This day was dedicated to Barbara’s desires.

We met her at the Combo to start our morning. Funny, we went into the Combo”s restaurant and I ordered a coffee to sit and we waited for Barbara to come down from her room. I texted her that we were in the breakfast room. She texted me back that SHE was in the breakfast room. We didn’t see her anywhere. Aaah, turns out there is a big breakfast room for Combo guests behind the bar area. Starting the day with a nice chuckle is definitely the way to go.

I was excited because one of her desires was to visit a place we had never been. The Scuola Dalmata, “it is an association of citizens of Dalmatian origins who, for over five centuries, have continuously preserved timeless masterpieces and kept alive some of the traditions of their homeland, which have survived even the Serenissima Republic.” We walked into Castello, by way of Campo Giovanni e Paolo and found the building. The main room is small but is surrounded by the paintings of Carpaccio, born in Venice in 1465. You could easily tell which paintings had been restored because of the wonderful brightness of the colors. Reading from the guide was helpful; knowing the bible well would have been more helpful.. Here’s the one piece that Barbara most wanted to see.

We left there to stroll through Castello towards Giardini. We have come to know these black messes on the sidewalks as black ink remains of a squid a sea gull had caught, but this time there was a black ink outline of the body of the squid :

I almost got a good shot of a wart hog silhouette and his counterpart here, but kind of a miss. Posting it anyway:

Barbara’s second desire was to see La Partigiana, one of my favorites, The Monument to the Partisan Woman. Designed in 1961 by Augusto Murer, the bronze woman looks washed up on the shore of the lagoon. She is there to honor the role the women of Venice played in World War II. The infrastructure was designed by renowned architect Carlo Scarpa. It is an impressive and moving site:

Hunger called so we headed into the Giardini to see Garibaldi and the turtles and strolled on via Garibaldi before heading back to the Greenhouse for a lovely lunch outside. I really loved my torta salata with pumpkin and mushrooms. Ken and I each had a spritz and we all shared the wonderful views:

Riding the vaporetto was nice. Barbara and I sat across from a friendly couple from Sicily who run an organic farm. There we are on the vap looking at a bunch of photos of avocados! The chuckles were internal but real.

Time for a rest and then Barbara came back over here.

We went to La Perla for pizza and it was better than expected. Most memorable was a big lively British guy in a red soccer jersey who was mostly trained on the match on TV, but finally turned around to almost explode about what a jerk Trump is and how he is ruining the world order and that the Brits will never trust the US again. No chuckles.

We had an abbreviated visit after dinner, lots of technology talk and more.

Really, really a great day!

Lillies are falling: