We decided to buy our Chorus Passes today–for 12euros you can get into about 20 churches. After Caffe del Doge, we walked to the San Polo church which we have walked past more times than I can count. The highlight here was a series of Tiepolo paintings called depicting Jesus, “The stations of the Cross”. I really appreciated the different kind of color palette he used, softer and lighter, and overall I loved the paintings.
From there we strolled back through San Polo and Santa Croce–we still get lost a bit back there but at least we found our way to the San Stae Church without using the map.
One of our wrong turns led us to dead end on the canal right across from the Casino:

random canal shot:

The most interesting things there, at San Stae, was the tomb of the Doge who helped build the church on the floor right in the center:

and the exterior:

We came home after a quick stop at VizioVirtu to try the passion fruit ice cream. I had a long conversation with the cute guy there (who has always reminded me of Brian Maloney) about why they don’t have the geletine candies I loved. He was explaining in Italian and I just couldn’t get it. Finally I asked him what this one word he kept using was: formica–it mean ants! That was the key to the whole story! Apparently the ants kept coming into the store for the geletine!
We rested for a while and went back out, had our first “Shakerato” of this trip:

and went to Mille Vini to buy some wine.
For dinner I made omelettes with the left over sauce and veggies and a salad and then we went back out to try a new gelato place we had spotted near San Stae. And guess what it’s called: San Stae Gelato. It was really fabulous–best pistacchio of the trip! and Ken had coconut which was really great, too.
We sat on the steps in front of the church, on the canal and ate it while the sun was setting and a German(?) couple was putting their large kayak into the water to paddle off. I thought it was funny that as soon as they got in, before paddling, he looked at his map. Guess it’s confusing on the water just like on the streets.
Here’s me with my blissed out on Italy look: