I wander Venezia, wrapped in my ochre coloured trench coat and I buy myself some gloves because it's my first time here in the winter and it's freezing when a wind travels along the Grand Canal and lifts off the water, slightly frozen. I even wear my hat, which barely gets aired in Australia. I head straight to my favourite cafe, Florians, for an expensive coffee. It's still early so the coffee is cheaper than when the musicians set up outside and play Italian love songs in San Marco square, then everything doubles. #Florians became the place to be seen in #Venice in 1720, the first cafe where women were welcomed. I slide into a corner seat, surrounded by mirrors and paintings, on both the walls and the roof. An elderly Japanese couple is sitting in another corner, arranging their food and both of them are taking photos. My coffee arrives and I do the same, and then look up to see them both uploading to Instagram! My tray arrives ,cradled lovingly by a white blazered waiter; it's as if I had ordered their most expensive breakfast. The silver tray has a tiny cup of coffee, there's a monogrammed jug of hot milk, a carafe of water, glass and serviette. On the small coffee plate there is a single chocolate coffee bean. It is perfect and I sit and gaze out at the puddle of water reflecting the grand old buildings while the pigeons make their early morning ablutions there, rippling the shadows of the colonnaded surrounds of Saint Marks Square, with the heavy canvas curtains pulled up with big light balls.
Then I'm off to the markets to see what winter vegetables are nestling there waiting to be bought, taken home and cooked lovingly by the Venetian matrons who are already haggling in the #Rialto. There's a red basket of chillis, presented in bunches, like flowers, wrapped in white paper, tied with string; radicchio di Treviso, with long tendril-like white leaves edged in deep purple, next to a trough of peeled and cut artichoke hearts; there are violet and bright pink curled cabbages; eggplants, cream and magenta striped; blood oranges from Sicily individually wrapped in tissue paper and big thick skinned lemons with their leaves attached, probably picked yesterday, in beautiful wooden crates. I lunch on homemade taglioni with baby artichokes and tiny coral coloured shrimps. I was so exhausted from walking that I chose this restaurant only to realise it's one of those places where they talk you through the specials of the day, a couple of choices and no prices. I don't care, I can't walk another step. The patron recommends a wine and I go for it all! I panic slightly but the wine starts to work its way into my bloodstream and I don't care. How much can a pasta cost in the middle of Venice? Surprisingly very little after the grumpy patron and I start talking about his life and my husband's connection to Titian, the famous Venetian painter. He brings me his special lemon flavoured homemade polenta biscuits and a Limoncello on the house. We part friends, even though I stood for ages at the door before he bothered to come and show me to an empty table. He knows before I say a word that I'm a tourist as no self respecting Venetian would turn up at a restaurant at 12.45 pm.
That afternoon I find the Libreria Aqua Alta. A bookshop like no other, with a gondola full of books in the middle and walls and a staircase made of books that leads to a viewing platform that looks out over a canal. I am entranced and amazed and worried what would happen if the high waters of Venice made their way into this amazing space.
That night I dine in a trattoria with the cheapest Spritz, if you drink it at the bar. The waiter takes pity on my aloneness and sits me at a corner table and charges me bar price for my drink. He recommends the mussels that another solo female traveller is consuming in the diagonal corner; a Spritz and a book close at hand. Why, as women alone, do we feel the need to look busy? I check my phone, edit my photos but when my meal comes, I concentrate on the simple tomato chilli broth surrounding the tiny black mussels.
Venice is welcoming to a solo female on a cold winter's night.
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