It was my turn to attend the conference, but I couldn't have felt less like doing so. Nevertheless, I dragged myself out of bed, showered, got set up, and left by eight. I took a slight detour on the way to S. Zaccaria and had a cappuccino and a croissant at a branch of Pasticceria Marchini near the Rialto bridge. The coffee was okay but the croissant was quite good. I had yet to have a decent caffe in Venice.
A quick boat ride out (I had taken Gravol this time, just in case) and I was at the conference. The room was less than half full; a nice breeze blew in through the seaward windows, with their view of the small islands south of S. Giorgio. If you have not been to a small computer science conference, you are not interested in the morning; if you have, I need not describe it to you. At the coffee break, I forewent attempts at socializing to sit on the radiator below the window and sip slowly on a bottle of San Benedetto.
I had planned to stay all day, but on looking at the programme found the last few talks less than compelling, and I decided that the long wait after lunch was not worth it. So, after a quick nondescript lunch (I at least had pleasant companions), I caught the 1:35 boat, and was back in the apartment by two.
Z was napping; A and N were pleased to see me, but N's father K had not arrived yet. I lay down and rested, and we finally heard his buzz around 3:30. The kids went into a manic phase, trying to show K everything and tell him everything.
We decided to go through Campo S. Maria Formosa for gelato, and A led the way. I was hoping to go to the Su.Ve for water, but it was closed. On the way back from the gelato place on Sal. S. Lio, N noticed a small bookshop with a copy of the de'Barbari woodcut of Venice in 1500 hanging. We went in and bought one for L30000, and I noticed a copy of Guilio Lorenzetti's "Venezia e il suo estuario" translated into English, for L53000. I had to think about that one.
The others headed back to the apartment, while I went up to the Full supermarket just northwest of the Rialto bridge to get water. As an indication of what a water snob I had become: they had Fonta Guizze bottles for L330, but I bought Lora di Recoaro for L750, because it tasted better. They had no real pesto, either.
We decided to have dinner at Trattoria La Remigio, on Salizzada dei Greci close to the Schiavoni. It turned out that K had tried to go there on his last trip to Venice, but it had been closed at the time. We started out for it at six-thirty, knowing it would not be open for an hour. On the way, we stopped at the bookshop we'd seen earlier and bought the English translation of Lorenzetti. It was a quick walk to the restaurant; the door was open and we stopped to make a reservation.
We meandered to the west without much plan, passing by S. Giovanni in Bragora and then noticing the towers of the Arsenale nearby. It was much cooler than when we visited it around noon in 96, and we had time to appreciate some details. Then we attempted to retrace our footsteps, but got lost in the alleys of eastern Castello, for the first time since our first few days here. Of course, we had not brought any guidebooks with us. But the day was saved by the map I had downloaded onto my Newton computer before leaving. Using it, I traced a route through obscure and tiny streets that came out within fifty feet of the restaurant, only five minutes late.
The place was already half-full, and we were seated in the front room. It was evident that this was the "foreigner" room; the Italians were seated in the inner room. We ordered two helpings of the antipasti di pesce, one gnocchi ai pescatori to share, a frittura mista for the kids, and three orders of grilled eel for the adults.
The antipasti included canocchie, what I presume was latte di seppia, polpetti (baby octopus), some sort of sea snail, and some boiled shrimp, the last being the least interesting of the lot. The kids did a good number on this.
The gnocchi weren't as transcendent as I remembered in 96, but were still quite light and pleasant. The frittura was more varied than usual, including tiny squid, gamberetti (tiny shrimp), and some very small fish. It wasn't the "misto" I remembered from 82, but a carefully composed approximation.
Our three orders of eel were all quite large, and they had not rendered out all of the fat first; consequently they were quite rich, but quite tasty. After that, we couldn't even help the kids finish off their frittura. The bill came to L215000 (no one had felt like having wine).
A quick walk home, and we all retired early, though we had to remind the kids that they had already had their gelato for the day.