Venice, Italy - Made in China

Venice is not the easiest place to post about.  Visiting in January, we had beautiful, sunny weather, no crowds, and no unpleasant smell.  Our first, superficial impression was of a unique and special place, unlike any we had ever visited before.  The sparkle of the sun on the canals, zipping around between beautiful facades in the water taxis, walking through the maze of tiny streets lined by bakeries, shops, and cafes - all of this combined to make our first couple of hours in Venice magical.

Enchanted at first, we started realizing that there were two Venices - the Italian Venice and the Chinese Venice.  Some of the shops in Venice are expensive, and some are very cheap - in fact, the cheap shops offer "Made in Italy" clothes and trinkets at the lowest prices that we saw anywhere on our trip from Rome to Venice.  The cheap shops were always staffed by Chinese workers.  When we asked questions, we were always dealing with a Chinese manager.  Thus, I call these "Chinese shops".  Always on the lookout for a bargain, we went in many of these Chinese shops.  The clothing for sale was poorly made, in many cases already picked and torn, and when I tried on an XL jacket, it barely fit...and I'm a medium - obviously, it was made for a market where people are much smaller (gee, can you guess where that would be)!  Even though the hangars said "Made in Italy" and the signs in the store said "Made in Italy", something was very wrong!

By contrast, the "Italian shops" were on par with what we had seen elsewhere in the country.  Quality goods on sale between 30% and 70% off were still more expensive compared to what we can buy in the USA, where prices are more like a third world country.  These shops were staffed by Italians, and the clothing and leather goods were of good quality.

By the time we got to Murano, the island specializing in glass-blowing, we weren't at all surprised by the signs in many of the store windows - "Please don't buy counterfeit Chinese glass.  Italian-made glass is more expensive, but we need your support."

The event that tore it for me was when I made the mistake of ordering a drink in a Chinese-run cafe.  Our son needed to use the restroom, and there aren't many of those in Italy.  So, you go into a cafe, order a drink, and everyone uses the toilet.  He was desperate, so we went into the first clean cafe we walked past with people in it.  It was staffed by Chinese, and the people in it were not eating, they were obviously part of the owner's family.  Our son scooted to the bathroom.  I scooted to the bar and ordered "la birra rossa" - a "red beer".  I was served a Leffe Brune, a nice brown abbey beer from Belgium.  Now, I am American, and my taste buds are not as highly refined as a European, but I know vinegar when I drink it.  This Leffe tasted like vinegar.  I let my wife sip it.  Her highly refined taste buds caused her to gag and spit, ejecting a wad of foam back into the glass.  I pushed the "beer" back across the counter to the Chinese girl behind the bar and said, "aceto, bad".  She said, "no, good".  I said "no, aceto - vinegar, bad".  She called the manager, who pulled himself a small taste, and said in perfect English, "This beer is fine.  This is the way it is supposed to taste."  At this point, our son was out of the bathroom, so I said, "No, that beer is vinegar.  No thanks."  We left.  However, this clinched our opinion of Chinese-run stores in Venice.  They are simply crooks, trying to sell garbage products to tourists, whether it is clothing, or glass, or beer.  I don't have anything personal against Chinese merchants, but I do take it personally when someone tries to sell me vinegar and calls it beer, or tries to sell me a cheap knock-off and call it an Italian coat.

Needless to say, my opinion of Venice was "soured".

Unfortunately, the "tourist district" of Venice seems to be owned and operated by greedy and dishonest Chinese merchants.   So, if you must go to Venice, make it a short trip, and don't eat or buy products in stores with Chinese cashiers or any Chinese presence.  Don't shop in the tourist district - get out of it as soon as possible.  Eat and shop on the periphery of the island in shops owned and staffed by Italians.  Read the signs in the windows of stores, and support the Italian businesses if you can afford to.  We recommend two glass shops in Murano - Pescepesce, and Fiorefiore - a pair of shops run by Italian brothers on Fondamenta Vetrai  (# 111 and #114).  The brothers were nice and polite to shoppers, which sets them apart.  We ate our meals mainly in Mestre, where we were staying, which was populated by lots of very friendly girls from eastern Europe.  When in Venice, we subsisted on snacks from cafes and ostaria, and we only went in places that were filled with Italians.

Now, on to our three days in Venice.  We arrived and wandered around on the first day.  After a couple of hours, my wife gave up looking at the map and embraced being lost.  I had, of course, embraced it immediately since I spend most of my time in cities lost.

We found the Rialto bridge in time for the sunset.

We enjoyed the Venice tradition of cichetti, stopping in the hostarias/wine bars for a small snack and a glass at the time we Yanks refer to as "happy hour".  This picture is from the Ostaria dai Zemi.

And most importantly, I discovered the best dessert of our entire trip at the Hostaria Dante.  This "tiramisu Beatrice" is a traditional tiramisu executed with crunchy biscuits much like Felice in Rome, but then topped with a delicious strawberry topping.  Ottimo! 

After having this, I was very happy with our decision to stay in Mestre and take the bus into Venice daily, not to mention the fact that Mestre was just oozing with the gritty but real European culture found near train stations, rather than the counterfeit Chinese garbage of Venice.

We took the water taxi to the islands of Murano and Burano one day.  Murano offered some unusual glass displays in the plazas, and Burano was a nice town to walk through as a break from the retail streets of Venice and Murano. 

On our final day in Italy, we were pretty much over the city of Venice, but I am never one to waste a day on holiday.  So, we went on an Irish Pub Crawl.

We ran out of Irish pubs fairly quickly, but by then it was cichetti time, and I found an Italian cafe that served Leffe Brune as it was supposed to be - not a hint of vinegar.