Italy! For a Little Bittaly…

It seemed for a while that we never should have left Prague. In order to fit our entire trip into a single travel day (as our travel days are finite on our rail passes) we were leaving Prague at 12:01 am. Our day of wandering was cold; the burrito place we planned to visit before boarding the train was too busy to make it on time, the stores were closed at the stations we pulled into. Things were not going well. After twenty two hours of travel we eventually arrived in Venice and checked into our hostel. We looked into anywhere that was still open and serving food, and found that there was a pizzeria just a few minutes down the street. We headed out and ordered two pizza marinaras and felt our moods shift drastically. Pizza marinara is a pizza without cheese, compensated with extra sauce, oregano, and slices of garlic. You can find it on most pizzeria menus in Italy, or at the very least you can request it. For some reason I am unsure of I expected to be largely indifferent to pizza in Italy, but halfway through this I knew I had a staple food for our time here.

The following day we made it into the city. I had looked around for vegan places in Venice to find that there wasn’t a whole lot on offer. Rather, there wasn’t a whole lot of vegan labelled things on offer. You can go pretty much anywhere and find something vegan on a menu, or explain that you are vegan and they will definitely figure something out for you. Because we didn’t have any specific place to visit in mind, we did what pretty much anyone does in Venice: get lost. We wandered down alleyways, into dead ends, back out of the dead ends, across bridges, etc. We just wandered to see what we would find. I find this is probably the best way to enjoy Venice. I was already pretty smitten with Venice, and we were only here for a day. For now, at least.

The next day we were heading to the much more vegan-conscious Florence. One of the earliest places we planned on definitely visiting in Europe. We heard that it was kind of the vegan capital of Italy, which is probably quite accurate. Everywhere we went in Florence would usually have clear vegan options on their menu or in the window. It took ages for us to get from A to B, because I would have to stop to look in every gelateria just to see if they had any vegan options. Vegan gelato was something we were incredibly excited about for Italy. So, I got pretty indulgent with this, My favourite place to visit was Gelateria dei Neri. They offered a nutella and vanilla vegan flavour, which I’m sure was achieved using some form of mild sorcery. I should definitely warn you that it’s entirely possible that there is a gelato sized hole in your heart that you don’t know exists, and once you acknowledge that hole there is no going back. You will probably be planning on making another trip to Italy just to get some gelato. We had been talking about all of the vegan Italian dishes we were going to have for months. Almost from the very beginning of the trip. We checked most of them off in a couple of days in Florence.

The other big draw to Florence is the art. Besides the vast number of galleries and museums every where in the city, one can also more or less throw a stone in the street and hit a beautiful statue or building. It’s an easy place to spend hours just wandering and snacking. We only had a few days there, but it’s certainly a place I’d like to revisit.

After Florence we were headed back to Venice. We didn’t really spend any time there, and it is easier to move onto our next destinations from there. I was a bit nervous about going back to a place that isn’t as openly vegan conscious as where we just were, but it was here that I found out that it is every bit as vegan-friendly – at least for food anyway. I genuinely found it exciting to step back from all of the special vegan items we could find in Florence and using it as encouragement to go for that spaghetti al pomodoro, or penne all’arrabiata – and of course, when in doubt, order pizza marinara.

Venice is an incredible city to walk around. Again, I really encourage the idea of wandering around and getting lost if you are able to. You can’t go too far from where you need to be, you will stumble upon the famous things you would get directions to anyway, and you’ll walk down alleyways into so many cool shops, restaurants, and canal spots. It’s pretty difficult not to stop to take pictures everywhere you go in Venice. We managed to save enough money on our food and accommodation that we were even able to be super touristy and splurge on a gondola ride. I didn’t think this was something I would be into, but I found it an incredible relaxing experience and a great way to learn about the history and architecture of the city.

Overall I preferred my time in Venice to that in Florence. I am surprised by this, particularly because we had been building Florence up for months and when we got there it did not disappoint. Venice was an unexpected love. There really is no other city like it. I feel that pretty most cities we have visited definitely have their own distinct voice. But for the most part cities can be largely anonymous. Venice is the only place I’ve ever been that is distinctly Venice. If the tasty food in Florence planted the seed that I might return to Italy, roaming the alleyways and eating by the canal in Venice is the tree that bloomed overnight.

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