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September 25th, 2016 was the last full day in Venice for m’lady and me, and we took full advantage.
Spent from a busy day that saw us wander from the awesome Leonardo Da Vinci museum to the serenely astounding Peggy Guggenheim museum and on to a very impressive antique instrument collection housed in a gorgeous cathedral (not to mention utilizing the dying hours of our 24-hour water-bus pass to take a full canal tour), we headed off in search of dinner.
On the recommendation of a globe-trotting San Diego friend, we crossed the Rialto Bridge in the fading light and ambled around looking for the Trattoria Alla Madonna. When we found the restaurant we discovered that it had been there as long as Venice has. As the story goes, they started serving food under a vine tree so very long ago and eventually built a restaurant around said tree. That very same vine still grows out of the ceiling. Aside from the history of the place the food was good and the service was perfect. The waiter chastised me for not having wine and everything.
But this ticket story is actually about our final stop of the night, at Harry’s Bar.
After dinner we walked back over the Rialto, wound our way through San Marco Square and found a very busy and overpriced club famous for inventing The Bellini. The place looked classy enough, almost like an old speakeasy; it’s easy to picture guys like Leonardo DiCaprio or Tom Cruise standing at the bar looking famous. M’lady and I found a table upstairs and ordered a pair of Harry’s famous concoctions (“But of course,” said the waiter).
I was taken aback to find out that their “invention” is nothing more than mixing Champagne and peach juice together and calling it a Cadillac. That’s it. Slap a clever (arguably) name onto it, make sure a few celebrities get overheard ordering rounds for their buddies in similarly overpriced New York City bars and just like that you get to charge eighteen euros for a 300ml glass of the stuff. Heck, it even gives you license to charge 3.40 euro for an order of iva. We didn’t order any iva, I can tell you that. I don’t think I even know what an order of iva looks like.
We drank slow and lingered long, apparently mindlessly munching on iva the whole time.
I got the bill and tried my best to pay it with a straight face and then we walked along the fairy-tale cobblestone alleys back to our boutique hotel on a gorgeous evening holding hands like we were in some sort of romantic fantasy world.
Todd Man Out 