July 7, 2018 – Milan to Venice

Last night’s concert was legendary.  A good mix of Beyoncé doing solo songs, Jay-Z doing solo songs and various duets.  Really impressive production values too.  We will definitely look to see this show again in the US.  We got home at a pretty reasonable hour and crashed pretty hard.  We’ve been doing early travel and early tours most days since we’ve been in Europe, so sleeping in was great.  Once we had a little breakfast, we were on the road toward Venice…..but first a stop along the way.

The “Top 50 Restaurants” in the world (at least by one publication) came out for 2018 a few weeks ago and once again, the restaurant “Le Calandre” was included in the list.  Conveniently (for us) located just 30 minutes outside of Venice, this was destined to be one of our “splurge” meals for the trip.  We had tried to get into “Osteria Francescana” (No. 1 in the world) via the American Express concierge, but to no avail.  At No.23, Le Calandre is no slouch, but our expectations were tempered.  We’ve had some great meals on our travels over the years, but some have come up short (too many courses, too much emphasis on innovation vs. taste, too crowded, too stuffy, etc.)

The verdict?  Spectacular!  We opted to go “off menu” and not order a la carte or from one of the three tasting menus.  Instead, our waiter allowed us to do a “limited tasting menu” of only 5 courses that crossed all three menus and hit all of the high-lights.  We will post a separate entry on the meal itself, under the “Epic Meals” header, but suffice to say this was one of the best meals of our lives.

With full bellies, smiles on our faces and a signed cookbook in hand, we made our last bit of car travel and dropped the rental car at the Venice train station.  We loaded loaded our bags into a water taxi across the street and headed straight to our hotel, “The Gritti Palace”.  More to come on this hotel and the city in general, but it’s the perfect hotel in the perfect location.  There are only a few cities where hotel location and style are paramount in having that “true” experience, but we feel like Venice is one of those cities.  So much history, such character and opulence and style.  Gritti Palace is all of those things.  We even got to stay in the “Hemingway Suite”, where the famed writer used to stay (when he wasn’t at Harry’s bar, knocking back martinis and bellinis, one imagines).

Venice gets a bad rap sometimes:  too crowded, a little smelly (in the heat of the summer), too expensive.  But if you do it right (and use points to absorb some costs) it can be an amazing stop for a couple of days of shopping and site seeing.  More about the city tomorrow!