Gillian Longworth McGuire

Italy, Rome, Venice

I live in Venice. My superpower: Finding terrific places to eat,stay & shop in Italy’s best-known destinations.Sometimes I write about them 📸 gillianknowsbest

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Articles

Gillian Knows Best guide to cichetti in Venice

6 days ago | gillianlongworthmcguire.substack.com | Gillian Longworth McGuire

The answer to that question is as varied as the rows of snacks displayed in glass cases all over Venice. In Venetian the word is cichéti and might come from the Latin ciccus, a word that means a small quantity or a bite. Chichetti is usually slices of bread (sometimes polenta) topped with something savory. The something can be Baccalà Mantecato (whipped stockfish and olive oil,) sarde e saor (onions and sardines and vinegar) or it might be a fried meatball or a dish of stewed tiny octopus.
How to Visit Venice Without Driving the Locals Crazy (And Have a Better Time Yourself)

2 weeks ago | gillianlongworthmcguire.substack.com | Gillian Longworth McGuire

A Love Letter (and a Friendly PSA)I have had this my drafts folder for months. Adding things to the list when I think of them, noting what makes me or others grumble. Venice is a preposterous, audacious, bewitching city. Those ornate palaces on the grand canal with hand blown chandeliers that are bigger than my kitchen hanging from their ceilings were built on top of wooden posts pounded into the mud hundreds of years ago.
Fammi una Domanda - April 2025

3 weeks ago | gillianlongworthmcguire.substack.com | Gillian Longworth McGuire

One of the many reasons we moved to Venice is because I hate to drive. Mark loves to drive but he has no interest in ever owning a car again. That’s what rental cars are for. For most of the years we lived in Rome we had diplomatic privileges that meant we could use our Tennessee driver’s licenses and did not have to get Italian ones. Those privileges disappeared with his retirement and now we must go through all of the slow complicated steps that being an immigrant requires.
Gillian Knows Best guide: How to get to and from the airport in Venice

1 month ago | gillianlongworthmcguire.substack.com | Gillian Longworth McGuire

Everyday tasks in Venice are different than pretty much any other place in the world. I buy my vegetables from a boat and my walk home almost always requires a trip through Piazza San Marco.1 My life in Venice is also dramatically slower than my life in Rome. While you are here my advice for every part of your trip to Venice is slow down and take your time. Applying this advice is important to the beginning and end of your trip too.
Gillian Knows Best guide to coffee in Venice

1 month ago | gillianlongworthmcguire.substack.com | Gillian Longworth McGuire

I complain a lot about the coffee in Venice. My years in Rome shaped my tastes. I like the small glass of water that comes before. I like the speed and noise and chaos of most Roman bars. I like the dark, rich roast and the scant use of dairy (aside from the generous swirl of whipped cream in my monachella at Sant’Eustachio.) Here in Venice even a caffe macchiato has too much milk for me.
April 1 3 days in Rome

1 month ago | gillianlongworthmcguire.substack.com | Gillian Longworth McGuire

Last year a reader asked for some help with a Rome itinerary with a focus on markets. I do love an assignment. Paid subscribers to Gillian Knows Best have access to my comments section once a month to ask me questions like this. This post is an expansion of my answer to that readers question. It’s long and might get cut short in your email. Click "View entire message" to see the entire post. Here is my advice on one way to approach the how to spend 3 days in Rome question.
Fammi una domanda March 2025

1 month ago | gillianlongworthmcguire.substack.com | Gillian Longworth McGuire

The first months of my 2025 unfurled slowly. Until this month I did not travel further than across the lagoon over to the Lido for lunch and to Verona for a few hours. Just as advertised March came in like a lion. I spent the first weeks of the month in Tennessee visiting family, eating BBQ and pepperoni pizza and in spite of the freezing temperatures and leaden skies drinking gallons of ice water and sweet tea.
Gillian Knows Best guide to campi in Venice

1 month ago | gillianlongworthmcguire.substack.com | Gillian Longworth McGuire

One of the most marvelous things about Italian cities and towns is the Piazza. When I lived in Rome the Piazza della Madonna dei Monti was where I met pals for coffee in the morning and for a late afternoon spritz and potato chips. I spent many hours on the steps of the Fontana dei Catecumeni soaking in the warm winter sunshine or waiting for a whisper of a cool breeze on a steamy summer night. It is where neighborhood kids play soccer and tourists eat gelato. A true Third Place1.
Gillian Knows Best guide to Wisteria in Venice

2 months ago | gillianlongworthmcguire.substack.com | Gillian Longworth McGuire

Late spring in Venice means an explosion of flowers. Wisteria is the most romantic of blooms. The wisteria in Venice ranges in color from crisp white to deep violet. It falls from crumbling brick walls and climbs on iron fences filling the first warm afternoons with a SweeTART scent. I am extra lucky, my next door neighbors have a wisteria covered pergola that is underneath the window next to where I work. I get to enjoy all of the wisteria beauty and have none of the none of the wisteria work.
12 months in Venice a Gillian Knows Best guide for the seasons

2 months ago | gillianlongworthmcguire.substack.com | Gillian Longworth McGuire

In January I told you about different events that happen during the Venetian year. To mark the Venetian new year this is a different kind of calendar. In all of the discussions and articles and podcasts about overtourism there are two subjects that don’t get mentioned all that much. The much valorized and romanticized regionality and seasonality. Here’s the thing. They are all inexorably linked.