Here, too, under the arcade, are the head-quarters of the cafes, which do most of their business on the pavement of the Square.  Of these Florian’s is the oldest and best.  At certain hours, however, one must cross the Square to either the Ortes Rosa or Quadri, or be roasted.  The original Florian was wise in his choice of site, for he has more shady hours than his rivals opposite.  In an advertisement of the cafe in the musical programme it is stated that, “the oldest and most aristocratic establishment of its kind in Venice, it can count among its clients, since 1720, Byron, Goethe, Rousseau, Canova, Dumas, and Moor,” meaning by Moor not Othello but Byron’s friend and biographer, the Anacreon of Erin.  How Florian’s early patrons looked one can see in a brilliant little picture by Guardi in the National Gallery, No. 2099.  The cafe boasts that its doors are never shut, day or night; and I have no doubt that this is true, but I have never tested it in the small hours.

Oddly enough there are no restaurants in the Piazza, but many about its borders on the north and west.  The visitor to Venice, as a rule, eats in his hotel; and I think he is wise.  But wishing to be in Venice rather more thoroughly than that, I once lived in rooms for a month and ate in all the restaurants in turn.  Having had this experience I expect to be believed when I say that the restaurants of Venice are not good.  The food is monotonous, and the waiting, even at what is called the best, the Bauer-Gruenwald, say, or the Pilsen, is leisurely.  Add to this that the guests receive no welcome, partly because, all the places being understaffed, no one can be spared for that friendly office, and partly because politeness is not a Venetian foible.  An immense interval then elapses before the lista, or bill of fare, is brought, partly because there is no waiter disengaged and partly because there seems to be a law in Venetian restaurants that one lista shall suffice for eight tables.

Then comes the struggle—­to find anything new either to eat or drink.  The lista contains in print a large number of attractive things, but few are obtainable, for on an Italian menu print is nothing:  it is only the written words that have any relevance.  The print is in Italian and German, the reason being that Italians, Germans, and Austrians are the only people who resort to restaurants.  The English and Americans eat in their hotels, en pension. (In Venice, I might say, all foreigners are addressed first in German, except by the little boys in the streets whose one desire on earth is to direct you to S. Marco and be paid for their trouble.  They call you m’soo.) Once a meal is ordered it comes rapidly enough, but one has to be very hungry to enjoy it.  For the most part Venetian food is Italian food:  that is to say, almost wholly veal and paste; but in the matter of fish Venice has her specialities.  There are, for examples, those little toy octopuses which on my first visit, twenty-five years ago, used to be seen everywhere in baskets at corners, but now have disappeared from the streets.  These are known as calamai or calamaretti, and if one has the courage to take the shuddering first step that counts they will be found to be very good.  But they fail to look nice.  Better still are scampi, a kind of small crawfish, rather like tenderer and sweeter langouste.