Restaurants and cafes in Venice are famous for their outrageous service charges. Cafe Lavena in St Mark’s Square has an infamous policy of charging Euro 6 for “music” when you sit and sip on their Euro 6 coffee. So six cups of coffee can end up costing Euro72.
Ristorante da Raffaele is no different. Located between the Grand Canal and San Marco, this typical Italian restaurant with plenty of seafood and pasta also has a Euro 5 service charge for those who sit outside by the canal and are serenaded by the cries of the gondoliers cruising by.
The Italians have a way of making you open your wallets wide. If it is not the designer handbags and shoes that gets you to shell out top dollar for cow hides, they even make you pay for sitting by and inhaling the odiferous waft coming from their open sewers that are romantically called canals.
