down, the crowds only growing as the day wears on. We end up back at the first tiny takeaway restaurant and Topher orders pastas in little boxes reminiscent of Chinese takeout containers. We lean up against a canal and eat steaming noodles covered in pesto (me) and ragu (Topher). Hazelnut sits patiently and waits for a bite and it’s cold and crowded and I’m a little overwhelmed and done, but in that moment, it’s hard to believe I’m not dreaming up this magical life.
We’re on the road five hours after we’ve parked, which is just long enough to have justified paying the day parking rate instead of the hourly. We get back home early enough to order a pizza and watch Oppenheimer on the couch, finally dethawing.
There’s a box waiting for us at the post office, so we don our cooler backpack and walk into town, stopping by on the way to the market. Topher reappears, 30 minutes later, with a giant box from his folks and tells me he can never go back inside because he’s made an enemy out of the lady at the counter for not understanding her Croatian. I leave Topher and Hazelnut and the box at one of the empty tables at the edge of the market and wind my way towards the citrus lady. She’s laughing so hard I think she’s going to cry and I turn around to see Hazelnut on top of the stand. All the vendors are pointing and laughing, as Topher (still wearing the big backpack) attempts to wrangle the dog and the box. She only charges me €2 for a whole bag of oranges, so I assume we’ve won over the vendors and have finally gotten the local pricing. The cauliflower lady doesn’t seem as amused, but the green pepper vendor throws in an extra pepper for me. We need eggs and focaccia too and by the time we’re done at the bakery, we’re sweating and carrying too much, cursing the fact we live on top of a hill.
It’s that random day every 18 months where I get a wild hair and decide that maybe this will be the year I start running. I lace up my tennis shoes and put in my earbuds and wave goodbye to Topher and Hazelnut as I jog down the coast. It’s easier to run at sea level, I realize, but even still, after a mile and a half I’ve put the idea to bed until 2026, at least. When I meet my little family along the sidewalk on the way back, they’ve had their own adventure. Hazelnut finally made friends, a pair of Bernies from Spain. Their mom didn't speak English and Topher doesn’t speak Croatian, so he used his kitchen Spanish on her and the dogs chased each other in the grass. She’s elated.
After the Venice wardrobe debacle I’ve promised myself that this will be the week I buy real pants. We go to the mall and I try on 100 things and end up buying a sweatsuit instead. When in Rome, er, Croatia I suppose. You win some, you lose some.
Until next time,
Mikaela