We woke up to serious rain—not really hard but constant. Pat and Bob were waiting for us in the lobby at Palazzo Ruzzini so we sat there and talked for a while about what we’d like to do for the day. Off we went to walk to the Rialto stop, in the rain. The umbrella etiquette is a complete unknown—often I raise mine up so people can fit, as they walk by us in the narrow calles, but Ken says I am really too short to make this work. We took the vaporetto to San Samuele and visited the Palazzo Grassi, the; second part of the Mapping the Studio show. This part was not as thrilling to me but still very enjoyable. There are lots of paintings included as well as a big floor of flashing, colored light tiles. Ken really wants to eat at La Bitta again so we took the traghetto across (a mini adventure) but the restaurant was closed. Since it was still raining we didn’t want to just wander around so we stopped at Ristorante Oniga in Campo San Barnaba. I had read about it on Slow Trav and I think Annie liked it. I wish I had realized we were just steps away from Casin Nobili which might have been a little better choice. Anyway, we stayed at Oniga, ate outside under an awning, so we stayed dry but the rain isn’t my favorite way to be a tourist. Our lunch was nice. Ken and Bob had spaghetti with Bolognese ragu. Pat and I shared a salad and ravioli stuffed with fish and made from kamut flour; the sauce had a really nice celery flavor and no tomatoes. I asked the waitress about kamut and she told us it is an ancient grain from Egypt and that everything is organic at the restaurant so I felt a lot better about the place. We stopped in at Grom, just 2 doors down, all tasted the nougat and dark chocolate ice creams, and took the vap back to Rialto. We left Bob and Pat at their hotel and we went home for rest time. After a while, the sun came out. It really made me happy. Ken and I went for a walk/shopping trip. We love buying stuff from these brothers’ shop on Salizz. San Canciano:

They have that street all decked out with Italian flags since the World cup began:

I was loving the light so I took a bunch of pictures, both of these are from the Ponte Cristo right behind Campo Santa Maria Formosa.


Pat and Bob came over here with pizza, and torta rustica (spinach and ricotta pie) for dinner. We also had some beautiful prosciutto San Daniele and a nice bottle of Refosco Leonardo from Friuli. Bob and I watched the World Cup while Pat and Ken stayed at the table talking. We walked them half way home and it still wasn’t raining—hurray!