Another beautiful day and we had a full calendar. We started with coffee at Puppa. I bought one for the African guy asking for money down the street.  I’ve been giving him a euro or two every once in a while, and he always gives us a big smile and a nice “ciao”.

First off, Saturday is porchetta day at Bisiol.  The place was packed.  It was fun and informative waiting for all the people to do their orders.  The main guy (I need to find out his name) called almost everyone there by name. Lots of laughter and banter between the owners and customers. It’s the butcher shop version of Cheers!

Then we went to the nearby bakery.  I asked what do they recommend for porchetta and a discussion ensued with all the customers chiming in.  Food is important here.

We also stopped in the wine shop.  Brought our winnings home and popped right out again.

The statue of our Lady of Fátima arrived in Venice a few days ago with great fanfare and an entourage of decorated boats. She is here to bless Venice. There will be many special masses and even one on zoom with a Ukrainian church to pray for the end of the war. You can read all about her legend on wikipedia, but basically she was made in 1920, in Portugal after three children saw visions of Mary in the fields. That is a way too short version of the story, but…We went to the Chiesa San Salvador to see her. We arrived just towards the end of the mass and stood quietly until the end, when everyone went up to the statue to light a candle and be blessed. And I did too.

After our spiritual fulfillment we came home and ate lunch. Elisa had left us each a piece of a delicious strawberry cake and it was yummy!

We had a short rest because we were meeting a friend of a friend at the train station. Ann, a first time visitor to Venice, was right on time and while Ken took her suitcase, she and I walked back to her airbnb, right behind Vino Vero. Her check in went smoothly. Good think we were there because I needed to be a translator for a bit. We said goodbye and let her get settled in. I hope to see her again before we leave.

At 5:00 we had an appointment to see an apartment nearby. Let’s just say it didn’t work for us. Nothing was horrible, we just didn’t like it.

Dinner reservation at 7:30 at All’Amarone, highly recommended by my slow travel friend Linda.

So we hustle over the Rialto bridge and find the restaurant. I tell them I’ve reserved. What name? Gianna–well maybe Jan–well maybe Keshen. They can’t find the reservation, and they are fully booked. He says something about Floridian and I say that must be it. We sit down and he comes back to the table with his book. My reservation is not in there. But! my phone! I bring up my email (and I am cursing like crazy inside). My email confirms the reservation. For Sunday. It’s Sunday, right? He says, “Unfortunately it’s Saturday.” So embarrassed–just mortified! He tell us we can stay at our table if we leave by 9:00. We say no problem, but it took me a long time and a nice glass of Franciacorta to shake it off. Ken got a really good, too long chuckle out of it.

Dinner was really great! Even though it is a wine bar and they have tons of cicchetti, we felt like real food. We shared really good spaghetti with clams, a veal and mushroom stew, and a nice salad. After the bubbly, we ordered two different Amarone wines, one form 2016 and one from 2017. The guy came and helped us taste the differences. They were really both fabulous, a little oaky, but so rich with fruit and complexity of flavor. Ken had a vino dolce too. And we were out by 9:00.

Venice at night–we have not been out much this late at night and it is so special:

What a full and wonderful day! We had nearly 20K steps!