Your WELCOME INTRODUCTION begins with an e-mail containing detailed arrival instructions according to your lodging and your means: air, train, or car. We’ll track your actual arrival and arrange to meet you shortly thereafter. Instead of wandering about, though, we’ll choose the perfect spot in your specific neighborhood (likely a nearby cafe) to sit, chat, and orient you to the city.

We’ll dot your map with locations for any activities you already have scheduled, make suggestions for things to keep an eye out for as you wander. We’ll have eating tips of all types, and make reservations if you’d like (definitely for your first night). We’ll include a complete explanation of the vaporetto and traghetto and how best to take advantage of them. We’ll tell you of any last minute goings-on, answer any specific questions, and include insider recommendations – all according to you personal interests and mode of travel.

MEETING INCLUDES:

• a highlighted city map
• transport system explanation and orientation, including nearest vaporetto stops
• vaporetto explanation with exclusive Venice Vaporetto Guide & cheat sheet
• the current Venice guide and calendar from the TI, with hours, openings, and current events
• dinner recommendations and reservations
• suggestions for how best to organize your time according to your interests and itinerary
• walk and orientation of immediate neighborhood

2-hour MEETING & WALK includes the intro meeting and neighborhood walk, plus a more thorough introductory walk, where we’ll point out elements that will serve you throughout the rest of your stay. We include a vaporetto & traghetto ride, coordinated city-wide explanations between maps and principal thoroughfares, shortcuts, navigation tips along orientation keys and landmarks, ways to get un-lost, along with shopping tips, notable enoteche, eateries, favorite gelato bars, and more.

INCLUDES: One-hour meeting; or one hour meeting plus one hour neighborhood orientation.

COST:
2 pp:       €55 one-hour meeting; €100 two-hour meeting and walk.
4 pp:       €65 one-hour meeting; €120 two-hour meeting and walk.
6 pp:       €80 one-hour meeting; €140 two-hour meeting and walk.

Vernaccia Nera? Cesanese? Greco di Tufo? Schiop…schioppe…? You turn to the barista and sheepishly order red wine; they, sensing your anxiety, suggest a Chianti, knowing this is something you might recognize. *Whew* Crisis averted.

It doesn’t have to be this way. You’ve come too far to drink the very same wines you’d find back home – especially when that means you’ll be missing out on some of the best and most exciting Italy has to offer, many of which never leave the region, let alone the country.

Lessons of the Vine is a different sort of wine tasting: informative and unpretentious, it’s designed to introduce you to the regions, native varieties, and terriors that combine to produce some of the most delightful and interesting wines in Italy. The focus is on distinctive wines from small producers, chosen specifically for their quality and diversity. As you taste, you’ll also learn how to choose the best Italian wines both as you travel, and once you’re back home.

In fact, after experiencing Lessons of the Vine, you’ll be the one recommending Greco di Tufo…we guarantee it!

INCLUDES:

• Tasting of 5 wines, chosen according to season and theme.
• Lively, informative explanations by a native English speaker and professional sommelier, accompanied by materials for remembering the wines you experienced during the tasting
• Samples of typical antipasti to complete the event, chosen to enjoy with  your favorite wine from the tasting
• 5:00 – 6:30 p.m. (other times possible on request)

COST:

• 2 – 3pp    €55 per person
• 4 – 6pp    €45 per person

Larger groups on request.

Since the city’s inception, Venetians have been rowing flat-bottomed, keelless boats designed specifically to navigate shallow waters of the lagoon. The famous gondola is the most evolved version, but it’s easy to spot all sorts of private rowers threading the canals and easing under bridges.

Only since the 1960s has the private motor boat become the principal mode of transport: prior to that, every family had its own rowboat (much like they’d have a car today). Since then, little by little, the all-wooden, hand-crafted boats — along with centuries, eons of traditions, have begun to slowly sink below the surface of the blue lagoon.

ARZANÀ: CURATORS OF VENICE’S NAUTICAL TRADITION

Touch an original, hand-carved felze (gondola cover), learn of the curious implements used to construct the boats, admire their collections of original cotton fishing nets, oars, forcole, and a unique gondola al fresco from 1920, and the floating collection of original wooden batele boats, all meticulously conserved in one of the most famous squeri (boat yards) in Venice.

We’ll even take a ride in a original, traditional batela, weather permitting.

INCLUDES: One-hour tour of the historic,, ex-squero Casal; short canal tour in an authentic, traditional batela boat, weather permitting.

COST:
2-4 pp:    €60
6 pp:       €80

Rates are discounted if we’re unable to take the boat ride.

]]> http://yourfriendinvenice.com/offerings/the-venetian-slow-boat/feed/ 0 http://yourfriendinvenice.com/offerings/private-venetian-meals/ http://yourfriendinvenice.com/offerings/private-venetian-meals/#comments Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:37:21 +0000 Your Friend in Venice http://yourfriendinvenice.com/?p=405 How would you like to enjoy a privately prepared meal in a contemporary Venetian home? Would you prefer that meal prepared in the apartment where you’re staying? Having friends in during your stay and looking for a catering services? How about combining the meal while practicing your Italian? These creative, personable professionals are here for you.

So much of Venice’s popularity rests on its past laurels, but these two enterprising women have divined to take the city’s most treasured gastronomic and social elements to have you experience them in a contemporary and most delectable way.

La Mela (the Apple) offers three menus of primi, secondi and desserts that change with the season, and range from bio-natural to Venetian to tipically Italian in nature, all created with the freshest ingredients with the utmost skill and care. You can enjoy them in Manu’s luminous, contemporary mansarda (attic) home: a stone’s throw from the Teatro Fenice, with the San Marco Campanile peering in the window. Or, if you’d prefer, enjoy your repast and their company in your own apartment: they will bring the meal to you. Socialize with your hosts in Italian if you’d like to practice, or in your native English.

As an alternative, you might simply choose to meet for an apertivo and enjoy chat at a traditional cafe.

With each meal, you’ll receive an apple as an appropriate memento.

La Mela is available to reserve for lunch, apertivo, or dinner, any day of the week. Just write with your preferences and reserve your private Venetian meal, as you like it.

PRICES START from €35 per person and will depend on meal requirements. Meals include wine. Please note any allergies or other dietary preferences with your request.

Buon appetito!

One of our most popular offerings, and a must for foodies of all sorts. An up-close, behind the scenes introduction to not only what, but who makes up consumable Venice, guaranteed to afford you one of the most authentic, informative, and sensual (literally) Venetian experiences of your visit.

Too many landlubbers miss some of the best meals available in the city because “they don’t care for fish.” Often this is because they’ve never tasted fish that, as we say, “was swimming with his brothers just a few hours ago.” “It’s alive!” shrieks a visitor, recoiling from the claws of an indigo-blue astice. Says Loris (bettern known as Lolo): “If it’s not alive…it’s no good!”

Let Lolo give you the insider’s perspective on one of the most famous fish markets in the world. He’ll introduce you to its proud members, just arrived from the lagoon inlets and the high Adriatic, and beyond. They come in every form and fashion, depending on the season: shrimp to scampi (do you know the difference?), scallops to razor clams, eels to rays, tuna to swordfish. You’ll hear about Venetian fishing and cooking traditions and how they’ve evolved, even get tips on how to choose and prepare some simple dis hes yourself.

After leaving the market we’ll take the traghetto across the Grande Canal and head for the elegant Fontego dei Pescatore, where you’ll witness chef Massimo’s expert preparation of a few of the fish you’ve just met. We’ll follow that with a brief sampling of three different types of olive oil selected to accompany various dishes served at the restaurant. We’ll also taste a flight of wines from the Tre Venezie (Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Trentino Alto Adige), paired to accompany the sumptuous lunch (or dinner, if you prefer) that will combine all the elements of the morning. The menu is created with quello del’megliore che c’è, the best selections of the day, and guaranteed to please everyone from the most adventurous to the pickiest of diners.

INCLUDES:

Rialto Fish Market tour with Loris Manna, President of the Rialto Fishmongers Association

• Private Rialto Fish Market tour with Loris Manna, President of the Rialto Fishmongers Association
• Fish preparation demonstration with Chef Massimo
• Olive oil sampling
• Tre-Venezia wine tasting
• Four-course gourmet meal with wine, comprising all the elements of the tour.

COST:

• 2pp €360
• 4pp €470
• 6pp €685
• 8pp €785

Please note: when booking this tour, do let us know of any allergies or dietary concerns you may have.

NOTE:

This tour is available from Wednesday – Saturday. During July and August, the restaurant is open only in the evening, so the market tour will take place in the morning, and the remaining portion in the evening at 7p. The market visit and wine tasting / meal may be able to take place on separate days should the schedule demand it.

This tour may not be available in August, when the fishing is at its poorest.

This small group (10 pp max) water-taxi tour departs San Zaccaria, heads across the bacino pastthe Piazza San Marco, up the Grand Canal, and into some of the smaller side canals. The private tour offers the advantage of your being able to set both the pickup time and location.

INCLUDES:
Small group taxi tour, 5:00 p.m. daily, 1 hour 10 minutes, 10 people maximum; or, private tour in water taxi with private guide (recommended for groups of five or more).

Please note: From Nov 1 though the spring time change, the tour departs at 4:00 p.m. and is available from Thurs – Sun, and on Tuesday.

COST:
€40 per person

A private, one-hour version of this tour (€240) is also available, and recommended for groups of four or more, as the price begins to be about the same.

INCLUDES:

• Private guide for 3 hours
• 1-hour canal tour in water taxi

COST:
€345 (for up to six people)

INCLUDES:

• Private guide for four hours (total)
• 1-hour in water taxi

COST:

€430 (for up to six people)

As in any group of up to thirty people, however, some of these interesting explanations can get lost. As an ideal alternative, we are delighted to offer a Secret Itineraries tour with an authorized private guide, combining it with a tour of the Doge’s Palace itself: the best of both worlds!

INCLUDES:

• Private guide for 2 hours
• Private Secret Itineraries and Doge’s Palace tour

COST:
€160 (for up to six people) + museum entrance fees
(€18 ea full; €12 ea for 65+ yrs)

Contrast that with the bustling island of Burano, just five minutes by vaporetto, teeming with lace, multicolored houses and a fishing and rowing tradition that extends back centuries.

You’ll take a private taxi back to Murano, which in contrast, is not an “island,” but more of home to the complex, multi-faceted, artistic glass enterprise, whose origins date back to the 12c, but include a rennaissance from the late 1800s till today. You’ll hear about this history while visiting a variety of artisans and furnaces that produce everything from chandeliers to glass beads, when each came into being, and leave with a broader understanding what Murano glass truly is (and maybe even a chandelier).

(Lunch can be either on Burano or Murano, depending on client desires. It is not included in the tour itself.)

Instead of Murano, you may choose instead travel back to Venice in your water taxi, where you can complete the rest of your experiential Venetian history tour by visiting the gothic Frari Church with its magnificent Assumption by Titian, the Rennaissance Santa Maria della Salute, ending the Piazza San Marco (just in time for a visit to the Basilica should you so choose).

INCLUDES:
Private guide (6 hours), private taxi (Burano to Murano)

COST:
€620