Today, several times, I remembered why we love coming here so much. The uniqueness of Venice just kept jumping out at me and making me smile.
I had read about the Festa della Sensa, a big boat event, and heard from Nan that she would be rowing in it. So we tried to walk to Punta della Dogana early enough to see some of the boats but we missed it. Instead we just hung out there breathing in the view, the water, the incredibly blue sky (no filters on the pictures!) and each other.


We took our time walking back through Dorsoduro, passing the Guggenheim museum and stopping at Toleta (hi Yvonne and Susie) for a coffee and a couple of tremezzini–we called it a morning snack.
Our next destination was the transportation office to get our cards renewed. The new cards are called VeneziaUnica and are good for 5 years. It was really crowded in there and we had to wait for about 20 minutes for our number to be called. They did give us credit for the rides we hadn’t used from the last card so we are set now. We walked over to the big Coop and did a major grocery shopping and rode the vap back. As well as I did navigating–no maps, at all from home to Punta Dogana and to the coop–we did get a little lost walking from San Stae back to our apartment. There’s a lot to learn in this new neighborhood.
We took a rest for a while, did some laundry and went for a nice long walk through San Polo heading in the direction of the Frari. There seemed to be hoards of people walking towards the train station so taking the back calles (streets) was better. While it’s not exactly the Duomo of Florence, the Frari is near and dear to us and a beautiful sight.

We have seen lots of these posters around town:

This is announcing a protest on June 7th against the humongous cruise ships coming into the lagoon. We plan to go. It really is horrible that they still allow them to come. Even the avid cruisers we met on the train were saying that they should anchor outside and tender the people into Venice.
We wandered around towards the train station catching this back side view of the Frari:

And couldn’t resist stopping in Vizio Virtu to get some treats for dessert. I asked the woman who works there where she got her great glasses and, of course, she said, Vascerelli (Susie). I really want to go in there and get some new frames while we’re here.
Making dinner went well. The kitchen is small but it works fine. We had a great first meal. Nice to be eating home cooked food. The chocolate treats from Vizio Virtu were great, too.