Italia, Day 6 – Brunch & [OMG] Shoes In Milano, Dinner In Venezia, & A Ton O’ Pics In Between

Welcome to day six of my whirlwind tour of France and Italy. This is the last day of the trip away from my trip ;) and it’s been absolutely wonderful. I hope to create a follow up post later this week recapping some other aspects of the trip – like prep, networking, and future trips, but in the meantime, please enjoy the last post of my quickie trip to Europe! :)

We started the day with a quick brunch stop at a second Mens@Sana location (there are at least five locations in Milan alone, with a few others in surrounding towns). This location was nearly identical to the one we had dinner at, as far as the food goes. Though the decor was a little different. For brunch we had freshly squeezed orange/lemon juice, followed by plate fulls of some noms from the display case. It was very good and consistent when compared to the other Mens@Sana location. Yum!

We decided to get some desserts to-go and went with a lemon flavored cake slice and a fruit cake slice. The fruit cake slice reminded me a lot of a fig newton, between the figgy-tasting topping and the breaded crust. Deelish!

Um. We liked them. :D

As we were gearing up for the drive to Venice I remembered that I had seen something on HappyCow about a vegan shoe store in Milan. We decided to make a quick stop to check it out because ummm.. hello, it’s Milan (the fashion capital of the world) and it very well should have a vegan shoe/clothing/hand bag store. And if there is one, I wanted to see it!!!! :)

We arrived just before their lunch time closing hours (a theme in Italy it seems, for stores and shops to have afternoon closing hours, and then re-open later in the day). As soon as we walked in we were greeted by Claudia, the owner of Merry Cherry Vegan. Claudia is so super friendly and as it turned out she had been reading about some of my other adventures in Italy already! She also carries the ChiaraLaScura t-shirt line — you know, Chiara the super vegan who invited us to the meetup in Pisa earlier in the week and who’s t-shirt I’m wearing, here. :) Neat!!!

Oh the networking/connections we’ve made along the way are so amazing!!!!

**sitting with happy thoughts for a moment** ….

……

…. aaand, I’m back! Sorry. Teehee.. this whole adventure is wonderfully overwhelming at times. Eeee!! Floating on heart-shaped clouds is a lovely way to live. :) Anywho.. where was I? Oh yes.. OMG, shoes!

Merry Cherry Vegan – 100% vegan clothing/shoes/handbags

14 Rubens
Milan, Italy 20128

WTFVF decal in the window, right next to my favorite vegan lingerie etsy shop, Purrfect Pineapples!  Claudia, thanks for the friendly company and for having such a cool and inspiring shop in the heart of fashion city! :) xo

And then we drove. To Venice. !!!!!

The day before we arrived in Venice I received an email from Beatrice, who is currently working in Venice. She recommended a gelato shop called Alaska, which carries a variety of vegan gelato. Excellent!! Thanks for the recommendation, Beatrice!! This shop was our very first stop as soon as our feet hit the beautiful streets of Venezia!!!

Alaska Gelateria has some really cool flavors too, like pistachio, ginger, carrot, and rose. Yummers! After we downed our gelato we headed to the hotel, checked in, dropped our stuff off, and then hit the scenic streets of Venice. Pics galore!

Pit stop for freshly squeezed OJ! I love juice.

Gondolas!

After a quickie walk around Venice it was time to seek out some vegan food. Thanks to our meetup at VeganFest with Capri and Jason, the two world trekking vegans from Canada, we knew exactly where to go – Gam Gam Bar Ristorante Ebraico Kosher. Before making this our final dinner destination we did some additional looking around and vegan in Venice isn’t easy. Thankfully Gam Gam is there with plenty of vegan options (or can-be-made-vegan options).

We started with the vegan version of their falafel appetizer. It was sooooo good!! The little dishes with bunches of flavorful veggies hit the spot! We also had an order of their vegan pesto pasta and couscous with steamed veggies. Delicious!

Our server was great too! She knew “vegan” and it became clear just how on top of her stuff she was when it was time for dessert. Another server had cleared our dinner plates and took our dessert order which basically was, “whatever you have that’s vegan.” He returned with a chocolate mousse parfait but before I could dive in our original server swooped in and told us that it has egg whites and that she’d find something that was completely vegan. Phew! She returned with some cookies, set them down, and no more than 10 seconds passed before she scooped those up and returned again with for-real vegan cookies. :)

The couple next to us had a nice laugh and noted how great it was that our server was truly looking out for us. That in most other cases they would have let us eat whatever, letting us believe that it was vegan. Agreed! My hat’s off to you, server lady (wish I got your name). You’re the reason that I will now always recommend Gam Gam to veg friends in Venice. Thanks for looking out!! xo

These cookies were great too. They reminded me of peanut butter cookies but instead of a peanut butter flavor they were pistachio. Yum!

Welp! That’s it! That wraps up our quickie European jaunt. And in this very moment, just before ‘publishing’ this post I’m sitting in a hotel lobby…writing. Hehe.. We had a long series of flights back yesterday which is why I didn’t get this post up sooner. And our last flight back to Virginia was canceled around 10PM last night so we ended up at a hotel in the area. But we’re driving back to VA (just a few hours away) in a little bit. Then it’ll be back to writing about all the vegan noms in the States again. Yay!

I hope you enjoyed this little side exertion. I know I did!! And I honestly love sharing these adventures with you just as as much, if not more than the experiences themselves.

Thanks for reading along. There’s so much more to come… I’ve got something like thirty-three states left to cover in the US. So stick around! And do feel free to contact me if you’d like to meet up or have any recommendations. Much love, vegan friends!! xo