Insider's Guide to Venice: Osterias

For years, I contemplated writing an "insider's guide" to Venice... and now that blogs make personal publishing easy, I've got to try to remember all those hints I would have given in the first place! :-)

A couple that resurfaced in my brain yesterday as we were out and about...

There are bizillions of "traditional" Venetian wine bars or osterias. Every year, "midcentury-modern" plastic and chrome snack bars close here, and reopen as osterie with wood interiors that look like they've seen the passing of centuries, but by now I'd say the majority of them are fake! (BTW, that doesn't necessarily mean that they're not good, though...)

Want to know if you're in a "real" Venetian osteria, one that should be fairly cheap (as long as you don't sit at a table, which will often get you a hefty cover charge) ?

Look for where the gondoliers go! While the city has of course more than its share of gondolieri, they don't eat and drink just anywhere...

Just don't expect to be charged gondoliers' prices or receive the same service they do (more on that later...)

But whether the place is new or old, you will be eating and drinking just about as "authentically" as it gets!

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