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A Quiet
Sunday Lunch in Venice
By Slawka Giorgia Scarso
When
I decided to go to Venice on a Sunday outing just after
Christmas, I thought I was doomed to be squashed by
other tourists on tiny bridges, to hang onto a vaporetto
(the ferry-bus that takes you from one end of town to
the other) with my feet dragging in the Canal Grande
waters, to share a one-way raised walkway put during
winter floods with hundreds of people and their cumbersome
luggage. Still, I was determined to do it. I must say
that my first impression as I got out of the station
was a little claustrophobic; not so much for the number
of people as for that of stalls selling scarves, gondolier
style striped T-shirts and Carnival masks that looked
everything but hand made in Venice.
However, I soon discovered that avoiding the crowds
was unbelievably simple. I'm not saying that there was
no queue to get into Basilica di San Marco to see the
Byzantine mosaics nor that elbowing one's way across
Ponte DI Rialto was not necessary. What I mean is that
it was enough to enter a small alley - they're called
calle or ruga in Venice - and I could completely forget
I was in a town invaded by tourists like myself.
I saw parents taking their children to a playground
surrounded by houses with lancet windows and marble
balconies. The sound of a choir enticed me inside a
secluded church with strikingly snow-white walls (no
sign of golden mosaics whatsoever). Finally, the sight
of a family visiting relatives for lunch and especially
of the small parcel from the pasticceria they had with
them, possibly containing those delicious cinnamon scented
rice cakes which bring to mind the Oriental spices arriving
in Venice in the past centuries, reminded me that it
was already time for lunch.
I kept a distance from Piazza San Marco's cafes where
sandwiches cost a fortune and opted for one of the osterie
or cicchetterie that are scattered a bit everywhere,
from the neighbourhood of Cannaregio to that of Dorsoduro,
where the Peggy Guggenheim museum is. I ended up in
a little place called Osteria al Bomba. The long dining
room was occupied in all its length by a single table
above which little lace lamps created a cosy atmosphere.
I was happy to notice that my table-companions (literally!)
were locals and decided to have what they were eating:
cicchetti. Cicchetti, as I learnt, is a Venetian word
for savouries, especially those made with polenta and
baccalà (smoked codfish), cooked in different
ways, small fish and mussels, roasted vegetables and
so on. A plateful of these delicacies arrived after
a few minutes together with a jug of house red wine.
Later, the meal was splendidly finished by a delicious
coffee and Venetian biscuits (best if soaked into the
local red wine as one of my table-companions informed
me).
After lunch it was time for shopping and I couldn't
help stopping every two metres to look at the craftsmen
creating real Venetian Carnival masks or the beautiful
handmade notebooks and diaries sold in little shop-cum-laboratories
in the neighbourhood of Dorsoduro.
Before I knew it, it was time to go back to the station.
I caught a vaporetto from Ponte dell'Accademia and enjoyed
the alternation of the lulling waters of Canal Grande
and the roller-coaster style halting of the vaporetto
at every stop, while my eyes were filled with Venice's
spectacularly illuminated night.
Osteria al Bomba, Cannaregio 4297-98 Venezia. Strada
Nuova, Campo Santa Sofia, Calle dell'Oca. Tel. 041-5205175
Slawka
Scarso is a freelance writer based in Rome and a regular
contributor to The Traveler.
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