My first idea was to take the boat to Sant Erasmo and have a good walk, but just out the door it began to drizzle so we quickly changed course to doing errands.  This is actually my favorite kind of day in Venice—doing transactions means conversation. And we get to pretend, for an hour or so, that we live here. It didn’t rain again the whole day.

We had a surprise visitor right on our window sill:

First stop was the flower shop where I have gotten lilies the past few visits, but I changed and got something else–tall white flowers. I think she told me they are called violacoscia, but I’m not sure. I believe they are what we call “stock.” They have a nice scent:

So we brought the flowers back home and set out towards Campo Giovanni e Paolo. I took this shot which is not anything great but I love the Colleoni statue and so does my Uncle Leonard, so I took the photo for him:

I had seen a ceramic “salt bowl” (just a small bowl with a top) in the window of the Papíer Maché shop on calle Lunga Santa Maria Formosa. So we went in there to check it out. We bought it. Ken fell in love with the non traditional masks she paints there. It is basically a one woman shop and she, Manuella, painted the little bowl I bought. Transaction=conversation=fun!

From there we walked into the Campo and I had a coffee in the corner bar which was remodeled, but still has good coffee. And then I took my knife in to be sharpened. Same people as years ago–the sassy, playful daughter is there, running the shop, but her dad who used to do all the sharpening died. Sad.

Then we used google to find Vizio Virtu and I got my gelatine candy. She was doing a brisk business in hot chocolate and gifty items. Mostly Americans were in there.

Somewhere near there I got this traffic jam shot:

Ratti, the big kitchen wares shop, used to be just next door but they had a sign in the window that they’d moved. We went to the new location, across from the Rialto Docks, but they had not opened yet. I took this picture of (pardon my condescension) the stupid tourist. He nearly fell getting down from there:

From there we came back to Strada Nuova to shop a little at Bisiol.

And then stopped at the little fruit and veggie stand near our place. I paid €7 for two onions and a container of blueberries. Definitely got taken. Not going back there again!

We came home for rest time.

Went out again later to talk to the Combo people about their apartments. Although the location would be perfect, I think they are too expensive for us. He said, in summer, they are fully booked, way in advance and don’t discount for a weeks stay. I need to scrutinize the web site a little more.

I cooked us a nice dinner of sausage from Bisiol and the Malfade pasta from Mascari. We drank the Valpolicella Ripasso from Mascari and declared it the best one yet.

So no museums–no mind blowing art or towers to climb. It was just a regular day. And chock full of simple pleasure.