Viking Sea: A New Day in Kotor, Montenegro

It’s a little disorienting, waking up each day in a new location, today, even a new country. We awoke early to watch the ship enter the Kotor harbor; the scenery is spectacular, and spectacularly different from Venice, Koper and Dubrovnik.

 

The ship home page tells us it is chilly:

There is a hike in Kotor, too, and one look, we look at each other and know that this is not the hike for us. We will choose to go into Kotor and explore. This hike may zig-zag, but it is a steady, steep incline, and then a steady, steep decline when your legs are weak and shakey. Ummm. Pass.

As we eat breakfast, we watch the first tour groups head out. This is one of the places where we had turned our tour tickets back in, preferring to do it on our own.

 

We exit the ship, cross the street, and we are in the Old City of Kotor. We find that this is a town full of truly beautiful and welcoming churches, Catholic and Orthodox.

 

The clock tower in the large main square

 

 

The Cathedral of St. Tryphon has uneven steeples. Some stories told us it was because they ran out of money, but there were others that said it happened in an earthquake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doors of Saint Mary’s

Inside Saint Nicholas. They had chants playing, places to sit, and local people coming and going, lighting candles. It was a lovely place to be.

 

 

Saint Luke’s, where I found a beautiful cross for my grandson

Inside the Maritime Museum

Kotor’s Cat Museum

Saint Michaels

Time for refreshment. We find a hidden cafe, Perper’s, and I see blueberry juice on the menu. That’s exactly what I want:

 

We find a way to access the city walls

 

 

This is the church, Church of Our Lady of Remedy, I believe, (below) that is half way up the zig-zag path we did not choose to hike today. A few people on the ship hiked to it, but I don’t know anyone who went further. Many people make the pilgrimage from Kotor to pray for good health.

As we are headed back to the ship, we spot a Farewell Montenegro sign. We have thoroughly enjoyed our day in Montenegro, and would happily come back.

On board, we give the Pool Grill a try, and like the food. After eating, we meet up with our friends who tell us that the food at the Pool Grill can be customized. For example, I got the shrimp salad sandwich, but didn’t eat any of the bread, or the fries, and I should’t have eaten any onion rings, but I did. Our friends explained you can ask for the shrimp salad or Mahi Mahi without the sandwich – we really like these people! They think like we do! From this point, I had the shrimp salad on greens!

 

We take dinner once again in the World Cafe, find a quiet table and have a dinner that delights us.

 

“Boys, It’s a Great Day for the Confederacy”

This is an interlude post, not a trip post. This is a social issues post, and a very personal post. Just skip over this; like I’ve said, it’s personal.

This is what we say we believe. This is what believers believe:

Matthew 25:35-40New International Version (NIV)

35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

This is what we believe. We are told that belief/faith is nothing without actions.

We are horrified. We are stunned, of course, by another election where a candidate wins the popular vote and loses the electoral college. We are stunned by the divisions in our country. We are stunned at all the hatefulness coming out of hiding, people proudly exposing racist and sexist beliefs in superiority and joy. Good Christian people so full of hate for the Other.

What shocks me is not only that the most vicious and vulgar candidate won, but also that the winners are so jubilant and so nasty.

AdventureMan had just listened to a National Public Radio article about Francis Ford Coppola and his famous movie “The Godfather;” he was in the mood for Italian food. We headed to our favorite place, and were seated before we realized we were sitting next to a table of true Southern Good Old Boys, and they didn’t care who heard what they had to say. We hadn’t been there long, when another entered and came to their table to be welcomed with “Boy, this is a great day for the Confederacy!” They found the safety pin movement hilarious. They had a lot to say about liberal thinking, about race, and about women. They talked about the spread of red on the map, the pockets of blue and the heavy blue of the cities and coastlines, implying it was racial.

What we should have done is ask to have our table changed. As it was, we listened to opinions that made us feel tarnished and dirty. We had the rest of our lunch packed up and got out as soon as we could.

I had my own moment of joy yesterday as I learned that Planned Parenthood is getting record-setting donations, and that many people are donating in the name of Mike Pence, notorious for his anti-women positions on reproductive rights. For each donation, he gets a thank-you note. That just tickles my heart.

Those of us who stand with The Other, we have our work cut out for us. Who will protect the food we eat? Who will insure we don’t have another housing meltdown, thanks to unregulated banks and loan associations? Who will protect the health of the poor? Who will measure pollution in our rivers and seas, and regulate emissions from factories and sewage plants? Who will protect us from chemicals in the air, and make sure our railways are safe?

Who will work to bring female salaries into full parity with men? Who will enforce laws in a way that every United States citizen is equal before the law, and that they are not differentiated by skin color or religion? Who will protect us from greedy pharmaceutical companies marketing their drugs to people who don’t need them, or using harmful components?

Who will give the poor and middle class the opportunities they need to climb the economic ladder?

Those of us who can, are identifying the NGO’s that are holding the line against corruption and the exploitation of the weakest members of our society, and budgeting so we can continue to fight the good fight. When you have a government of thugs, that is no easy task.

The saddest prayer of all “Lord, who is my neighbor?”

Dubrovnik: The Best Day of our Trip as We Walk the Walls

You know how you build expectations? From the time I started reading about Dubrovnik, I was excited. For one thing, some scenes from Game of Thrones are filmed there, and we are great fans.  Even more, there is a great hike; Dubrovnik has restored and created a wall all around the old city which you can hike. It isn’t for the faint-hearted; it starts with about 60 stair straight up. Once up, there are more stairs, FitBit told me we did 30 sets of stairs on the wall. There were ascents and descents, some a little challenging.  A friend who had done it before told me to be sure I had shoes with a good grip because the stones could be really slick. Even on a beautiful sunny day, there were a couple slick places, so I cannot imagine what it would be like to hike it in damp or rainy conditions.

But we had perfect weather, sunny and warm, but not hot, even a little chilly in the shade. We were also the only ship in town, a rare occurrence in Dubrovnik.

 

LOL, no, that is not our ship, but I loved this old looking ship. It isn’t really old, and I imagine it is an events location, a party ship, but I loved it.

 

We took the panoramic tour, but dropped off once we got to the Pile gate at the entrance to old Dubrovnik. The first entry to the walls is just inside the gate, to the left, with good signage.

 

 

About halfway up the double sets of stairs taking people up to the wall, I stepped aside, yes, to catch my breath because there are a LOT of people struggling up these steep stairs, but also to take a documentary photo:

When you get to the top, the views are spectacular.

I had read that the best strategy was to head uphill, first, get the worst over with, but as we started left, we saw this sign:

 

So aarrgh! We had to turn the easy way first. Never mind. Each step introduced a new and spectacular sight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We sighted the Dubrovnik harbor from the walls, and decided when we finished our walk that we would have lunch there, if we could find a good place.

 

Once we finished our hike, we explored the back streets in Dubrovnik, zig-sagging our way to the port:

 

November 1st is coming soon; the flower markets are doing gang-busters business as Dubrovnik citizens buy flowers to remember their dead on All Saint’s Day.

 

As we enter the port, we spot a restaurant where crowds of people are sitting in the sun, the Konoba Locanda Peskarija, eating cauldrons of mussels, big huge pots of mussels steamed in a simple wine broth, just the way we love them. We find a seat; we already know what we will order. As we wait, a wedding party arrives to have their photos taken in the port.

 

A beautiful Dubrovnik salad to share:

 

 

And a heaping cauldron of mussels, so many mussels we couldn’t eat the all! It was served with a basket of wonderful crusty bread to sop up the wine broth.

 

We couldn’t be happier.

As we leave, we run into our friends from the ship at the restaurant next door; they have made an art purchase they are celebrating. We always have great chats with this couple.

We wander around a little longer, avoiding, as much as possible, the beautiful wide street down the center of old Dubrovnik until the very end:

 

We head to the old gate once more, and just outside the gate is a shuttle, waiting to take us back to the Viking Sea. It doesn’t get any easier.

 

Tonight we have dinner in the World Cafe. We have discovered that the food is the same as in the restaurant, but here we can deal directly with the chef and servers, and have exactly what we want in the small quantities we prefer. We have found a very quiet table, no one seated in our laps, and we can have our own quiet and private conversations, dine at our own pace; this isn’t what we thought we would prefer when planning our trip, but it seems to suit us well.

Mamson’s for Afternoon Tea

It’s late in the afternoon, and we are back on board. We don’t want to nap; we are trying to get on local time, which keeps changing, put the clocks ahead an hour here and back an hour here. We love the Explorer’s Lounge, so we head up there for “tea”. They have lovely not-too-sweet pastries at Mamsen’s that we adore.

 

More of the Explorer’s Lounge:

 

Our tea:

Our location:

 

Back to the room for sunset on our way to Dubrovnik!

 

This night we checked the menus for all the restaurants and decided to try one called: The Restaurant. They seemed to have some really nice choices. No reservations. So we headed up around seven, and were seated. Other people sitting close; one party of seven having a good old time, and very loud. I can’t even remember what we ordered. Once again, no control over how much was coming, no control over timing. When we said we wanted to split a creme brûlée, the waitress brought us each one, and said “I know you really want to have your own.”

No. No, we didn’t. We don’t like waste, and we love good tastes, but we like them in moderation. Clatter and clanging of the dishes and flatware, too much noise, too little privacy and we don’t even get our say over dessert. One time in this restaurant was enough.

We walked off the creme brûlée – no, we didn’t eat the whole thing, but the evening is so lovely and we love the walks around the decks.

Zadar Lunch At Konoba Dalmacija

We’ve been roving the back-streets, because, as you know if you have read other travel articles on this blog, what gets our blood going is learning how other people live, what we have in common, how we differ. As we roam the backstreets in old Zadar, we start to get hungry, and AdventureMan sticks his head in an unlikely doorway and finds a treasure: Konoba Dalmacija.

 

 

Inside the wall is a hidden restaurant, full of trees and outdoor tables, perfect for today.

 

We are in the center of several low rise apartments, and some have hung out their laundry. This is really a local’s restaurant.

Local beer for AdventureMan:

Local wine for me:

The waitress was wonderful. The first thing we asked was if they would accept Euros; we had been told that in Croatia some places only accepted Croatian money. We never had any problem using Euros. She said yes, of course they took Euros, and we placed our orders. There was a fish we used to buy and fix in Tunisia, D’aurade, and they had this fish in Croatia, called Dorada, meaning golden eye. I had a Croatian salad and D’aurade, AdventureMan had the pork tenderloins with mushroom sauce, which tasted a lot like a German Jaegerschnitzle.

 

 

 

My salad was very good, my fish was yummy, but the oh, pork with mushroom sauce was OMG! OMG! OMG! Delicious.

As we were waiting and eating, local people came in to eat, and one old man who had salad and soup, and it seems he must have the same meal every Sunday after church.

Then, in rushed a young Japanese man shouting “Warning! Warning! I am coming in five minutes with fifty people!”

And, sure enough, following closely behind him was a very large group of Japanese who followed him to the inside restaurant.

We quickly signaled for our bill, paid, and left. They were going to have their hands full!

Zadar on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon was a treat. Entire families came out near the ship, playing in the park, having coffee in the park cafe’s, visiting the Sea Organ and Salute to the Sun and taking photos of the Viking Sea. We were delighted to be in Zadar.

 

Viking Sea in Zadar, Croatia

Here’s the thing about these Viking Ocean ships – they are so quiet and so stable that you barely feel a rumble. On other cruises I’ve been on, we must have been closer to the engine; on this ship, there are times I don’t even realize we are underway – or that we’ve berthed. That is pretty amazing.

We awake the next morning in Zadar, Croatia, and it is beautiful. It is also right next to the ship. We’ve already turned in our tour tickets for all the ports we figure we can see on our own; we hung onto the tours tickets that will help us go where we want to go. But Zadar – we can handle this!

The first place we go is to Mamsen’s, a tiny Scandinavian restaurant we discovered for lunch the day before, where they had soup! Soup and beautiful open face shrimp sandwiches, and other kinds of sandwiches, too, and beautiful heart shaped waffles, served with jams or berries. And herring, pickled herring! And very Scandinavian pastries, not too sweet. My husband is not of Scandinavian descent, and he does not “get” pickled herring. I adore pickled herring.

Mamsens is at the almost-top of the ship, in a two story space called the Explorer’s Lounge, and when we go there, it is sparsely occupied. It is an introvert’s kind of hang-out, people who like space and peace. (and pickled herring 🙂  )

 

The Explorer’s Lounge, with Zadar in the background:

 

 

Wonderful oatmeal with fresh raspberries and blueberries!

 

Pickled herring! Yes, for breakfast! Good protein!

 

Mamsen’s, the Scandinavian specialty restaurant, open late late late.

 

Just off the bow of the ship are two attractions unique to Zadar. One is the Salute to the Sun, which is more visible, the huge round solar panel that makes patterns as you walk on it. The other, less visible, is the Sea Organ along the coast walk, a series of pipes that, when the tides force water through them, make music. It is a little eerie, other world-ly, and interesting.

 

It is Sunday morning in Zader, and AdventureMan and I end up popping in and out of a lot of churches. We listen to the music from outside, and can almost follow the liturgy. We only go in if the service is over, or not yet started. There are some amazing churches in Zadar, so many, and even a convent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most of what we see is Roman and Venetian, but Zadar has a long and complicated history. Much of the town is being restored. There is a fabulous Museum of Archaeology, open even Sundays, and the admission is 4 Euro. They also have a very nice gift shop.

Outside the Museum, we meet two shipmates who exclaim with us what a find the museum is. As the tours go by, they don’t even mention it! We are shocked. It’s funny how you can connect in just a few minutes; of all the 900 passengers on board, this couple was one we encountered frequently. They liked the same places we liked, and while we didn’t tour or make plans together, we often found each other and enjoyed a great chat. They told us about the flexibility of the Pool Grill for lunch.

Please note this gorgeous weather. It can be a little chilly in the shade; I carry a coat which sometimes I wear, but in the sun, it isn’t necessary. We can hardly believe it is almost November, no rain, look at that sky!

Viking Sea First Port: Koper, Slovenia, “Koper is a Very Small Town”

AdventureMan looks out our sliding glass door and says “We’re already here! I can see Koper from here!” We’ve signed up for a tour, and we aren’t scheduled to meet for an hour or more, so we head for breakfast, find a quiet, sunny table near the stern and then get ready to head into town.

 

We haven’t found a lot of information on Koper, Slovenia. It wasn’t on our original itinerary. Actually, the whole reason we signed up for this tour was because it ended in Istanbul, in a country we love and have visited several times. Months after we booked, the itinerary changed, after the coup and bombings in Turkey. Probably a good bet, our better instincts tell us, but all the same, we are sorely disappointed to miss out on Istanbul. Our first trip to Istanbul was in 1975, and we were enchanted. It influenced later choices. We still hope to be able to visit again.

But Viking needed to come up with some other options, and Koper was one of them.

One thing Viking does really, really well is destinations. They give you a lot of background, and I love the way they group us. First to sign up get the earlier tours. As you get off the ship, they give you a group number, and they warn you that if you want to tour with friends, make sure that group shows up together. It is a very efficient system – once a group is formed, off they go.

So off we went.

We should have caught on a little sooner, but we didn’t. The guide was charming, but we stayed by the ship for about 15 minutes as she told us a little about Slovenia, and then we spent 10 minutes by an olive tree while she told us how very small Koper is, and how small Slovenia is, and how Slovenia looks like a chicken. Then we walked past a very old church, not much information, then we walked to a school where Italian children attended and she told us a little more about how small Koper is and how small Slovenia is.

Have I mentioned before that AdventureMan and I are not very good at being herded?

By this point, AdventureMan and I are trying to figure out how to make a get-away. We let the group go ahead, and peel off down a small little alley (Koper is very small.) We find some delightful sights; Koper reminds us of a very small village we loved in Germany, Neuleiningen). We walked a little and found ourselves on the other side of the peninsula, and walked back to the big town square. (Koper is very small.)

 

 

There are some quaint sights in Koper, which is a lot like Germany thirty years ago.

 

 

 

 

The town square

 

We are back on the ship by lunch time – Koper really is a very small town. We head for the spa, and have a wonderful time soaking and enjoying the sauna, the cold tub, the churning big pool and the hot tub, the snow room, and again, the sauna. Soooooo relaxing.

The sun goes down.

 

This is our night to eat at The Chef’s Table. We figure it is a little dressier, but we figure wrong, people on this ship are not dressing. That is fine with us. But once again, we are seated very close to other people, so close we can hear every word of their conversation, and, if we talk in normal voices, they can hear every word of our conversation. Portion sizes are small, which we don’t mind, but maybe a little precious, which we do mind. Like a tiny thimble full of very icy pieces of raspberry. Sorry, I don’t get it. In addition, there was once again the clattering and clanking and the talking among people serving and the odd spacing of the courses and sorry, get me out of here. It was noisy, it was not relaxed. Not special, for us.

Once we finish, we take a walk around the ship, lots of decks, then back to the cabin to listen to the waves slosh against the ship as we head for Zadar.

All Aboard the Viking Sea

Up at dawn after a wonderful night’s sleep – we have to have our bags in the hallway by 5 a.m. for pick up and taking to the ship.

Venice at dawn:

We decide to go to the big buffet today, and, while the buffet is lavish, the dining hall is crowded and noisy, and service is slow and confused. We are nostalgic for our breakfast the day before, quiet, serene, plentiful if not lavish, enough. We could make our own cafe mochas. We go back to our room and debate whether we have time for another vaporetto ride before the shuttle to the ship, and decide we probably don’t, but we do have time for one last wonderful walk. This hotel is in a great location for uncrowded walking.

By 10:30, there is a large crowd waiting, and we are lined up to go aboard the shuttle to the ship. It is a short trip, then we are offloaded and we walk about a quarter of a mile to the processing terminal. I mention this because we don’t really enjoy being a part of a herd, and because people considering travel on the Viking sea cruises need to know about the walking involved, especially if they have mobility issues.

There is a demographic who is on these cruises. No children. These are “destination” cruises, and while they have entertainment on board, entertainment is not a big draw, nor do they bother with casinos. They are destination rich, and enrichment lecture rich. They have a gorgeous spa, and nice fitness room, plus a jogging track on deck 2 and a fitness deck on deck 8. But many people in my demographic begin to have mobility issues, some use canes, some are in wheel chairs, and they struggle with these aspects of the trip, the herding, the walking, even though it is a short distance.

Another snaking line and then we are photographed and given ship cards as we process. Our bags go through screening, and then we enter the ship, to wait in one of the lovely ship spaces to be able to go to our cabin. It isn’t a long wait, but I am stewing a little. We are wasting time! We are in Venice! We don’t have to stand in line; we could come later and process in! We have a quick lunch and head to our cabin.

Our cabin is lovely. We took a “penthouse” because to us, the cabin matters. Philosophies differ, many people choose small cabins, or cabins closer to the fine restaurants because they don’t intend to spend much time in their cabins. We are less social. We like the destinations, we like the spa, and we take our meals in the restaurants, and we spend time in our cabin. We love having our own “veranda” and we like having enough room to lounge around and not bump into one another. This pretty much fits our needs.

 

One thing we loved is that it is sparkling clean. We also love that there is fresh water waiting for us, and it is refilled every night. Viking excels in these small, but important touches. Notice that there is room for two people to pass each other between the bed and the storage units.

Lots of places where you can charge up your phones, iPads, computers, camera batteries, etc., and the outlets accept a variety of plugs, and the outlets are plentiful.

 

A double closet, in the hall way so it doesn’t inconvenience a person sleeping in a bed or the other person who might need to get into the closet while the other person is sleeping. Small matter? It matters! There is also a safe behind one of the drawer units, and up top, an in room individual coffee maker. I never used it because coffee was available everywhere on board, and you could drink it in lovely areas.

One person on Cruise Critic criticized that the coffee was bland and never felt caffeinated. I didn’t find the coffee bland, but I also wondered about the caffeination. But a little less caffein is probably not such a bad thing for me 🙂

 

Storage under the flat screen TV with two sets of three drawers each, and two great shelves for shoes., under which is a longer drawer.

 

Another of those small things that matter. We had bedside lamps, and we also had these more focused individual bed lights so that one could read while the other slept. Lovely touch. When I didn’t have enough hangers, Fernando, one of our cabin stewards, quickly brought me more; he and Dina made us feel like treasured guests, and every wish was fulfilled with a smile.

 

More drawers on the right, and a pull out drawer / refrigerator on the left. Contains champagne, which we didn’t drink, and whatever beverages we wanted – we are so boring, we had a little beer, a little wine and mostly coke and ginger ale. Never touched the hard stuff.

I neglected to take a photo of the bathroom, which was beautiful, all beautiful surfaces and glass, with drawers and shelves to hold all the things you keep handy in bathrooms, and lovely toiletries so we didn’t need to bring any hair shampoo, conditioner, soap, shower caps, or even a hair dryer. While some mornings were chilly, the floors in the bathroom were heated, oh what sweet luxury. The towels were oversized and thick, and the bathrobes ample and warm. Some people wore their bathrobes to the spa, one man even showed up at the fire drill in his bathrobe!

 

Our veranda. We loved being able to sit or stand outside as we entered or departed a port, but it is hardly private. There are people just like us with verandas on either side, so you can’t help but overhear one another’s conversations. We are sort of private people, so we rarely talked while on the veranda, or even if the door to the veranda was open.

 

Storage, TV, water . . . we loved that there was a bridge camera, and that the TV also showed the time. It was a huge relief NOT to watch TV, with the utterly vicious election going on.

We had booked ahead, having heard about the super restaurants on board. We ate dinner the first night in Manfredi’s, an Italian food restaurant. The food was really, really good. In the bread basket the table was this very unusual bread, just a thin thin sheet, sort of like peanut brittle, only savory, with slices of garlic baked into it. I’ve never seen anything like it, and it was delicious.

The food was delicious. And we never went there again. We cancelled our second reservation. The food was wonderful, but too much. We had no control over how much would come. The tables were very close together, and some the people spoke very loudly. The staff was attentive and helpful, but there was also a lot of loud inter-staff co-ordination, a lot of clatter as they picked up dishes, and clanking as flatware and tableware were picked up together. It was noisy, and not private, not elegant dining. The staff sent in orders by cell phone, and to do that effectively, you have to be paying attention. It wasn’t working for us. The food is delicious, but I can’t even remember what we ate.

We explored the ship, and unpacked and fell into bed. At some point, I felt a slight bump, and could sense movement, so I went to the veranda – and we were leaving Venice. I opened the door, which squeaked, and wakened AdventureMan, who joined me, and we sat whispering to one another, watching the lovely sight of slumbering Venice at night drift by. We know that we had extraordinary luck; Venice in late October can be really rainy. We would take that chance. We would go back again in a heartbeat.

 

 

Venice Does Halloween

We remember while living in Germany, Hallowe’en was celebrated very differently; people would light candles and visit graves, and on All Saints Day, the following day, would take picnics up the the graves of their loved ones. Now, from store windows, it appears some of the American symbols have become accepted in Venice.

Dinner at La Palanca, Giudecca

There is a freedom to being retired, a lovely freedom, you begin to care a lot less about “should.” Like, “OMG, we’ll only be in Venice for three days we SHOULD ________” and there are a million things to fill in the blank. We’ve actually been in Venice before, and that takes off a lot of pressure. When we feel, in late afternoon, like a nap before dinner, we don’t feel guilty, we take that nap.

After napping, we know where we want to go, we’ve read about it on Trip Advisor and passed it several times, La Palanca, right by one of the vaporetto stops. La Palanca does not serve dinner, but they do serve little snacks, and after our wonderful lunch at Rosa Rossa and our Tiramisu at the cafe, we aren’t interested in eating a big dinner, a snack is fine with us.

This is the only photo I could take; this is the bar where people are gathered. There is a party of ten or so back where we are sitting, all old friends and neighbors, drinking, eating snacks. Just after I took this photo, more and more people come in, almost all standing around this counter where wine, beer and little open faced sandwiches are served continuously. We were there a couple hours, we never felt out of place, although everyone else knew each other. One man had his little dog with him, and the dog was a big hit.

If we were going to live in Venice, I think we would like living in Guidecca, where there are not so many tourists, and life seems to be more normal. We like the neighborhood feel, and we don’t mind the vaporetto rides.

We shared a grilled caprese (tomatoes, basil and mozzarella di bufolo) sandwich, then, later, saw a tray of shrimp with onion coming out, and AdventureMan got a couple of those. The onions and the shrimp were pickled; it was a small treat, but memorable.

La Palanca does a great lunch time business, and had we not gone to Rosa Rossa, we would have tried to eat a lunch here. They get great reviews.

After leaving, we took a last vaporetto ride by night, and by the time we returned, the neighborhood party at La Palanca had spilled out onto the large sidewalk along the canal. It was a Thursday night, maybe they are all celebrating that the weekend is near.