Adrian Wiszniewski is our new painting tutor for Venice in June this year. The famous artist reached global status as member of the "New Glasgow Boys" and his paintings can be found all over the world. Today, he tells us a little bit more about himself and his painting background... read more here: https://www.flavoursholidays.co.uk/blog/painting-tutor-adrian-wiszniewski
It might be the birthplace of the Bellini but to look like a local in Venice you have to sip a Spritz. Pop your head through the door of Harry’s Bar just off Piazza San Marco, catapulted to fame by Ernest Hemingway and his cronies back in the 1930s (www.cipriani.com). But as the tourists wait patiently for the tiny, overpriced champagne and peach puree cocktails – slope off to find a tiny bacaro and join the locals propping up the bar.
There are four main types of Venetian Spritz and everyone has their favourite. There’s Spritz al Bitters (Campari), Spritz con Cynar (artichoke aperitif), Spritz with Select (Select Pilla) and Spritz a l’Aperol. The mixers are all amari or Italian bitters. Artichoke might be the distinguishing ingredient of Cynar, but it’s made up of a medley of herbs. Aperol, meanwhile, is a lurid orange concoction containing rhubarb, gentian and bitter orange.
To make a Venetian Spritz you clunk a few chunks of ice into a glass. Add two parts dry white wine, a dash of sparkling water – or squirt of soda water, then one part bitters mixer. Traditionally, with the Aperol or Select you garnish with a slice of orange, with Campari or Cynar a twist of lemon and a green olive. For a bit of extra pizzazz some bartenders use prosecco instead of white wine.
Then sip with tapas-style cicchetti standing up at an old wooden counter in one of the bacari peppered throughout the city or recline as the sun goes down on a terrace overlooking the Grand Canal or the lagoon. And savour the wonderful mouthy mix of gently sparkling sweetness, bitters, and citrus notes.
Venice in summer? You must be mad, they tell you. It’s swamped with tourists - and the stench from the canals…puh!
I’ve fallen in love with Venice in every season – even when the rain has been sheeting down and we’ve had to teeter across Piazza San Marco on raised wooden walkways. In July, as the sun burnt mercilessly through the early morning mist on the lagoon, I jostled through the camera-clicking crowds – and sniffed. Nothing.
And it’s surprisingly easy to escape the throng. While tourists tramp the well-trodden trails, swarming like pollen-drunk bees, veer down any of the little alleyways and lose yourself in the watery labyrinth. The muffled silence of the dank passageways plunges you back in time. You’ll stumble upon hidden gems, secret gardens, tiny neighbourhood shops, as all around you water laps soporifically against the stones.
Meander mindlessly, crossing little bridges, until you come across locals spilling out of a rustic bacaro or bar. Stop and join them for cichetti – tapas-like snacks eaten standing up at the bar with an ombra, or small glass of wine. Venice is one of the most expensive places in Italy to eat, they sniff. Not if you follow the locals.
And forget about the wallet-mugging gondoliers gliding through the canals and cross the Grand Canal by traghetto. For a handful of loose change these public gondolas punt businessmen in suits, teenagers on their iPods, women laden with groceries – standing room only - across the Grand Canal.
As for the water taxis, they cost the earth – so take the bus. Hop on a vaporetto or waterbus. These ramshackle old boats zigzag down the Grand Canal, Venice's high street, past crumbling palazzi dating from the 12th to the 18th-centuries. The trip from Piazzale Roma to San Marco takes around half an hour and, at night, when the canal is floodlit, the architectural extravaganza is even more magical.
