The advantage of sharing someones home is we have access to facilities much desired...such as cooking facilities and a washing machine... remember I posted earlier about the difficulty of finding somewhere to wash clothes. Have survived mainly by hand washing, although we did have a washing machine in an apartment in Verona. So today I did some washing and hung the clothes out Italian style.
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| Washing day Italian style |
We eat out most evenings, but here in Venice the restaurants and trattorias really do take advantage of the tourists. Not only do they add a cover charge per/person to the bill as is the custom all over Italy, but here they also add a service fee of around 10-12% on top of that. And bottle water can cost you as much as 5 - 7 euros (no choice of tap water I'm afraid), so on top of your food and drinks bill you generally pay an extra 8-12 euros ($12-18). No wonder the guide books advise not to tip.
The best places to eat if you want a drink and a light snack are the tiny bars known as Osterias or birrerias. Generally between the hours of about 6-8pm you can help yourself to bar food. Indeed some are very generous with their food and may even include pasta or rice dishes as well as appetisers and tapas style snacks and all for free. They also serve light meals to purchase as well the cheapest drinks. Our favorite drink at the moment is campari spritz (campari, proseco and soda with a slice of orange and lots of ice). Just the thing to get the appetite going...I suppose they don't call them aperitifs for nothing. Anyway if you have one from a bar you'll pay 2-3 euros ($3 - 4.50) or double that in a restaurant.
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| Look at all that free food...Yum |
You must excuse me, it's now 6.00pm and I can feel a spritz coming on...or maybe a beer. So many decisions to make...umm, spritz, beer, spritz, beer... beer it is...light beer, red beer? Yes red beer, no, no, no, make that a light beer...
Oh I can't stand these major decisions. I'm sure you can appreciate the stress we're under.
Back from the Birreria, its time to get cooking
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| Francesca's kitchen |
Night, night
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