We lazed around for most of the morning, reading, having tea and checking emails.
I heard a loud voice coming from the Campo Giaovanni e Paolo but I just thought it was a tour. After a while we decided to get dressed and check it out. It was some sort of protest–with speakers and signs. From what I could tell it was about health care–hmmm, familiar stuff. I didn’t get any good shots of the signs or the protestors, maybe because I took a bunch of the cute polizia there watching.

From there we walked over to Campo Santa Maria Formosa, which we have been calling “Pat’s Campo” because it is the location of the hotel, Palazzo Ruzzini, where my sister and her husband will stay. We had some coffee at the bar on the campo and proceeded slowly towards San Marco. Our reservation to see the Basilica was for noon so we sat out on the piazza and people watched for a while and window shopped the beautiful glass galleries around . What a breeze it was having the reservation!
The line was very long–I would say at least an hour wait. We just walked up to the San Pietro door and put the bar code under a scanner (like in the airport kiosk) and the turnstile was free. We walked in and made our way to the front to see the Pala d’oro. Such an amazing piece. Lucky for us, an Australian woman was reading the description from her Rough Guide so we got to listen to the details of the jewels and the symbolism. We wandered around the downstairs and then went up to the museum to see the original bronze horses and lots of other treasures. The lights were on when we came in and we were able to put a couple of euro into the telephone booth-like info recording machine to listen while we were upstairs and closer to the mosaics. They are truly amazing! The lights went off around 12:45, I think. We went outside to take in the view of the Piazza San Marco, the Doge’s Palace and the lagoon from above. Even though it was crowded, it felt very peaceful–most everyone is just taking in the beauty.
We decided to check out the restaurant Al Mascaron for lunch. We shared an antipasto, but really I ate most of it because Ken isn’t so big on the “fishy stuff.” I really enjoyed it but it was not anywhere as nice as the freshly grilled stuff at Osteria Bocadoro. We had spaghetti alla vongole for lunch. Delicious! (All the pasta courses are for 2 at this place). I love those little Venetian clams with such a simple sauce and nice fresh parsley. We had house wine, just OK, water and coffee and the check was 60 euro.
Came home and soon I had to go meet Alberto for our final session. The time for shopping got away from us so we decided to go to a small shop on the way to Rialto. We really like the man there. We got a bunch of ham, prosciutto, 2 kinds of salami, goat cheese, a piece of Montasio cheeseand a bottle of Valpoicella. We had a great feast for dinner:

I took this picture near the Frari church–speaks a lot about Venice to me–plaster peeling, shutters really in need of a paint job but the flowers are in full bloom in the window box.