When You're In Venice...
Venice, for us Americans, conjures up thoughts of a place of make-believe, a destination which is on a lot of our bucket lists. And, once you get there it, it still seems like a dream. It is like a walking into a time machine and when exiting you’re in the middle ages, very surreal. Or you can think of it as arriving on a movie set, since Venice Italy looks exactly like what you’ve seen in commercials and in the movies. It is a truly fascinating place to visit, with period buildings all around, architecture ranging from Byzantine, to Roman to Gothic, from the grandoise Grand Canal to the narrowest of walkways, the absence of cars, the silence at night time, just hearing the pitter patter of a passerby and water lapping in a nearby canal and the passing gondola.
So, what do the local Venetians think of this UNESCO ‘paradise’ where they are from? What is life really like for them? What are their traditions?
We spoke with a couple Venetians, and also paid a visit to this cultural mecca, to find out for ourselves.
A fruit and vegetable vendor in Venice whose stand is on a boat.
Life in Venice
Venetians are used to the historic grandeur around them, and develop close, lasting relationships with the people in their neighborhood and classmates. They tend to stick around the neighborhood where they are from and their life circulates around that neighborhood.
They are people who are used to adapting. They use boats for everything imaginable, from construction, to deliveries, to having a full standing shop on a boat! You see all sorts of boats passing by when walking around Venice. Putting aside the gondolas which are clearly for tourists, the Venetians have boats both with and without motors. They are masterful at rowing and steering a long narrow wooden boat amidst sometimes heavy traffic in the narrowest of canals, between gondolas, taxis, and the many residents and businesses using boats as a necessity to getting by.
While the absence of cars makes it a fascinating place to visit, it makes it very cumbersome for everyday life. Think of the simple, but necessary, chore of bringing back groceries from the supermarket which entails facing an obstacle course between narrow alleys, bridges every 100 feet, and dogging tourists, then getting to your building and climbing 4 flights of stairs, as buildings typically do not have elevators there.
These inconveniences, plus higher cost of living in Venice, have driven many to move to the Venice Lido, where the Venice Film Festival takes place, as it has more conveniences, like streets where cars can drive, yet it is a short car or boat ride away to Venice, while other natives have left the area completely.
You Can’t Take the Venice Out of the Venetians
What is a bacaro in Venice? What is cicchetti? This picture tells it all.
But while you can take a Venetian out of Venice, you cannot take the Venice out of the Venetian.
Despite Venetians having left Venice in droves, what brings Venetians who moved out of town back to Venice?
Certainly, the fascination that they hold for their native city is exponentially much stronger than a passing tourist. Take for example Luca Manderino, a native Venetian who moved to the USA many years ago to establish a life and a business. When asked, what is THE best thing about life in Venice. He answered with 2 things: walking and talking.
Loving walking around in Venice we get. As tourists, walking around Venice is like a real life Disneyland. But on his latter response, it shows how big community is in Venice. The Venetians have tight bonds with friends and family they grew up with, and they enjoy meeting up, passing the hours socializing and chit-chatting.
Where is their go-to place to meet up? For the true Veneziani, they skip the restaurants and instead go to the bars. Are they lushes? Well, let’s say that the culture of having an ‘apertivo’ is full embedded in North Eastern Italy, from Veneto, the region where Venice is, up to Friuli.
The area near the Venice Fish Market is known by the locals for its lively bàcaro scene in the evenings.
But they don’t go to any old bar. They go to a bàcaro, which is a venetian expression meaning pub, or you can think of it as wine bar venice style. Its name derives from ‘Bacco’, or Bacchus in Latin, the Roman god of wine. In fact, when you go to a bàcaro, there is usually a casual, yet upbeat, sometimes festive, atmosphere. And wine is overflowing. No, make that spritz too!
And, in Italy, where there is wine there is food. To pair with wine and spritzes for an apertivo, the Venice bars break out the cicchetti (CHICK-ETTY), the equivalent of tapas in Venice. A lot of the cichetti Venice appetizers are basically street food Venice style, with many being fried appetizers, from fried fish balls, to fried bread with pieces of speck, a Northern Italian cured pork with origins in Germany, and olive ascolane, borrowed from the marchegiana cuisine in the central-eastern Italian region of Le Marche, which are meat stuffed olives then fried. The winters in Venice are cold and damp so a little fat in the Venetians’ diet is welcomed. But also, more healthy fish appetizers are a standard part of the bàcaro appetizer selection, from the Veneto staple bacalà, or cod fish, made into different types of appetizers, to sarde in saor, whole sardines marinated along with onions in sweetened vinegar.
The Real Venice Food Tour Is a Bar Crawl With Tapas
What, however, you may not know is that, according to many Italians, Venice is not known for having good restaurants. The Italians consider a Venice Italy restaurant to be either touristy, over expensive or just not worth the visit. Keep in mind, that, in Italy, it is easy to find off-the-beaten path places to eat which serve exceptional food for the price, compared to what we have in the US. But, in Venice, with it being such a top tourist destination, the search for this type of restaurant is like finding a diamond in the rough.
Why go to an Italian restaurant in Venice when you can go to Venice bars, or bàcari (plural for bàcaro), and have the true Venice Italy foods and experience of cicchetti? It is like combining a bar crawl with the Spanish tradition of having tapas as an elevated cultural experience!
In fact, what is a fun experience as a tourist is to do a bàcaro crawl. There are so many bàcari that you don’t even need to plan an itinerary. You would be better off in a non touristy part of Venice, or at least not San Marco area. One area popular among the Veneziani bàcaro socializing is the near the Venice fish market, for example. Another area to try bàcaro hopping off the beaten path for tourists is in our around the Jewish ghetto, in an area known as Canaregio. We could recommend some specific bàcaro for you to try, but to enjoy the experience more, just improvise: go to google maps, type in bàcaro and you will see loads pop up. Just be sure to start early as some close as early at 8pm.
Wines at Bàcari
What Italian wine is typically served at bàcari in Venice?
Not surprisingly, it is dry wines from Veneto, the region where Venice is part of, with a tendency towards white wine. The wines are mostly monovarietals, so made from 1 grape, of course native Veneto.
It goes without saying that the most widely consumed Italian sparkling wine, Prosecco, whose birthplace is just an hour away from Venice, is omnipresent there. We’re big fans of a crisp, balanced and expressive Prosecco. If you recall, we feature artisanal Proseccos made by the Sanzovo brothers with their Col Del Balt estate, having had a one of our virtual wine tastings with Carlo and Fabio live from their winery and home in Valdobbiadene, Veneto, right after we imported their small production wines for the first time to the US just over a year ago about . Sip on one of their Proseccos, close your eyes and it will transport you to bàcaro alongside a canal in Venice.
Another white wine you’ll find often at a bacaro in Venice is Lugana white wine, made from the ‘noble’ white grape, turbiana, as we covered in our VeroTalk wine tasting with family winery Zamichele followed by this article describing their wines and the Lugana wine region.
Some bacari are positioning themselves more as natural wine bar destinations where they showcase natural italian wine from Veneto, like Eros Zanon’s glera (prosecco) pet nat along with more obscure native varieties like Boschera natural sparkling wine.
Then some bàcari have more highly curated wine selections were you can find Durello wines from Veneto, which we just explored at a winetasting with Sandro de Bruno last month, as well as wines from Friuli, like Friulano white wine and Refosco red wine. After all, Friuli, which is where Vigna Petrussa is based, is just a couple hours north of Venice.
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