HK Independent Traveller Blog

If you are interested in church art and architecture, Venice Chorus Pass is for you. It costs 10 Euro, allows you to visit 16 churches within one year's time.   It costs 3 Euro to visit one church.  If you visit 4, you will fully cover the cost.  We visited 15 in four days!  A real achievement!   All participating churches are light up.  It enables visitors to admire the beauty of the paintings and interior.  Churches beyond the group often has no illumination.  Some may charge entrance fee and offer no light.  You have to pay additionally to light up the painting you wish to see.  The 10 Euro is worthwhile.   You also get a guide in your preferred language.  Er, perhaps no Chinese yet.  I asked for English all the way :) It is a good will to contribute a little money to help restore churches full of history and masterpieces by famous artists like Giovanni Bellini, Jacopo Robusti (Tintoretto), Giamba...

We had four meals in our 4-day stay in Venice.  It's not wrong.  It's three dinners and one lunch.  Time was short.  We could not afford the time for lunch in the first three days.  Among all the meals, the first dinner is the best and most memorable.  The restaurant is called Alla Zucca.  Zucca means pumpkin, one of the food I like most.  It is located in Santa Croce 1762, ponte del Megio. First came the bread.   As a rule of thumb, if the bread is good, the food will be good.   Our theory proved to be right again. We order baked pumpkin and gorgonzola pistachio pasta as the first dishes.   The pumpkin had a creamy texture.  We loved it.  The match of gorgonzola and pistachio is wonderful.  The sauce is just right, not watery nor too dry.  Our rucola mushroom salad was fresh. The main dishes were Venetian style veal liver served with polenta and pork cooked in prune sauce with rice ....

We got into Venice on 8 February, Monday.  This year's Carnival started on 6 February.  Tourists with mask and costumes were mostly seen in the St. Marco Square, elsewhere they were scarce.  They were delighted / proud to be taken photos, be it in the square, or in the famous Caffe Florian.  Just looked through the window, I felt the inside either as shooting a film or I witnessed the Venetian society centuries ago. Our hotel is very near to the railway station.  It was clean and quiet.  It's good value from otel.com.  The first day was blessed with sunshine.  We started from the region Cannaregio, visited the first few of 16 churches included in a church visit pass, the Ghetto, wandered through canals and bridges with signs of gondola and slowly strolled towards the Rialto Bridge and St Marco Square.