We landed in Venice in the late afternoon. Venice airport is pretty small, and since we had a layover in France, we were able to finish the formalities very quickly and head to the exit. There is a cafe near the exit, where they sold pizza by the weight, coffee and some other baked goods. My daughter and I shared a slice of the margherita pizza and a slice of the pesto pizza, and we were immediately blown away by the flavors from a fairly non-descript shop in an airport. This was NOT the airport food of America and it was the signal of wonderful things to come, food-wise at least, for the next couple of weeks.
From the airport, we were able to buy tickets for the Alilaguna, a public ferry service to the islands of Venice from the airport. We used the kiosk inside the airport to buy tickets, and we were able to pay using our international credit card.
The boat ride was amazing in the late afternoon, it was starting to get cool as it was October, but it was still extremely pleasant and while I do have a tendency to get seasick, this was an easy ride. Once we reached the island of Venice, we walked to our Airbnb, which was near the Santa Maria Formosa church. Our host was very responsive and friendly; he met with us a couple of blocks from the ferry port, gave us a brief overview of the place and walked us to the Airbnb.
We freshened up and immediately head over for lunch (the earlier pizza did not count!) at Baci and pasta. This was a hole in the wall establishment, but it was very popular, judging by the lines outside. But service was very quick and we did not have to wait that long. The pasta was perfectly fresh and al-dente, and the tiramisu was phenomenal. I highly recommend this restaurant for inexpensive, vegetarian food. There is only standing tables, no seating, but the owner was kind enough to let us have his chair for our toddler who couldn’t reach the table.
After lunch, we went to the famous Libreria Acqua Alta, a local bookshop with a gondola full of books inside. It is a popular Instagram spot, so as expected there was a long winding line to enter. We considered stopping by another day, but decided to wait in line as we did not have anything else planned that day. Once inside, we had to keep walking in the designated path, and there was not much time to browse the books, souvenirs and other knickknacks they had on display. But they had a beautiful selection of books in both English and Italian, including children’s books and the loveliest postcards and magnets. The gondola took up the entire store and looked impressive stacked with books, although I am not sure it is worth the hype.
In the back of the store, they also had a staircase made out of books that you could walk on as an interesting experience. Since walking on books is frowned upon in our culture, my husband did not partake. However I said, “When in Rome (er – Venice)!” and joined my kids on the walk and found it quite fun.
After the walk in the back, we were herded straight to checkout and after purchasing our first souvenirs (A beautiful Venetian cat mask magnet and a cat bookmark for my toddler) we headed for a stroll along Campo Santa Maria Formosa. “Campo” means square in Italian, and Venice is full of these incredible narrow streets that are then connected to a square. Campo Santa Maria Formosa had a lot of souvenir shops, some restaurants and a beautiful old church, and we spent an hour or so taking it all in, while eating gelato.
The kids then started to feel tired, so we walked back to the Airbnb and thought we would take a short nap before dinner. However, we finally felt the effects of jetlag and we ended up sleeping well past eight. Luckily, my husband woke up in the middle and decided to grab some takeout pizza for dinner. That non-descript takeout spot, Cip Ciap la Bottega de la Pizza, turned out to have the second-best pizza we ate in all of Italy (keep reading to find out which was the best!), and it was very inexpensive and filling. My husband bought a few extra slices to eat the following day as a snack, but the pizza was so good that we devoured it all in the course of that jetlagged night.