Mini Pub Crawl through Venice’s Cannaregio

Cannaregio by day is proof that summer in
Venice doesn't have to be packed with tourists!

Venice gets this bad rap for their food, which is confusing to me. Am I the only person who wants to turn and run, shrieking, from any place that puts a fat, greasy laminated menu bearing the flag of a different nation on each page on a little stand in front of their restaurants when instead you can make a dinner (or lunch) of fierce 1€ snacks and 1.50€ mini glasses of wine? “A MEAL MADE OF DELICIOUS SNACKS?!” you may exclaim with excitement, and I will just sit here nodding and wearing a smug smile.

*sigh*

If you google “Venice Pub Crawl,” you will come up with all sorts of lists of bacari, these tiny little places where you stand at a counter and eat cheese or fish or meat or veggies on toast. Most of them serve wine and/or spritzes, at which, let’s be real, I do not thumb my nose. But on my most recent trip, my husband and I stumbled on a couple of awesome beer bars that are within easy walking distance of each other in Cannaregio, and had a magical, delicious pub crawl for less than the cost of a bowl of bad spaghetti in the tourist hub of town.

Al Timon

But before we get to beer, an old school Venetian wine joint. Al Timon is a restaurant that apparently serves a huge steak, if you’re into that sort of thing. I am a vegetarian and there were no tables for dinner, so we shouted our order for two spritzes to the bartender and ordered a plate of assorted cicchetti. I speak zero Italian, but cicchetti is great for that, as it’s usually displayed in a glass case like you might see at a bakery. Excellent for pointing and nodding. We took our plates outside to the flat boat anchored in the canal as a sort of floating patio. It was packed with hip young Venetians and the burrata was excellent. Also, I looked up reviews on Yelp, and everyone loves Al Timon except for this character named Bob B. Bob reports, “Avoid. This is mostly a loud, local hangout. Lots of general drunkenness.” To me that sounds like the highest recommendation you can give to a bar. I may have to organize a tour of Bob B.’s other one star Yelp reviews.

Da Aldo

Literal inches down the canal from Al Timon is a place with no sign that is known as Da Aldo, which we had noticed earlier in the day because of its dusty window full of interesting international bottles. It doesn’t seem to open until after dark, but when the chain-smoking proprietor eventually threw open the door and walk-up window, we rifled through the several packed bottle fridges in the back and came up with a few interesting Italian offerings—a decent IPA called Benaco 70 and an imperfect saison with a great name: Violent Femme. We drank them sitting on a bridge over a canal, watching the painterly lights cast on the water and listening to the music from Al Timon (I told you they’re neighbors!)

Canals in deep summertime darkness

Il Santo Bevitore

A straight shot six minute walk from Al Aldo, Il Santo Bevitore was our great triumph, and is my fave bar in Venice. We stumbled upon it by day and then remembered how to find it again at night, an accomplishment I believe merits some sort of academic honor.

Borrowed this photo from the Il Santo Bevitore website!

Il Santo Bevitore has 20 taps, a bunch of bottles, excellent ciccetti, and a canal-side terrace with tables and umbrellas. As we sat there, a group of 20 somethings pulled up in their boat, tied it up, hopped out for a beer, and then jumped back over the wall and sped away into the night. The nights are so dark in Venice that this all looked like it had been painted on velvet. They were the coolest people I have ever seen and every fiber of my being was jealous of them. Bob B. would definitely hate Il Santo Bevitore.

Ps. There is apparently also a fancy restaurant called Il Santo Bevitore, and while it is also supposed to be good, it is definitively not what I am talking about here. Sorry, fancy restaurant.

Here's a map of the route!

Do you have beer recommendations for Venice? Am I missing anything? Let me know in the comments!

Favorite Neighborhoods: Venice’s Cannaregio

Our lovely canal in Cannaregio

Venice is perhaps my favorite city in the world to visit. It is deeply, hauntingly beautiful, it seems like there might be a slightly sinister secret down every tiny stone corridor, and the preferred way of spending a day is to wander from the standing bar where you drink your espresso through the impossible-to-navigate streets until you happen upon a standing bar where you drink white wine and eat cicchetti. Since we all know calories don’t count if you’re standing, I think of visiting Venice as a preferable alternative to dieting. Or something like that.

I had been to Venice in December, but in August my husband and I were in the region and I couldn’t resist another stopover. I was buzzing with excitement at the prospect of showing him around. (When I describe Venice to people, I use a lot of hyperbole, like: “No but actually there are MILLIONS of bridges! I never realized that every bridge in the world is in Venice!”) But as our trip approached, I kept hearing terrible things about Venice in the summer—that it smelled like sewage, that everything would be closed, that the tourists would be shoulder to shoulder down all those shadowy passages—and I was secretly worried. I wanted him to love it as much as I did because HELLO! then I would get to return! *Ahem* I mean, I wanted him to love it because he is my husband and what brings him joy brings me joy. Right?

This is what happens when I try to get one of those cute "swing your hair around" photos

You guys. Venice in the summer is just as magical as Venice in the winter. In fact, it is perhaps more magical because you want to spend time outside, along the canals, or in the little back gardens of restaurants. I mean, YES, Plaza San Marco was jammed. But run through San Marco; blast through the streets around the Rialto Bridge. You’re not here to shop at Prada (I assume.) Let a thousand other people Instagram the Bridge of Sighs. Go to Cannaregio.

Cannaregio was the home of the Venetian Ghetto until the end of the 18^th century, and it still has sizable Orthodox Jewish population. It’s also becoming super hip, but in a very laid back and romantic Venetian way, and as evening falls, there are beautiful people that are way cooler than me relaxing and drinking spritzes on all the bridges. This combo of Orthodoxy and trendiness is not as incongruous as it sounds—it worked for Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and now it’s working for Venice.

Another major advantage to Cannaregio is that it’s easy to find. It’s about a ten minute walk from the train station, and after my experience of getting deeply, miserably, crying-to-waiters lost looking for our apartment in Castello on my last trip to town, I can’t tell you how much I appreciated Cannaregio’s proximity to everything.

Um, HELLO my little spritzy!

We dropped our bags and went in search of a spritz. I knew it was the moment of truth: were there going to be tourists around every corner? We ducked under a tiny passageway and crossed through some small squares, and Jared started laughing because there was no one around. Except one cat. We had canal-side cafes to ourselves, except for the Italians conversing animatedly on their boats as they sped past. I guess everyone else was at Prada.

Stay tuned in the coming days for a mini bar crawl through Cannaregio!

PS. Here is a video of a cat being scared by someone's giant pet iguana, which I took while eating fresh seafood pasta for lunch. I guess this is what they mean when they say Venice is crazy in the summer.

Are you Team Cat, Team Iguana, or Team Spritz?