We had an easy morning. Took a stroll with Bob and Pat. Watching Bob take photos is a treat. He’s posted a few, on Facebook, and the results are amazing.
The big goal of the day, for me, was to eat at Alle Testiere. Some say it is the hardest reservation in Venice but lunch worked. I popped in there around 11:00 and asked for a lunch table—she said 1:00 or later so I said 1:30 and we were set.
I did some quick shopping damage—got the cheese knives for Diane and some for us.
Luca is the charming owner and front-of-the-house man and he was very welcoming to us. I wanted to taste a lot of different things so I ordered three appetizers. They were pretty substantial servings of razor clams, little scallops and little soft shell crabs—each done a different way. The razor clams were quickly cooked with just a bit of olive oil and a trace of garlic. I really love their flavor! The scallops were with lemon and fresh mint—very gently seasoned so you could still taste the scallops and their beautiful “coral” in the shell. The “moeche” are very small soft shells. Usually they are just simply fried but here they were fried, then dressed with vinegar and plated with an unusual cumin scented carrot salad in the center and very thin strip of fresh beets. This treatment (in the vinegar) is called “in carpione” and I had only seen it in Piemonte before. It worked beautifully with the crabs. Bob had a simple grilled fish, Pat and Ken both had spaghetti with clams. They agreed the clams were better than the pasta. To gild the lily we ordered three desserts. This was, after all, a once in a lifetime meal. I had the gelato which was strawberry-basil—totally refreshing, served with three pretty butter cookies. Bob had caramel apple cake, which he liked, and Pat had the best—a semifreddo with a little dark caramel sauce. We were so stuffed!
It had started to rain while we were in there so we said a quick goodbye to them in front of their hotel and we came back home.
In the afternoon, I felt like I really needed to get out so we went for a nice walk into Canneregio to see the Gesuit church we hadn’t seen yet. It is really glorious in the wedding cake style and set in a kind of run down residential neighborhood not far at all from the lagoon.



We got some bread and a melon for dinner with the leftovers from last night. Pat and Bob have the typical third day jet lag, hitting hard, so they didn’t stay very late after we ate. Ken and I watched Mexico kill France in the World cup.
One more canal shot–I can’t resist: