Venice-Part III

This morning started with a trip to the Guggenheim Museum to experience a little modern art. We have seen countless churches, basilicas, cathedrals (we still don't really know the difference), and all contain fascinating and beautiful works of ancient art-mostly depicting Christ or Mary in some form or another. Sorry, no pictures because Charles forgot the camera! As you can guess, we've grown somewhat tired of this same old routine, and we thought that some modern art would do us good. It wasn't as wonderful as we had hoped, and it costs us 20 euro (10 euro each for admission) to see three good paintings; A Dali and two Picassos. The museum was also full of a tour group of American teenagers who were touching priceless works of art with their grubby little fingers! It was a somewhat disappointing experience.

After this, we headed to the small island of Murano, where famous glass-blowing has been its main export since the beginning of time. At one point in history you could be charged with treason if you left the island with the secrets of their techniques. We wandered around the small island and decided to try another museum (obviously of glass) hoping to see some unique modern glass creations. Boy were we wrong! This museum was more about the history of glass-blowing, and did have some interesting and very ancient specimens of glass, but it just wasn't what we were hoping for. Where does a person have to go to find something modern in this country??
We did get to stop into a real glass-blowing shop and watch a master at work, but this grew tiresome quickly when we realized he was a one-man assembly line, making dozens of the same small glass horses to be sold to tourists. Not exactly genius at work. We did leave with a few small souvenirs (a necklace and pair of earrings for Allie) and set out to find some lunch.

Back on the main island we began our search for a restaurant Charles had read about on one of his favorite internet food forums. We found it without too much trouble, and hoped that the full-house was a sign that this place would be better than the last we ate at. That is an understatment! After we could stuff no more into our greedy mouths, we happily declared that we had found the best restaurant in Italy (that we've tried, thus far)! We liked it so much that we actually waited for the chef to pass by so we could compliment his work. He very graciously accepted our praise and in response he said, "Now I turn all red!"
Since you are probably curious about the food itself, let me get your tastebuds working. We started with an antipasto of tiny octopi, served very simply, in oil with parsley. It was strange to eat the little bodies, but once you closed your eyes and put it into your mouth, the problem was overcome! Next, we each had a pasta dish, one was a spaghetti with prawns, which was good, but the sauce was a bit lacking. The other was the dish of the day, and unfortunately we didn't get the name of it. It was delicious! It contained a buttery sauce with fresh fish pieces on top of spaghetti. Divine.
For our main courses, we had a platter of fried seafood, containing more tiny octopi, calamari, prawns, etc. The fry batter was light and airy, and perfectly salty, no tartar sauce needed. The other main dish was a whole fish, grilled to perfection! This fish was so fresh and tasty that it didn't need any sauce or even lemon to be added to it. It was perfect as it was. Charles even ate the eyeballs!

Finally, we had dessert. One tiramisu, and one truffle ice-cream. Nothing we have tasted before can compare to either of these dishes! The ice-cream was earthy and sweet all at once, and the tiramisu was untouchable. The cream was so light and airy, and the chocolate was perfectly bitter. It wasn't overly boozy or doused with espresso like many American versions. Since tiramisu was invented in Venice, it's no wonder the Venecians know how to do it right.
All of this, with water, wine, coffees, and bread was only 20 euro more than the lunch we had the day before. So worth the extra few bucks! We spent the rest of the evening wandering the streets and talking about how delicious our meal was. We made a pact that we would go back to Venice, if only to eat there again.