The Food!

I've never done a post about a meal we ate, but I'm going to make an exception because the meals in Italy were so good!  As tourists staying in a hotel or B&B, we ate largely in restaurants, trying to find ones that served good local food.  I think the best we had was on the waterfront in Venice, at the Gelateria Bucintoro Ristorante.

Eating out in an Italian restaurant usually involved 3 courses, the appetizer, the main course, and a desert, all accompanied with a glass or two of wine (at least if you're splurging like a tourist on holiday).  sometimes it's four, the separate pasta course, just to make sure you get full.  Our favourite appetizer quickly became an 'Insalata Caprese', the traditional salad of tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella and basil.  We loved it so much we're eating it regularly here at home.  Add a little prosciotto ('purshootoe') and it becomes a meal.

Since Mrs. FG is not fond of fish, I often try to eat fish while we eat out.  These are sea-bass fillets, and they were excellent.  I enjoyed the whole meal so much we went back again a day later, and I ordered exactly the same thing.

I'm truly sorry about the third course - it was so good I didn't even stop to take a picture - the best Tiramisu we've ever tasted.  You'll have to imagine it.

This was the restaurant - the Gelateria Bucintoro Ristorante, overlooking the water just east of St. Mark's Square.  By evening the cruise ship visitors have returned to their ship for dinner, and the crowds are a lot more tolerable..

On several occasions, usually for lunch we either bought sandwiches in the little sandwich shops, or bought buns, tomatoes and prosciutto and ate back in our room while recovering from the 10 mile walk of the day.

Venice has markets too, and this is one place where you're more likely to run into locals doing their shopping that tourists seeing the sights.  One day we wandered the back streets beyond the Rialto Bridge, and found the Rialto Market.

In a couple of places we also saw fruit and veggie markets on moored barges in the canals, providing food for very local neighbourhoods.

But it's the fish market that is famous, described as one of the best fresh fish markets in the world.  Of course there was no point in us buying, but it was sure fun to look - such a choice!

Sorry I can't tell you what all the fish are, but they looked good to me.

The food will be one of our biggest memories of this trip - we've already started on a bit of a 'Mediteranean' diet here at home, with lots of olive oil, tomatoes and cheese!