Goal for the day: shop in the Rialto Market. Mixed results.
Before doing the shopping we stopped in at the terrific, little Cafe del Doge for coffee.
Then we strolled among all the fruit and vegetable stands until I finally felt comfortable to ask a question or two. The woman vendor was very helpful but the veggies we ended up buying were less than wonderful. Actually they were at least as good as anything we could buy in Publix at home but they just didn’t thrill me. The little tomatoes I bought at the Billa were better than the Rialto ones. And the cherries we got were a real disappointment. There’s a small fruit and veggie store, always very busy, near to our apartment and I think I’ll go there next time. Still the Rialto is a treat for the eyes and ears. The smell of the fish market made Ken a little queasy but I loved it.
Here are a few shots:


We were going to get something else besides veggies so we went to Aliana just down the street into San Polo. We got a whole roast chicken, a “sotttocenere” cheese with truffles and a piece of spinach torta. Also bought some rolls from the little bakery at our corner.
The stuff from Aliana was really great–especially the truffled cheese. I ate some, with bread and arugula, for lunch, sitting on our terrace.
In the afternoon, we took off toward San Marco. Because a light rain kept starting and stopping, our walk was starting and stopping, too. We went to the tourist office and bought tickets for a Vivaldi concert for Saturday night and got a new Venice map. The one we brought isn’t quite working.
Finally, around 5:00 we crossed back over the Rialto bridge and into San Polo. We had a nice relaxing coffee at del Doge and I went to meet Alberto and Ken went home.
The meetings with Alberto are wonderful. It is so charming, to me, to hear him express himself in English and I think I am really building fluency by just talking with him. We talked about phrases like “What are you up to?” and “I’ll bet”.
I was a little bit early so I wandered around the back side of the Frari and took this quick little snap shot of the canal in the dull grey light.

After dinner, Ken found a way for us to watch Lost on the computer so we huddled together in bed and watched it. Interesting–it kinda took me out of Italy for a while. Almost a relief to hear English. My brain is constantly translating every thought into Italian.