Venetian Big Beers

Next morning I was feeling more upbeat about discovering Venice.

I had desperately emailed Martina and Valentina, two Italian beauties who I'd met on my masters and were connoisseurs of all things Italian. They reassured me we'd had bad luck with our ristorante choices and steered me in the right direction.

Their three essential things to do in Venice are:

1. Get lost in the city, as it's the only true way to discover it.

2. Take a Gondola ride

3. Try the Italian aperitiv 'Spritz with aperol'

I dragged him out of bed and up to the rooftop terrace for breakfast al fresco.

I finished off my cappuccino whilst writing some postcards home

I'm not usually a fan of buying tacky holiday souvenirs but I will always try to make sure to send a postcard from wherever I may be.  

Armed with Venice guide books we headed out into the hot summer's sun. 

The streets of Venice are narrow and bustling with families and groups of tourists slurping on gelato and trying to snap the best parts of the city. 

The water is just as busy with tourists getting a view of the city on gondolas and private boats. 

We dipped out of the sun and into the Museum of Music and saw a couple of baby grand pianos my Daddy would have loved. He probably would have jumped the ropes and started playing them too!

In Campo Santo Stefano, one of the historical squares, we stumbled across the Art Blu Café where we finally found some decent Italian food and I got to try my first proper Italian pizza. 

As well as drowning myself in the biggest stein of beer I have ever seen! 

The flirty Italian waiter did warn me it was big! I didn't realise this BIG!

I caused a little bit of a stir in the ristorante with the other diners when it arrived! They couldn't quite believe it either, I don't think.

We ordered fresh calamari and spicy salami pizza to share

It's true what they say the pizza in Italia truly is amazing and soooo much better than any other pizza you will ever have. (Okay maybe New York pizza is just as good but slightly different!) 

Crispy and gooey all at the same time.

The beer was taking its toll. 

Half down, half to go. 

I pored the last few chugs of beer into his stein but, I almost finished it all!

We continued our journey over the Ponte dell'Academia bridge in search of this amazing ice cream our concierge had recommended, stopping along the way naturally. 

We meandered back to the hotel with our ice creams. 

I ordered the gelato al gianduia, a chocolate ice cream with about 30% of hazelnut paste, so basically nutella in a cup! 

That evening we went to eat the best pizza in Venice as recommended by Martina and Valentina buuut I'll tell you more about that later!